Why skier Glyn will return to simpler slopes next time
A Brummie take on the rough guide to skiing …
Businessman Glyn Pitchford’s experiences in Davos in Switzerland.
Where it snowed virtually all week and hence forced our diminutive friend to risk skiing in a fog-ridden white-out.
“Never mind global warming – they’ve never heard of it in Davos,” he moans.
So, anyway, our hero risks going off piste in zero visibility – not the brightest thing to do – but does take the precaution of having some pals along from the Ski Club of Great Britain.
“In those conditions it is very difficult to see the bumps and hard to work out the steepness – it is very disorientating,” reflects Glyn.
So the inevitable happened.
He goes straight over a ridge, completely loses his balance faced with a 10ft drop, and plunges head first into the vastness of the powder snow.
Straight out of a cartoon, just the tips of his little legs sticking out.
“They had to dig me clear,” he shudders.
“It’s back to the more simple runs next time.”
And, of course, Pitchford being Pitchford he also manages to get a few digs in at our glorious European partners – two complete strangers from Maastricht, one Dutch and one Belgian, MEPs whom he met in the local stuble bar.
Maastricht – wasn’t that where the infamous Treaty was signed in 1992 which created both the European Union and the euro?
“That’s why we are in this recession,” chides Pitchford. “It’s all your fault.”
And then he puts the two baffled Europeans to “the test” – what is written in French on the back of a bottle of HP Sauce, for so long produced in Birmingham but now being made in Elst in the Netherlands?
Not a clue (actually it apparently says something about the sauce being a mixture of oriental fruits, spices and malt vinegar – well, don’t ask me, I’ve always hated the stuff).
“Call yourself Europeans, you lot have stolen our sauce and you don’t know what is on the back of the bottle?”
But, it seems they parted as friends even if it has further strengthened Pitchford’s belief that the EU is kaput.
