It has been a massively busy week around town and on the slopes but pretty quiet in the bars. Next week it dies off a little but the Scandinavians are just around the corner with all that they entail.

The Olympics are in full swing and over half way through already so make sure you don’t miss them as at a cost of at least $2.5 billion they must be good.

Have a good one MB

Snow Quality and Stability
Several accidental avalanches were reported through mid week this past week (before it started snowing) by the Météo France avalanche forecasting services in parts of the Northern French Alps on East, North and West slopes above 1800 metres (no one was seriously hurt). These reports are not surprising to me as there is a very weak layer of snow that I keep coming across especially where the good snow is: on East, North, West slopes above 1800 metres. Any new snow that has accumulated since Thursday in these areas (including snow blown in by the wind) will easily create new instability specially
on steep slopes. You can keep up-to-date on this by visiting our blog on www.getoffpiste.com or if you can read French on www.meteo-france.com > Montagne> Bulletins Avalanches.

Tips for this coming week
There are a couple very weak layers on North’ish facing slopes and very shaded slopes due to the periods of cold temperatures that we have experienced this season. This weak layer has not been much of a problem recently due to relatively small amounts of snow in each snowstorm that we’ve had over the last few weeks… but I’m keeping an eye on this instability since the best skiing is in the very places where the snowpack seems the weakest… With the new snow, I’m therefore starting on low angle slopes and taking into consideration everything that we present in our talks – a summary is on my blog entry of 14 January on www.getoffpiste.com

Have Fun and Be Safe!

Skier or Boarder
I’m a skier and I’ve been skiing for 11 years now. I started skiing with my family and I love it. I’m trying to push myself a little bit more out here in Val d’Isère. I tried boarding out in St. Anton but I couldn’t see the point, especially because I got injured.

Skis
I’ve got two pairs out with me: a pair of K2 Apache Raiders and I bought some second-hand Salomon Foils when I came out at the beginning of the season, mostly because they have touring bindings. I’m not too keen on the skis as a whole. I really want to get some fat powder skis to take off-piste. My friend found some decent touring skis by a bin, so I might take the touring bindings off the Foils, put them on those and see how it goes.

Boots
I’ve got Salomon Instincts that I also bought at the start of the season and they were recommended to me by Del from Snowberry.

Jacket
Nothing fancy, just a black north face shell jacket that I layer up underneath to keep warm.

Pants
These are definitely my favourite bit of kit. They are bright blue and I think they give me a bit of extra power because they give me the balls to go and do things that scare me a bit. They are a bit impractical though because I’m not sure they are that waterproof any more and they don’t fit properly but I love them!

Avalanche Kit?
I’ve got a full set of avalanche gear from Ortovox including a probe, transceiver and shovel. I have an Ortovox S1 transceiver which is meant to do everything for you except dig up the person, but when I did the avalanche training out on the piste I seemed to take the longest to find the buried transceiver. I really want an ABS bag. That’d definitely complete all my kit for off-piste, so if you’ve got a 2nd hand one then come into the Warm Up and I’ll take it off your hands.

First Season
My first season was out in St. Anton but I definitely prefer it out here. I came to Val because of its great reputation off-piste and I really wanted to get properly into that side of skiing. I’m definitely getting there.

How is the Off-Piste Going?
It’s going well, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet some people who have shown me round the mountain. I really am enjoying doing some more challenging terrain.

Favourite Run?
I really enjoyed Pisteurs. The weather wasn’t great and it was really windy so walking the ridge was a bit scary but it was perfect in the couloir and then when it opened up we had fresh tracks for the rest of the way down. Perfect!

Done any Touring?
Yeah, I’ve done a bit but I want to do a bit more in the spring snow. I could then look at potentially doing some of the really long touring routes around Mont Blanc or maybe going to Norway.

Any Injuries?
I’ve been really lucky to not have had any big injuries in all the time I’ve been skiing. I fractured my shoulder in St. Anton but it healed up really quickly so I wasn’t off the snow for too long.

Taken by: Rich Cook, Rider: James Cannon

For most of us they are either an overpaid group we see from time to time or a big expensive chunk of our holiday that has to be done to make the holiday a pleasant experience and our skills up on the hill better but there are always two sides to every story so we’re having a look from their perspective.

