Outdoor Discoveries

A New Look for TGO

While the weather did its best yesterday to lure us into thinking that a heatwave was in progress, today has proven that it wasn't to last long at all. In fact, there's a stiff north-easterly wind to take the edge of the temperatures. While some may bemoan the cooling down, it does make things better for those who plan enjoy the outdoors in a more active way. This evening saw me take my bike for a short cycle and that wind certainly didn't make temperatures feel at all icy and I wasn't long getting up some heat of my own making.

Before all that, the latest issue of TGO arrived on my doormat this morning and it looks as if the magazine has got a dramatic overhaul. To someone like me who is amazed by what is being done to computing interfaces in the world of technology, it was a reminder of the period of change through which we are going at present; I even spotted copies of TGO on a shelf in my local Sainsbury's too! Some changes have to be fought and these include the mad experiment that is onshore wind farm technology or daft political moves like selling off Forestry Commission land and other such crazy countryside-wrecking initiatives instated by our current U.K. government. However, some change require adaptation and even embracing. It might be said that the alterations to TGO are an example of the latter.

So TGO now sports a brighter look with the sort of full binding that we haven't it lost a few years ago in favour of using a staple binding, now the more expensive option if you believe the editor of Photography Monthly. That change in presentation brings bigger pages and larger photos. With regard to content, there seems to have been a wholesale reorganisation with Wild Walks coming near the back now. It does seem that much of the usual stuff is in there though you might wonder if it is in danger of getting lost given the other changes. However, there's now a hill skills section and Jim Perrin's column is a single page affair focussing on works of outdoors literature that have inspired him rather than a double page spread of his ruminations drawing on various works of literature. That distinction may no sound so clear but it is how I see it.

While witnessing a restyle like that done to TGO does make you wonder if it is in danger of losing its soul, it's in the reading that you only can assess matters such as that and I have yet to give this month's issue more than an initial inspection. Nevertheless, there seems to plenty of continuity in terms of articles on walking and gear reviews. Those devoted to the types of related matters such as a photo essay on Patagonia or an interview with a landscape painter are not all that new to the magazine either. Big rearrangements can unsettle us but it does seem that nothing has been lost along the way in this case. Maybe I need to get reading and add to my list of trip ideas then…