Arse

This is a new one for me. Explosive diarrhoea. Seriously it’s like a never ending Niagra of running to the loo. Which when you’re supposed to be in a 3 hour planning meeting can be a bit annoying.

Skiing

I think I caught it off some whipper-snapper skiing last week. Excellent week though – great snow, cold, sunny, beautiful and still quiet. But then Switzerland *is* the master of all things alpine. If you’re wondering it was Verbier and I can thoroughly recommend it. Not what you would call cheap though, but that too is one of Switzerland’s specialities. I could have had 2 weeks all inclusive in The Bahamas for less but that’s not the point.

I suppose I could summarise my skiing style as ‘the art of being out of control whilst remaining upright’ though I shite is also a reasonable description. I know most people count falls in holidays/fall rather than falls/holiday but where’s the fun in that?

Especially when you can combine the Pock and Fly† with the Car Boot Sale‡ whilst your friends are travelling overhead in a chair lift with (almost literally) a grandstand view of the entire event. Suffice it to say that over exuberance, showing off, not paying attention, and just going too fast ended up with me creating a cartoon-like Pan shaped hole in a (handily located) snow bank while poles, skis, hat, sunglasses and one glove exploded down the hill in a 360° bid for freedom. I got everything back in the end though apart from part of one pole. Don’t ask me, I have no idea.

What’s amazing about skiing is the intense pain it inflicts above and beyond financial and physical injury ie the dead toes, ulcerated shins, crushed insteps, trapped nerves, aching muscles, exhaustion, cold, wet, sunburn, windburn, indigestion, chafing and total humiliation falling over standing still into a big pile of slush.

Having said that Hairy Richard fell 150 yards down Tortin, so I guess it snows on the just and the unjust alike. Arf.

So you add all that up, throw in a subsequent dose of E-Coli 0157 (or similar) and balance it against a couple of drinks and a rather flirtatious snowboard instructor (albeit a very cute one of the hearty, fresh-faced, blond haired blue eyed, public schoolgirl variety). Hardly seems to add up does it, so why is Pan desperate to go back already? Who can say, but a few pointers might be :-

1. The Immodium is kicking in
   
2. It’s still the most action I’ve had in eons.
   
3. I’m one of nature’s natural skiers – ain’t no mountain high enough etc
   
4. Toe’s overrated
   
5. Japan equally expensive
   

Actually I’m not really one of nature’s natural skiers but I do have certain advantages – an ability to hurl myself over the precipice without really considering the consequences and a personal credo of "faster is better and easier" being amongst them.

† Pock and Fly : Pock – noise your ski makes when it hits a rock/patch of grass/chewing gum wrapper and stops dead. Fly – that’s you that is.

‡ Car Boot Sale : Everything everywhere.

Pancakes

If anybody wants I have about a gallon of stupid pancake batter sitting in my fridge. I ate 2 last night and went to bed at 9 o’clock.

No-one else came home at all.

The tragedy of a thirty something bloke eating pancakes and watching Becker on his own.