Most instructors started their journey with dreams of being the next downhill race trainer for the Swiss team or back country guiding in Chamonix with hedge fund managers after they had completed the endless number of exams and testing systems. And did we forget to mention the speed test against some of the fastest people in France, well you need to ace that before you’re even ready to take on a bunch of snow ploughing kids in bright onesies.

Reality however is always a little bit different to the dream, some will have got lucky and will be dining in the finest restaurants and sipping champagne while being paid to take their clients out on an exclusive heli-ski but to be quite honest there just aren’t enough rich bankers in town to finance the small army of instructors that are here in Val d’Isere so for most of them they will be very familiar with the village chair and small infants instead of the Tour de Charvet with the head of a Swiss bank, so here’s a little view from the other side.

A comfy pair of boots is essential. Don’t get on your high horse about having 160 flex factory race boots on your feet as a relic to your dreams of downhill glory, if they hurt then those 8 hours will seem like 80. You will find the odd few who are still clinging onto their stiff race boots but the majority will have at the very least, a pair of custom fit boots that took hours to fit but are now like slippers on the slope. When our boots hurt we have the luxury of making a decision to return to our apartment or chalet and swap them for a pair of trainers and some fine après ski, not for the loyal ski instructor, they ride through the pain and manage to keep upbeat all the way through it.

More vital equipment comes in the form of a pair of warm gloves. You can’t skimp on a pair of gloves from TKMaxx at this point. You need to spend a little bit extra to keep the use of your thumbs because you need your hands to draw pretty pictures of turn shapes in the snow when it’s minus 30 temperatures. It’s the same premise as the boots, after 2 hours with cold hands as a punter we can go into a restaurant, have a good whinge to whomever we are skiing with and then drown our sorrows in a Vin Chaud. For a ski instructor the closest they will get to a break is to take little Jimmy into the restaurant before he wets himself.

Can you imagine having a ski instructor who was the most boring person on earth? Would that person realistically inspire you to improve your skiing or boarding talents? We can pretty much bet that you’d be asking for an instructor swap before you can say ‘lean forward’. A boundless enthusiasm and good chat will get you through your lesson, and of course if you like someone you’re just that little bit more inclined to do what they say. For most male instructors, getting the ladies in their group to fancy them a little bit will make the lesson and the tips that
bit better.

Ski and board instructors also have the talent to have a smile an American beauty queen would be proud of, and the same smile can be held solid no matter what the situation. The weather’s crap and your client is having a fit at the top of a run because they are certain they can’t make it down, keep on smiling and offer encouragement and tadaa it will probably come right in the end. There is no room for impatience or a bad attitude here, the clients see straight through it and then they start hating you for it. Teeth whitening however is optional.

Nannying skills are also a vital piece of kit, 14 kids in an overbooked lesson where 3 are crying, 2 keep battling to literally ski on the ends of your skis and the rest are lying across the nursery slope in various contortionist positions. The ability to be a good replacement for mummy and daddy for a morning is a vital skill that will avoid tears of both the child and the instructor.

In the same theme the ability to handle a parent is key. You must not forget what child belongs to each parent and have a detailed report prepared on little Molly’s progress so it can be charted over the week and then the results calculated for your tip. Parents are generally a pretty docile breed and are usually just glad that they’ve had a morning where they’ve not had to sandwich their little darling between them in case of a fall, so glowing reports of children are very much appreciated, even if they know you might very well be lying through your teeth.

They will also have cultivated a series of answers for the following questions; what do you do over summer? Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend? Do you want to do this forever? These questions are asked at least 3 times a week and there will be a carefully crafted response that depends on who asks and what they might want to hear. It’s all a case of knowing your audience.

An instructor will also have fine-tuned their ability to avoid a hangover or at least mask one very well. They are rarely seen around town after 8pm but every now and again someone will buck the trend and make it out past 1am and will have to utilize all their skills the next day to mask the fact that they might have had a little bit too much to drink i.e. more than one beer last night.

And finally you might want a bit of skiing ability. The hoops you have to jump through to teach in France mean our ski instructors are some of the best qualified in the world. They know what they’re talking about when they give you hints and tips, so treat them nice. They’ve spent thousands of pounds on courses, training and doing all the required bits to be there for you on the hill so if someone says ‘trust me I’m a ski instructor’ I’d take their advice.

