Making waves

Surfing's influence on popular culture.

Dick Dale

The king of the surf guitar, Dale wanted to reflect the waves and sounds from the sea in his guitar playing. Rarely has an entire culture been captured in a single furiously strummed chord sequence, but the opening bars of Misirlou do the trick nicely. Just ask Quentin Tarantino - he used it in Pulp Fiction.

The Beach Boys

With a laid-back approach that masked a bewildering intricacy of harmonies, The Beach Boys' music captured surfing to the core: outwardly relaxed and utterly accessible, but beneath the casual surface are skills and technique to beat the band.

Big Wednesday

This remains a classic of the genre, a tale that follows the travails of a group of boyhood friends as they face up to adulthood, and dodge the Vietnam War, while getting in some quality surf time. Released in 1978, it hasn't dated as well as it could but it is still essential, feel-good viewing, and the leading actors did most of their own surfing.

Language

Surfing has its own code and lingo, but it's so gloriously unselfconscious and widespread that anyone who has caught a bus, never mind a wave, knows it. We all know what stoked, gnarly and tube mean, but what the hell is a beavertail, a barnwaller or being cactus juiced?

Baywatch

Alright, so maybe the surfing in it came a distant second or third to the frolicking in the waves, but you can bet that for every woman getting a boob job done in the wake of Pamela et al, there was a kid asking for a surfboard and a pair of red shorts for Christmas.

Point Break

The 1991 movie that launched a thousand would-be surfers towards the waves before they realised it was really cold and headed back to the safety of the pub. "I caught my first tube today . . . sir," and "I am an F B I agent" - yes you are, Keanu, yes you are - remain Reeves' finest screen moments.

Guinness ad

Guinness have surfed the marketing zeitgeist for decades, but this remains their best effort to date. Voted the best ad of all time in a Channel Four poll, Surfer remains a brilliant piece of work, even it is "only an ad". Directed by Jonathan Glazer, who also made Sexy Beast, Radiohead's Karma Police and the latest Sony ad with a tower block firing off rounds of paint. It featured a thumping track, Phat Planet by Leftfield, which, just like Jimi Hendrix in a guitar shop, you will inevitably hear in any car park near a beach.

Aill na Searrach

The discovery of a monster wave at the base of the Cliffs of Moher, and its subsequent depiction in a forthcoming documentary, And Then the Wind Died . . .has become the jewel in the crown of Irish surfing and is set to put the country on the international surfing map.

Laurence Mackin