Many golfers are rubbish players, but love the kit ; the shiny sticks, the wheelie bags, the Velcro…………….

And so it is with skiers. Soon, planeloads of people from Wolverhampton, Reading and certain parts of Glossop will descend on Val de Fracture and get en piste. All will be clad in cool gear featuring yards of Velcro; all will fasten plastic planks to their astronaut- booted feet via lots of shiny clips and then hurl themselves into Alpine infinity.

Then, at the bottom of the mountain, if they are not dead, they will jostle with foreign types who don’t understand queues and get on a wire and pulley device Alton Towers wouldn’t touch with a ski – pole, go back to the top and do it again.

I have been skiing. Let’s get that straight. This is no fanciful account of something I know nothing of. Oh no. Umpteen years ago I was persuaded, by expert skiing friends who said “Oh you’ll love it ! !” a lot to visit the quaintly named ski resort of Obergurgl. Whilst my friends cleared off to whizz down snowy slopes and drink gluhwein {as sort of warm Bostik} I was placed in a learners’ class and instructed mercilessly by a sun – bronzed fascist Apollo called Kurt. “NO,NO VILLI ! VEIGHT ON ZER DOWNHILL SKI !”still echoes through occasional Alpine nightmares. Throughout that first day, whilst praying for blizzards or a total eclipse, I noticed that all my classmates, including the pear – shaped ones with little pinny legs stopped falling over and got a certificate from Kurt which allowed them to go jostle with foreign folk at the grown – ups’ ski – lift, thence to whizz down the beginners’ slopes, their faces aglow with achievement.

I never made it. Long after the triumphant departure of the last of my classmates [Des, slightly rounder than Johnny Vegas and in waste management, from Bolton] for what they were all referring to by then as “the slopes”, I was still going arsche over titzen, especially during difficult manuoevres, like blinking. Kurt left me then, called away to attend to a plucky novice who had collided with an Ice Bar,felled three Italians and spilt several litre of gluhwein which melted the snow and went on to dissolve the rock beneath.

Mind you, I’ve still got the seductive super clicky boots, and the in – yer – face red and yellow get – undressed – to – go – for - pee suit thingy, cool goggles and velcroed gloves. And somewhere, also  in the same  cobwebby garage darkness, are  one or two 11+ crammer books. Failed that too.