Tom Isitt

Well it made me laugh 😂

Yaay! Hope you enjoy it.

Short answer: acclimatisation. Going barefoot toughens skin, nerves are desensitised, circulation is improved, maintaining core temp is important, don’t stop moving.

Barefoot Serbian refugees

Quote from Serbian soldier in 1915

My latest research rabbit-hole…feet. Specifically, how people can walk barefoot for hundreds of miles in freezing conditions without getting frostbite or hypothermia.

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I know what you mean, but needs must.

You need public transport PPE…hoodie, headphones, book.

Come along and see actual me, in the flesh, talking about the FWW on the Italian Front. As a bonus, you get Peter, Alan and Nigel thrown in for good measure 👍

Yes, I do love a limerick.

While planning the Strafexpedition
Conrad’s scheme had a serious omission
With far too few men
He succumbed, once again,
To his mad, overweening ambition

Waging war on the Italian Front
Is a particularly stupid stunt
Mambretti’s a twat
Capello’s a hat
And Cadorna’s an incompetent…

Today I have mostly been wasting my time composing limericks about WW1.

Franz Conrad, the stupid old fool
Thought fighting the Serbs would be cool
The Austro-Hungarians
Behaved like barbarians
It was all predictably old-school

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Book about a miserable bike race in 1919

Book about the Italian Front of WW1

Not yet written book about the Great Serbian Retreat of 1915

The trouble with writing about “the indomitable human spirit” is that it necessarily involves a lot of human misery as well.

Circuit des Champs de Bataille…miserable

WW1 in the mountains at -30°C…miserable

The Great Retreat of 1915…miserable

And yet I’m such a cheerful soul 😉

Had a similar experience on the Isle of Man, but the keys were in it, and we had a TT racer on board (Steve Parish). He took us for a hot lap of the course. I was quite scared.

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The book

The website

ICYMI, Thunder in The Mountains includes QR codes that link to hundreds of photos, dozens of maps, videos, a 300-entry bibliography, related articles, and advice for tourists. Have a poke around and see if you want to read the stories behind the photos.

thunderinthemountains.org.uk

Amazon have sold out of my book

What? Sold out already?

I do find it interesting how Italy seems to give itself a free pass on the whole fascism thing, because Mussolini wasn’t as bad as Hitler.

#TiTM

Crushed by pack ice in last week’s Great Freeze.

And Rule #5 👌

It bloody well is!

I’d also like to say a big thank you to my legs. With a combined age of 130, they have propelled 85kg of sweating blubber (me) 1,200 miles along, and 210,000 vertical feet up, the Italian and Slovenian Alps, enduring terrible abuse along the way.

The Nazification of the Alps is another good example.

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Short answer, yes. Italy joined the Allies and hoped to conquer parts of the Austro-Hungarian empire they thought should belong to Italy.

Cheers Bart 🙏