I mean we aren’t saying that you need to go and congratulate the next ski instructor you see on what a fine job they are doing, but perhaps as you sit there and seethe into the only drink you can afford for the evening as your ski instructor buddy orders up a round (but not for him or herself! They have work in the morning) think about the cold feet and hands, the fact that they are in fact highly qualified to mop up kids who have wet themselves or need a nose blowing and the fact that they have to be up at 7am no matter the weather, no duvet days for this crowd.

SUNDAY 21ST FEBRUARY
Moris: Mike plays live music at après.
Le Petit Danois: 24U play live at the Danois
Warm Up: Live après music from Soul Fire (soul, blues and funk duo) from 5pm
Pacific: Seasonnaires pool league in the evening. See Dave for details.
VSpot: Monster Après 4-6pm followed by DJ Hi33p playing dubstep and minimal garage kicking off at 9.30pm just as Mad Hour begins!
Doudoune: I love Club 21 with guest DJ Jerome from club Castel
Le Graal: Happy Sundays ultimate mix generation
Dicks: Funday Sunday, spin the wheel for offers and promotions and 3 euro pints

MONDAY 22ND FEBRUARY
VSpot: Monster après as well as a Free Snowboarders Avalanche Talk with Nicolas Gize 6-8pm. Followed by Yoki House Night – Fullt Ös Medvetslös – DJ Tinitunes kicking off at 9.30pm with mad hour and crazy ¼ with €2 pints/vodka mixer
Le Pub: Come and play darts with others at Le Pub on a monday
Moris: HAT Talks with Mullit Trio playing live après music and Fourplay in the evening
La Foret: Mikey Gray plays live après music
Warm Up: Magners Mondays, special promos on Magners Cider
Pacific: Open Mic Night, everyone welcome. See Luke if you want to play.
Victors: Kiss My Ice pre-party
Saloon: Bluefunkt plays live après music
Doudoune: Niki Belucci live at Doudoune
Le Graal: Kiss My Ice with a Swedish DJ playing great music on the decks all night
Dicks: Back to the 80s and 90s with a free shot with every round between 12 and 1am

TUESDAY 23RD FEBRUARY
Saloon: Bluefunkt play live après with fancy dress stall. Angels and Demons fancy dress party follows
VSpot: Monster après followed by the PLANKS official bar night: Drop Beats Not Bombs with Da French Crew starts at 9.30pm with mad hour and crazy ¼.
La Foret: Mullit play lives music at après.
Moris: Mike plays live après music and Mullit play live in the evening with midweek deals on Mutzig.
Le Petit Danois: 24U play live après music
Doudoune: Wadklub with DJ Dee Nice and MC Lex Empress
Le Graal: Shot Again, 2010 flavour with 15 different flavours of vodka available behind the bar
Dicks: Angels and Demons fancy dress, reggae music with the rezidents. Free shot for those in costume

WEDNESDAY 24TH FEBRUARY
Le Petit Danois: 24U play live après music as well as Wings Wednesday with special deals on wings and pitchers
Blue Note: Table football competition continues at 10pm
Warm Up: Les Trois Tetes play live at après.
Saloon: Bluefunkt play live après music followed by Wife Beater Wednesday with €3.50 jagerbombs
VSpot: Monster Après 4-6pm followed by DJ Semi-Detached playing topless beats, breaks, electro and dubstep kicking off at 9.30pm with mad hour and crazy 1/4 .
Moris: Mullit Trio play après followed by Young Squires playing live in the evening as well as Midweek Mutzig deals.
Bananas: Tight, Bright and White party
Pacific: HAT talks starting 6pm sharp. Turn up 15 minutes before to get deals on food and drink
Le Lodge: DJ K2 plays happy house amongst other things!
Doudoune: Laurent Wolf comes to Doudoune
Le Graal: Sweet Lady Candy – Free candy and private VIP for the girls. Get Le Graal club money to get your own private show!
Dicks: Misconduct, funky house and electro night with Tequila V Sambuca promos between 12 and 1am

