Easter comes early this year, which means that the period between the end of
the January detox and the start of Lenten abstinence is terrifyingly brief.
That alone would make this time of year especially difficult to bear. A
February of restraint and denial following hard on the heels of a January of
self-mortification means that this, particularly grim, moment in the
calendar feels uniquely bleak this year. It’s as though the great parole
board in the sky has reconsidered its promise of time off for good behaviour
and instead recommended solitary confinement for the rest of the sentence.
But what lends this winter’s end a special gloom is the knowledge that the
preeminent pleasure that this time of year once reliably held out is now
denied me. And no, I don’t mean haggis. There is one activity, inextricably
linked to this otherwise torpid period, that causes melancholy to vanish,
that lifts the spirits and that allows you to indulge in the grossest of
vices (Carbs at least three times a day! Alcohol at lunchtime! Cheese with
every meal!) without coming to harm. And no, I don’t mean a Saga cruise.
The one activity that makes the winter worthwhile, in my view, is skiing. And
I write as someone who hates heights, feels disoriented when travelling at
speed and has such poor hand-eye coordination that I find all but the
thickest soups a challenge too far. Indeed my first experience of skiing was
as close to legal torture as it’s possible to get outside a dentist’s chair
or a Japanese game show. My feet were encased in boots that appeared to have
been designed by the people who used to manufacture iron maidens for the
Spanish Inquisition. Trying to balance in these leg-irons while on skis felt
like trying to stand on steel hawsers while snares designed for a
decent-sized mammal bit into my shins. And that was before I stood up.
Once I was, actually, vertical it wasn’t long before I was, rapidly,
horizontal. And in the course of my first hour or so on the slopes (actually
a bit of a misnomer for the slushy, and undeniably very flat, patch of earth
next to the Cactus Café) I found myself hitting the ground with the
regularity of a pile driver on a demolition site. I was determined to
improve (it would have been hard to get worse) and I booked myself in for
mornings with the ski school and afternoons with a personal instructor who
would coach me one-on-one.
I should have been alerted to the difficulties ahead when the others in the
class to which I was allocated all seemed to be either three years old or
pensioners in receipt of the full TV licence rebate. I toiled all morning
trying to keep up, to no avail. After a couple of hours the infants were
slaloming past me, the grannies were snowploughing elegantly downhill and I
was still hitting the ground every few minutes like a French paratrooper in
Algeria – with a huge amount of force but very little to show for it. In
the afternoons it got, if anything, even worse. My tutor couldn’t believe
that the simple act of balancing on planks of carbon fibre and turning my
toes inwards was, for me, as challenging as flying an F-15 hung over and
blindfolded while wearing mittens. He would ski backwards effortlessly,
smoking elegantly, shifting the weight from one leg to another, while I
discovered scores of new way to send shafts of pure pain up and down my
spine.
After the third (yes, I kept going) afternoon of paying to undergo this
humiliation, it occurred to me to ask my instructor if I was the worst
student he had ever had. It was a desperate effort at fishing for a
compliment, a rather sad bid for some form of reassurance. “No, you are not
the worst!” my instructor laughed. I joined in the laughter – alas, too
soon. “No, there was one who was worse.” “Just the one?” I asked. “Oui,”
came the reply, “but he was, how you say, a veteran?” “You mean an
ex-soldier?” “No, he was very, very old.”
I paused briefly to imagine just how old I would be before I succeeded in
getting down the most basic of nursery slopes when my instructor cut in
again and asked what I did for a living. When I said I was a reporter he
laughed again, and offered these words of typically Gallic encouragement:
“Well, there you ’ave it, Michael, this is ’ow it works. You are a
journalist, I am a ski instructor. And while I cannot write, you cannot ski
. . .”
And yet, even as the darkest hour is just before the dawn, and the grim
flatness of long, dark, dry January evenings make Valentine’s Day champagne
taste all the more delicious, so my humiliations spurred me on to try and
try and try until, eventually, some curious long-buried instinct in my
muscles clicked into place and I was able – tentatively, hesitantly,
clumsily but nevertheless steadily enough – to make my way downhill. What
kept me going was not some Robert the Bruce-style resilience, nor reserves
of inner conviction that my will would triumph over stubborn nature. It was
the obvious pleasure a skiing holiday provided to all those around me, even
to those who could barely get down the hill without resort to a chairlift.
The combination of pure air, a day spent entirely outdoors, fairly constant
but never too intense physical exertion, natural beauty, an activity that
requires just enough concentration to banish work worries without creating
new anxieties, hot baths in the evening and then dining on foods with a fat
content even higher than that of a Starbucks venti frappuccino is
irresistible. From what I’ve read, I think almost exactly the same cocktail
of pleasures characterises hunting.
But this year I shan’t be on the slopes. Circumstances prevent it happening.
And so I will have to find another way of lightening this winter’s end that
gives me the chance to spend long hours in the bracing cold, learning how to
manage my nerves and overcome humiliation. Murrayfield, here I come . . .
Unsung hero of West Cumbria
Today’s South Bank Show Awards are an occasion for celebrating artistic
excellence. But they’re also an opportunity to reflect on the phenomenon
that is Melvyn Bragg. Melvyn’s haircut (a more rococo version of the barnet
Rodney Bewes sported in The Likely Lads) and West Cumbrian accent (again,
rather like Bewes with sinusitis) have been gently mocked over the years,
and there is a sense that we haven’t always taken him entirely seriously.
Well, I I think the man’s a hero. He’s kept high culture alive on commercial
TV, kept the culture of his native borders in better health than any other
single individual, has written fiction of the highest order that shows real
understanding of and sympathy with working-class culture, while at the same
time presenting just about the best factual radio programme ever and
speaking up for the countryside, traditional freedoms and English cultural
patriotism within the Labour party, just when all three causes were becoming
increasingly friendless. He is a Great Living Englishman. Perhaps someone
should set up an award ceremony to recognise those we have left. While we
still have them.
The milky way
My apologies for returning to the subject of coffee after just a week, but I
had to add my tuppence-worth to the debate so magnificently addressed by
Janice Turner on Saturday, when she laid into the whole extra syrup caramel
macchiato thing dominating the high street. And I agree that few drinks are
more conceptually disgusting than an eggnog latte. But while I’m a double
espresso man myself, I can see the lure of a large, milky, sugary treat in a
warm cup. After all, we are the nation that once lived off Ovaltine and
Horlicks. And I bet that if one of the chains offered Ovaltine now it would
be a huge hit, offering the comforting cheeriness of a syrup-infused grande
whatever without any tetchiness-inducing caffeine. What are you waiting for,
Pret A Manger?
— Michael Gove is Conservative MP for Surrey Heath
