The Surfing Underground

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Meandering slowly around a small local fair last weekend with the kids in tow, we stopped at a very well designed play park. It was such a good design, it kept the kids amused for well over an hour.  During which time I sat and pondered, then mused a bit, then generally sort of had a blank state of mind for a while. Probably that weird one where your eyes glaze over, and you may, or may not, have spoken a random thought out loud.  Anyway, at one point in this reverie, a tall thin figure, hiding dark hair under a jaunty hat, sidled up to me and silently slipped this white sticker into my hand, before nonchalantly breezing away.


It reads simply 'CrapSurfer'.

What is this ? Had I been given the Black Spot of surfing ? Is my surfing so bad that someone was making the effort to find me in a crowded, non-surfing environment and hand out some kind of red card?  No, as it turns out, luckily.  CrapSurfer.com is a counterculture movement kicking against a surf world blighted by global conformity, largely set by magazines toeing advertisers lines, selling a surf lifestyle dream to wannabes.  Avoiding these 'clones' and admitting that, realistically, your surfing sucks, is all part of the Crapsurfer ethos.

Having had the inaugural CrapSurf World Championships at Praa Sands back in 2007 (on the inside whitewater, away from anything testing) the ensuing lethargy for all things Crap is now being dispelled.
With its unique vein of humour on the website, the availability of some new T-shirts, and the stickers currently becoming, well, almost collectable, this underground surf collective is achieving a certain 'cool' of its own. 

Returning home I was unusually captivated by the rhyming rhetoric of Million Pound Poet  Murray Lachlan Young on Radio 4.  I noticed a similar vein of humour ran through his verse.  And, he is tall.  And dark of hair. Hmm, maybe there's some connection there.

Or maybe my surfing is just crap.

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