THURSDAY 18TH FEBRUARY
Warm Up: Huw the one man trio plays live après music from 5pm
Le Lodge: DJ K2 plays happy house amongst other things!
Le Petit Danois: Curry Thursday with curries for €10
Le Pub: Rock and Roll night with rock and roll music playing all evening.
Alexandra Bar: Kybosh play live at 9.30
La Foret: Jukebox Mama play live music at apres
VSpot: Monster Après 4-6pm followed by VDJ Sugeye playing visuals, electro and house mixed live kicking off at 9.30pm with mad hour and crazy ¼
Victors: Boogie Night, 70s Disco and funk music with deals on cocktails between 8-10pm
Pacific: Beer Pong starts at 11pm. See Dave behind the bar for details
Moris: Mikey and Ben play live après music as well as midweek Mutzig deals and a live band in the evening TBC
Saloon: Bluefunkt play live après music followed by Ice Tea Thursdays with special deals on cocktails.
Doudoune: Ministry of Sound with DJ Richard Murray
Le Graal: Le Graal’s 5th anniversary come celebrate with Miss Divine from the Defected house label.
Dicks: Carpetface and Audible, catchy hip hop beats and live beat box. Jager 3.50 euros all night

FRIDAY 26TH FEBRUARY
Le Lodge: DJ K2 plays his live set with happy house amongst other things.
VSpot: Monster Après followed by Mr OB on the decks playing dubstep, house, electro and hip hop kicking off at 9.30pm with mad hour and crazy 1/4
Warm Up: Formal Friday with bottles of Peroni for €5
Pacific: The Pacific House Family Band play live from 9-11pm followed by the Friday raffle with prizes including Salomon boards and skis. See Dave for details.
Saloon: George Moore plays live après music followed by Formal Friday with special deals for those in formal wear and €4.50 pints all night
Moris: Mike and Richie play live après music followed by Livewire playing live in the evening as well as Formal Friday. Wear your best to a night at the Moris.
Doudoune: Antoine Clamaran comes to Doudoune
Dicks: Jack Wills Formal Friday at Dicks with free shots for those in formal wear between 12-1am. JW giveaways all night

Many myths exist regarding STIs. Essentially, in the UK, one in nine 18-25 year olds has Chlamydia. This is an average. If you have Chlamydia, you are more likely to also have another STI. Forty percent of women and twenty percent of men with chlamydial infection are co-infected with gonorrhoea.
Let’s talk about Chlamydia first. It is a bacterium that lives within the cells of your urethra to begin with. Symptoms can include painful urination, testicular pain and penile discharge for men. Women may have painful urination, discharge, malodour, and later abdominal pain and pain during sex. Women may also notice unexpected bleeding between periods. The incubation period (period before symptoms appear) is 1-3 weeks. However, I have known men to only notice symptoms after eight weeks. Approximately 50% of infected males and 80% of infected females have no symptoms. So why is it so bad? Well, in both men and women it can travel to other areas of the reproductive system and lead to infertility. It is now the leading cause of infertility in women worldwide. This is called pelvic inflammatory disease. In addition, women with a chlamydial infection are at an increased risk of developing cervical cancer; risk is as high as 6.5 times greater compared to women without infection. It is tested for using swabs. The “umbrella” test for men is a myth. Herpes is a virus that exists in many forms. The form that is seen in genital herpes is different to that seen around the mouth (cold sores). Genital herpes is seen as painful open wounds in the skin on the penis or around the vagina. They are spread from skin to skin contact. Genital warts are spread in a similar fashion and are seen as raised often painless lumps. Again good treatments are available.

Warts, please compare with… herpes HIV (106,000 in the UK, and 7,000 new cases last year) and syphilis (ten fold increase over ten years), both exist in Val. These two illnesses can be detected by blood tests. Symptoms are varied and beyond the scope of this article. A few years ago, some life and medical insurance policies  were affected if you were tested for HIV but this is no longer  the case.

Hepatitis C, previously mainly spread through heroin use and blood transfusions is now mainly spread through unprotected sex. Depending which source you read, between 150 and 300 million people (2.5- 5%) worldwide are infected with the virus. It can have a long period of dormancy, but eventually attacks the liver leading to hepatitis. It is 100 times more contagious than HIV. It is also part of the screening test during a sexual health check.

One of the reasons for people not getting tested is embarrassment, but doctors and nurses are bound by confidentiality laws so you can be assured of privacy. Although you do have to pay for the tests, in March/April time,  Vie Val D’Is arranges free testing for many STIs. However if you have genuine concerns, get yourself checked out sooner rather than later.

The old expression “you‘re not sleeping with one person, but all their previous partners” is definitely valid. In summary, there’s a lot of rubbish spoken out there, but STIs are rife so just be careful. I actually saw a patient once who told me he’d been using two condoms at once. This is a little excessive, expensive and probably killed the mood. They are well constructed nowadays, so one will suffice, but you actually have to have one to hand for them to work, so stock up next time you’re in the pharmacy or down in Bourg.

