Never mind Swiss air – try a jar of home-grown smog

Travelling to the foot of the world-famous Matterhorn could prove more worthwhile and cost effective than paying £200 for a bottle of fresh air canned from the slopes of the Swiss Alps.

Tunbridge Wells ex-pat John Green, who quit the UK for a finer life in Basel, revealed to the Kent Messenger his plan to flog air from 10,000ft up.

The 64-year-old offers three sizes of containers to give buyers a breath of fresh air and described it as the “ultimate present for the man or woman who has everything”.

However, for the £200 it would set you back for a three-litre jar of Swiss air, one of Mr Green’s buyers could jet off to the European mountains for an overnight stay.

For just a couple of hundred pounds it is possible to leave the front door of your Maidstone home, fly to Zurich, catch a train to your hotel and return home the following day.

Return flights at £48 with Easyjet from Luton to Zurich would give you ample time to sample some of the purest air in Europe for 24 hours.

A one-night stay at the Matterhorn Golf Hotel would cost just £36 while connecting trains to and from the hotel after your flight would make up the bulk of total expenditure at £50 each way.

The cost of fuel and parking at the station would make the mini break possible for a penny-pinching £225, only £25 more than a hit from Mr Green’s three-litre “jeroboam” jar.

Mr Green, an IT consultant, is not the first person to persuade overseas buyers to part with their cash for air.