Meeting your heroes 1: Danny Macaskill, at BBC New Broadcasting House
In mid-November 2016, whilst working at the BBC’s safety, security, and resilience team at the BBC state-of-the-art New Broadcasting House (NBH) offices in Oxford Street, central London, I had the opportunity to meet and hang out with a number of high-profile people, with one of the standout ones was freestyle mountain biker, Danny Macaskill.
Coming in to highlight the importance of physical activity in our everyday lives, Danny found creative ways to bring the corporate offices of ‘Auntie’ (the historical nickname for the Beeb!) to life for us sport enthusiasts!
Who is Danny Macaskill?
If you haven’t heard of him, Danny MacAskill is a professional Scottish trials cyclist and YouTube sensation. who first rose to fame in 2009 when he posted a video of himself performing incredible stunts on his bike on YouTube. The video, titled "Inspired Bicycles," went viral and since amassed over 45 million views.
Danny went onto produce more video content showing his epic skills and so has been sponsored by various cycling brands throughout his career, including Red Bull, which has produced many of his most popular videos. He has also collaborated with other extreme sports athletes, such as snowboarder Travis Rice and skateboarder Tony Hawk.
On this occasion, he had come to perform for a short sequence on BBC News (NBH is home to a number of BBC departments, such as BBC News, BBC World Service, BBC Radio, etc and features a range of studios and production facilities), so my my team mates in the safety department had invited me along knowing I was a big fan of freestyle mountain biking from our many conversations over the previous months.
In my job at the organisation, I’d meet and work with a number of celebrities and personal heroes, giving me a real insight into how it all works behind the cameras, setting me up well for some future ambitions!
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If you’re seriously considering a year as a digital nomad, whether that’s to explore the world, setup a virtual business, or both, I strongly urge you to put Estonia at the top of your list for all the reasons I mention below – however don’t be surprised if you don’t want to return back to your country of origin at the end of it!
Secondly, I make no apologies for being so enthusiastic about the place, I’ve travelled in over 60 countries across the world and feel like I’ve found somewhere that is truly remarkable for many good reasons that people aren’t yet aware of.