Louis Wise on why bouldering is the perfect hobby to distract from Brexit

It’s a surprisingly forgiving view from hipster heights, says our columnist 
Louis Wise21 February 2019

A climbing centre has opened near me, so naturally I went to have a look. Actually there’s nothing natural about it — I’ve never been climbing, or ‘bouldering’, in my life. But there is something distinctly seasonal about it, as this is the time of year that I always throw myself at any wacky exercise going in a bid to recover my ‘core’ — wherever, whatever that is. On that note, I’ll always recall the ex-model I once slept with. He undid my shirt buttons and appraised me carefully for a second. ‘Hmmm,’ he said. ‘I always wanted a fuller figure.’

Anyway, the climbing. The centre is what you might call a hipster nirvana, an angular plywood kingdom accompanied by a café, a yoga room and ‘workspaces’. The bouldering walls themselves are delightfully pretty, a confetti splash of coloured climbing hooks. The regulars, meanwhile, are the usual mix — those who wore Patagonia before it was cool, and after. The men on reception all have beards and film studies degrees, and are all called Joe. Maybe one Silas.

I’m given a brief induction, where I’m encouraged to jog about, jump up and down and scrunch my fingers frantically. It feels like a return to the dreaded days of PE. As usual I’m reminded that a lot of what passes for hipster culture is just a desperate attempt to go back to your childhood, if camouflaged in a Supreme beanie. And the climbing itself? I liked it. I liked it inasmuch as you can like looking at those little hooks for a long time, going up to them gingerly and then hoiking yourself 50 centimetres off the ground.

But perhaps I shouldn’t sneer. There’s plenty to mock in hipsterdom — by now, it’s a national pursuit. But it’s time to face the facts. For one thing, the h-word is a lazy and catch-all term, exhausted from overuse. For another, I really did have quite a nice time. As the apocalypse brews all around us, I’m even growing quite fond of people who build refuges like this, filling disused warehouses with yoga mats and naff art; as bubbles go, it seems the least toxic. When you consider what the anti-hipsters are busy doing to this country, perhaps it’s time to forgive a Mimosa in a jam jar.

On the right track

Speaking of exercise, serious news here: the #MeToo fallout has hit my spin class. As we hurtled through the usual medley of mutated R&B, our instructor announced: ‘Ah man, we can’t play R Kelly any more, can we?’ I nearly barked the obvious: haven’t we known all this for, like, 15 years? He sighed, and then played ‘Loyal’ by Chris Brown.

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