Okay, only if you're from the UK are you going to get the title of this one, but seriously with this guys dress sense and his hair it could be him...

Some people are raving about this video of Richie Jackson skating. Have to say the shuvit on top of a bollard made me smile - it's a shame I don't have any bollards nearby.

The video is worth watching; wierdly the guy seems able to wallride anything including a chainlink fence at one point and there are one or two other interesting things, the 3 flip over/under the tape near the end (you'll see what I mean) is kind of funky, but I'd say this part is let down by run of the mill rails and ledges. Can't fault him for stylish power slides though...

Time to start listing all the reasons NASS is going to rule this year.

One good thing about NASS being at the NEC instead of Shepton is that there will be proper spectator seating which means that unlike in the warehouses in the previous years more than one row of people will be able to see stuff.

Up to 8500 people will be able to watch Tony Hawk (and Matt Hoffman and crew, as usual) do his vert demo on Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th of July. At first I was kind of unimpressed by the prospect but the more I think about it I guess it would be pretty cool to see him do his thing. Sure he's sold out with the latest games and hyped up a helluva lot, but when you think about all the tricks he's invented and everything he's done for skateboarding, including the Tony Hawk Foundation, he almost certainly deserves that hype, even if you don't like his computer games or aren't much into vert skating.

I can just imagine the atmosphere in the arena if he pulls off a 900°...

For the record I stopped liking TH:PS when version 473 came out but I will never lose respect for the earlier games because they got me into skateboarding in the first place. I also am not much into vert skating but if there is one certainty in life it's that even the most basic tricks seem amazing in real life compared to watching a skate film.

I have added one click signups to various news readers for a couple of new feeds to the site. You can now subscribe to the main news feed for blog and article updates and the tricktionary feed for notification of whenever a new trick gets added.

I've also added a quick guide to news feeds on the offchance that you have no idea what I'm talking about.

As many of you will know, this years NASS (national adventure sports show) is taking place 28th-30th July at the NEC in Birmingham. This is a big change form previous years which have been held at the Bath & West showground. Ostensibly the change is to celebrate the 10th year of the show, but the theory bouncing around many forums such as the UK trials forum is that last years rioting may have more than a little to do with the venue change.

Tickets

Tickets are available now from See Tickets... in fact they've been available for quite some time, pretty early compared to previous years. I guess this is because they have more than three times the capacity of previous years due to the change of venue.

It will be a relief to many I'm sure to see camping tickets available, considering the uproar there was when the venue change was announced and the fears that there wouldn't be any camping.

This year promises to be amazing (more updates soon) and frankly I would kill to be there. NASS 2004 was where I originally got into flatland skating and I have been attending faithfully since 2003. Unfortunately I will be in the States on a 4 month road trip this year. Damn.

Are You American?

If you are one of my many American visitors, please let me know if there are any good extreme sports festivals going on between April and August so that we can rock up in our badass RV/bus type thing and join the fun.

I tend to flitter about from trick to trick when I'm skating so there are very few things that I can do with total consistency. Often when I land something a couple of times I'll move on to something else because there are so many tricks out there to learn.

Today I've been messing around with truckstands. This is because last weekend I was playing with a fingerboard and working out ways to get into a truckstand, and I found a way that seemed like it would be really simple.

That was to do a tailstop then hook my front foot under the deck behind the front truck, and from there just kind of reverse the skateboard by pulling it up with my foot, adjusting leg positioning as necessary.

Unfortunately that turned out to not be as easy as it seemed. So while I find the actual truckstand quite easy to balance and rotate, I'm still experimenting with ways to get in to the stance (and funky ways to get out as well for that matter).

Does anyone else do truckstands - how do you get in and out of them?

What trick are you learning at the moment?

I think it's a good thing I chose to do this whole update during the winter. It took way longer than I had intended but fortunately due to the weather there hasn't been a whole lot to write about.

New stuff on the site - most obviously, the ability for anyone and everyone to comment on my posts, simply follow the little "discuss" link on the top right of each one. Also, and this is kinda cool, the tricktionary is now searchable and Tony Gale (a one man trick dictionary himself) has agreed to be a kind of "super contributor" to the tricktionary with direct access to the database. There's a little counter on the tricktionary homepage saying that there are currently 184 tricks, but if Tony has anything to do with it I expect that amount to start sky rocketing soon.

Meta:creations

Speaking of Tony, he has launched a new venture with a couple of other flatlanders called Meta:creations.

Kind of a hybrid skate team/deck production company supplying pure freestyle decks. The team is currently Tony Gale, Mike Green and Jesse Whalen. I highly recommend you go and see Jesse Whalens demo video. Wow, the boy has some skills...

But Tony, if you're reading, please please take that site out of frames ;-)