The piste problems only drunken British skiers could create
In other news that suggests civilisation is drawing to a close, drunken skiers are skiing into things as they blissfully mount the Alps; mostly trees, restaurants, and each other. Direct Line – always the first person to call if you want facts on crushed bones – estimates that more than 1,000 addled British skiers injure themselves each day during the season by drinking many pints – or cocktails – and then processing down a mountain at 60mph on bits of plastic – a leisure activity so mad only humans would do it.
My evidence is the famous YouTube video of a squirrel that can water ski on what looks like painted lolly sticks. The squirrel looks terrified. I know it would not do it for pleasure. It is a squirrel slave forced into water skiing bondage.
This drunken skiing amounts, Direct Line says – in the manner of a pub bore who has recently sobered up – to a quarter of a million broken bones in the last five years and 200,000 torn ligaments. I am almost impressed, because this is utterly alien to me. The world is dangerous enough without skiing. I remember that when I was sent to the Alps on a story by mistake, I saw a montage of young skiers sitting at a bus stop, each in plaster, and now I know why. They were drunk.
The survey also performed an experiment, which had a very predictable result. They asked people to simulate skiing while drunk and sober. And guess what? The drunk ones were terrible at it.
I wonder if purpose can be given to this drunken skiing; if, perhaps, under a Corbyn government, more people can ski drunkenly so the proletariat can watch the boss class maim itself. It could, theoretically, be televised.
But there is succour of a kind, which means that soon Direct Line will have smaller numbers to terrorise and amaze. Apparently, the snow in the Alps is melting. I hope the skiers notice.