It is a great biological mystery of the age as to why, once on a skiing holiday, an intelligent British person goes rogue.
They become a monster once they get poles in their hands. The monster takes one of two hideous forms: the Dangerous Numpty and the Rude Drunken Twat.
The Dangerous Numpty loses all sense of personal space on arrival in resort, as if an invisible threshold is crossed and they can’t do anything without getting in everyone else’s way. At some point, an ambulance may need to get involved.
The DN will thrash blindly down the street, skis slung horizontally across their bodies, gut-barging you off the pavement and into the path of oncoming buses. They will forget that they are holding very long, pointy poles and will take your eye out/dink a nearby car/skewer a dog at the bus queue whilst absent-mindedly checking their watch.
Carrying ski boots in a bag on their shoulder they will merrily smash you in the face with it as they dismount from their Hyundai Santa Fe, Land Rover Discovery or whatever Chelsea Tractor they happen to be driving whilst bellowing at their nasty children, screaming at being forced to wear a bright red all-in-one for eight days.
DN damage is also caused by:
(1) Suddenly grabbing you by the jacket lapels because they have lost their footing on the ice and reached out to save themselves. Elderly ladies have been Half-Nelsoned to the floor in front of my very eyes.
(2) Wandering in the road regardless of traffic whilst pointing at something above their head.
(3) Abandoning (rather than parking) their hire car across the pavement – so you cannot pass without turning sideways. Gets interesting when another Dangerous Numpty tries to pass. Carrying their skis horizontally.
(4) Skiing. At any time.
But perhaps the most abhorrent incarnation of the Brit on a skiing holiday though, is the Rude Drunken Twat – aka: male, thirty-something ‘young professional’ who thinks he can snowboard because he once spent two hours getting pissed in the bar of the Milton Keynes SnowDome.
These individuals roam the resort in packs of about six or eight, ruddy-faced, shouting about how they spent the day ‘riding some sick powder!’ i.e. they got tanked up on brandy and pointed all fifteen stone of themselves down a piste, narrowly avoiding killing two German kids and a Dutch snow-shoeing party howling ‘YEEEAAAHHH BUDDDY!’
Tales of their mountainous bravado rarely match up with reality, ie lots of falling over on expensive kit they can’t ride and sweating while their friends laugh at them. They also start using the word ‘dude’ a lot and bandying about phrases like ’sessioning the park’. If you ask them what the hell they are talking about they will insist that they have always spoken this way.
They also like to buy and wear the ‘maddest’ woolly hat they can find. Because, as we know, nothing says ‘I’m mad me!!!!!!!!!’ like a ‘mad’ woolly hat.
Both types will also demand the very soul of the chalet workers that are charged with looking after them. These poor bastards are to be found wandering the local supermarket aisles for hours on end, seeking Yorkshire pudding mix and muttering to themselves looking haunted, wondering if that badly-paid, 20-hour day job they left behind is still available.
The best so far? Probably the customer who came into the cafe where I work last week. ‘Oh thank God!’ she rejoiced as I greeted her in her mother tongue. ‘No- one round here speaks bloody English!’
I felt it somewhat churlish to point out that it might have something to do with this being France. So instead, simply opted for head-butting the counter.
