Like any homogenised man sprouting from the heart of Midwest America with a dream, Carl Wesley Anderson wanted to take the world and light it on fire. And, serving as an American Christian speaker, author, documentary filmmaker, business owner (reaching more than 20 nations including Europe, Scandinavia, the UK and Australia), he was doing just that.

Then came conflagration that nearly consumed him. “That was the day when the world fell from beneath my feet,” Carl stated, eyes gazing into a marbled hearth, blazing within his charming, 100-year-old Victorian-styled home. “Married. Three kids. Successful, award-winning wedding videography business. And then the diagnosis. And all I wanted to know was: Am I going to live? Or am I going to die? Tell, me, God.”

In 2014, Carl was diagnosed with stage 3B melanoma—a skin disease that had already begun infecting Carl’s blood and lymph nodes. And, according to the doctor, Carl didn’t have much time left.

Fo...

Fans of TV show Britain’s Got Talent may remember the 2017  mind-reading finalists DNA who impressed Simon Cowell, the man who notoriously hated magic acts, to comment that they were “incredible”. After losing out in the final, Sorted chats to Darren Sarsby and Andrew Murray to find out what has happened to DNA.

Tell us a bit about life before Britain’s Got Talent

Andrew: I was a magician, doing corporate events, all stuff for adults.

Darren: I did that as well but was predominantly a children’s entertainer. I did that for about 15 years. We became friends about seven years ago and decided we wanted to create something quite unique, something that other magicians and people in the magic world weren’t performing. So, we came up with a mind-reading, telepathy act, something that was totally unique to us, and we found it very hard to sell it to people. It’s very hard to explain it, we’re like magicians but also like mind-readers and we do something different t...

A self-described “wandering wonderer”, Dr David Chong is passionate about surgery, the bigger meaning of life  and ensuring he stays real to who he is.

When talking to pediatric plastic surgeon David Chong, it doesn’t take long before you get caught up in his energy, passion and pure zest for life. A man who, when asked to describe himself in two sentences, says: “I only need two words.” This “wandering wonderer” is a surgeon by day, a searcher in life and a seriously cool guy all round.

Dividing his time in Melbourne, Australia between a children’s hospital and his own private practice, this laid-back Aussie also finds the time to volunteer six to eight weeks a year with Mercy Ships on the world’s largest charity hospital ship – the same organisation that 20 years ago determined his path into plastic surgery.

With a volunteer crew of more than 400 people from 35 different nations, the Africa Mercy hospital ship provides free, life-saving surgery to some of the poore...

In the first of a series of classic adventures in, around and from Great Britain, adventurer Pete Woodward cycles solo from Blighty to the Sahara Desert.

Wobbling along on a heavy bike, I reached the end of our road in Bristol. This was a well-worn path and every day on the way to work I headed left and past the Downs. Today I turned right and headed for Africa.

Stepping out of my front door and setting off to the Sahara Desert solo on a bike was the culmination of several years of bike touring across the UK and Europe and yearning to go further, see more. Exploring new places, travelling from my own front door and seeing landscape and cultures slowly change at the slow speed of a bike is something that excites me.

I had decided on the ride to the mythical Sahara Desert almost as soon as I got the map out. Then followed several months of rain, ice and wind-battered opportunities to toughen up the legs on minitours: Newcastle, the Isle of Wight, Wales and the South Downs Way. B...

Twenty-nine years after releasing his debut album, Lenny Kravitz is still letting love rule, but with an eye towards societal strife that continues to go unchecked. The multi-Grammy award-winning musician brings forth a conscious body of work with Raise Vibration (BMG Rights Management UK Ltd), his eleventh studio album. The first single from the Raise Vibration album, ‘It’s Enough’, is a battle cry against corporate greed, political corruption and racism. Kravitz switches gears with his follow-up single, ‘Low’, exploring the perils of his near-mythical sensuality with intonations alluding to his past intimate relationships. For Lenny Kravitz, the art of the story is paramount, while pop music trends are immaterial. He tells stories through his writing, vocals and the multitude of instruments he has mastered over the years.

Musically, Raise Vibration is an eclectic blend of the kind of stylistic rock ’n’ roll-funk sound that Kravitz is known for, with subtle nods to vintag...

Emma Waring is a sex therapist, and often meets couples, in the course of her work, whose ignorance regarding sex both shocks and saddens her. As a result, she recently published a book, Seasons of Sex & Intimacy (Hullo Creative), which sets out to fill in the holes in our knowledge. For she believes that despite the amount of sex education in schools, nobody really prepares people for sexual intimacy – how our bodies work, and how our partner’s body works as well. And not only is there not enough guidance on sex when it all goes as it should, there is also, she feels, not enough advice on what to do when things go wrong. Nor is school the right place for this information to be handed on to children…

Emma says, “I fundamentally disagree with the idea that children should get their sex education from school. I actually think that children need to get sex education from their parents. As parents, we know our children better than anyone else, and I think we have a responsibility to...

A passion for capturing the human extremities of life has seen British photographer Tom Bradley banged up in a Congolese jail, stranded and sleeping in a goat hut in Togo and staying in a leprosy colony in Nepal. Charlotte Walker reports…

I can sleep anywhere,” says Tom, unsurprisingly, after spending the past decade photographing Syrian refugees, Bangladeshi LGBT rights, Armenian prisoners and leprosy patients in 14 countries.

The 33-year-old has a life less ordinary; spending half of the year overseas, with the remainder staggered between staying with friends in London and occasional breaks at his parents’ home in the Wye Valley in Gloucestershire.

Among his photographic projects, most of which centre on themes of injustice, there is one mainstay; Tom has carved a niche for himself in photographing leprosy.

“As far as I’m concerned, I will be photographing leprosy for the rest of my life,” said Tom.

“There are so many layers to this disease – biological, social and pol...

Thomas Cochrane was on the run, fleeing the Boxer rebels who were killing men, women and children across China. They were murderously hostile to anyone from the West, and missionaries and Christians were cut down without mercy. Cochrane, a missionary doctor, had sent his family on ahead of him, but had stayed in his Mongolian town to protect his people. Only when they persuaded him that his presence was more of a danger than a help, did he set out to follow his family. Having spent the night at an ancient burial ground, he wakes up the following morning…

At dawn the sun rose like a huge red disc; it was going to be another scorching June day. Tom gathered his things and saddled the horse. It was tempting to linger in this quiet place but he must press on. Suddenly a man emerged from behind a mound. Then another and another, until a score of them formed a circle around him. Grasping swords and spears, they looked like characters in a Chinese opera. He saw the flash of scarlet scarves...