For more information, please visit www.patient.co.uk

I will confess to feeling the tiniest degree of confidence this time around given I grew up in the decade concerned and, at last check, am a guy. The roughest of guidelines that I’d been set still resulted in many painful omissions as I searched for a list that was so watertight you could have stored a Berocca in it. Apologies are therefore due to Top Gun, Full Metal Jacket, the Untouchables, the two Star Wars films released during the decade, and many more ruled out on the basis that someone lacking a Y chromosome might not see them for the works of genius that all Mars dwellers would generally agree them to be.

Beginning with the easiest of the easy, if you haven’t seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off you may as well leave resort this evening. There aren’t enough superlatives to describe how good John Hughes was as a writer, before he jumped the shark and penned Home Alone, and Ferris is his best work, closely followed by The Breakfast Club. That takes out two early sitters.

Eddie Murphy was at his zenith, and while Trading Places might be a re-working of the Prince and the Pauper, casting Dan Ackroyd across from him and watching the scheming Duke Brothers try and manipulate both their lives puts it ahead of any of his other offerings that decade. Ackroyd also co-wrote Ghostbusters with Harold Ramis and they then sensibly gave all the best lines to Bill Murray who delivers them as only he can. I wanted to take the chance of putting Caddyshack in, as any film that pits Murray, Chevy Chase and Rodney Dangerfield on the same screen warrants a place at the table but a film about golf is too niche to be everyone’s cup of meat.

Tim Burton’s penchant for the quirky and macabre that spawned the Batman films first manifested itself in Beetlejuice. It’s too silly for you to think of it as a proper horror film, but Michael Keaton has never been better and with Harry Belafonte on the soundtrack you can’t miss. Gremlins might be slightly darker but, while it would have to fall under the horror genre, I challenge anyone not to laugh as they sit in a movie theatre singing along to Snow White.

I’ll make the worst pun of any article this season and throw Cocktail in the mix, on the basis of Bryan Brown’s lines alone. With Tom Cruise headlining, many of them may be largely ignored as people of both genders go weak at the knees, allegedly the way he likes it too. The action film looked like it was going to be a challenge, but the Indiana Jones franchise rendered that inert. I think the first offering, Raiders of the Lost Ark, just edges the Last Crusade, with Harrison Ford taking on the Nazis as they search for the Ark of the Covenant. Before that epiphany, I was stuck trying to reconcile Back to the Future as an action film. I can’t, but it belongs on the list. A DeLorean, time travel, Johnny B Goode and there’s a love story in there somewhere if you look hard enough, even if it’s a slightly troubling one between a teenage boy and an eccentric old scientist.

That left a British film still to find and, given most of the offerings from the British film industry in the 80s, I was back to finding something a guy would watch. I thought I was boned again and sat there wondering how I had left myself in this situation. Thankfully, while all the Monty Python movies were of a 70s vintage, John Cleese wasn’t quite done with the silver screen, and A Fish Called Wanda rounds out the list. Written by and starring Cleese, the film is taken to another level by Kevin Kline’s bumbling ex-CIA agent character. I can’t remember anyone winning an Oscar for a comedy role before or since, but I wouldn’t argue for a second that he didn’t deserve it.

Having taken on this most foolish of Texas hedges I had squared up the bet, restored order to the world and given myself something to look forward to next time I’m in New York. Over the course of a season here, you’re clearly going to have hungover days, flat light days and morbid fear of what/who you did last night making this week’s Insider days. Nannies, hot tubs, broken sinks and nether region dwelling mogwais (it’s still there) set aside, you probably haven’t seen some of the films mentioned over the past fortnight, due in large part the majority of you not even being the glint in the milkman’s eye when they were made. I’d strongly recommend, even if it’s just to spot where several of the Family Guy outtake scenes originate from, working your way through them over the second half of the season.

The Tête de Solaise is a classic mountain restaurant with everything you would expect when you’re looking for a rest stop. It’s got a great self-service restaurant serving classics like spaghetti bolognaise and steak haché with chips, but also does a very impressive salad or soup, as well as a rather tasty tartiflette.

There is also a dedicated pizzeria, so if you don’t fancy anything on offer in the self-service area then this is a great alternative to consider.

What would any mountain restaurant in Val d’Isère be without a top notch à la carte restaurant to provide for those who aren’t looking to save their pennies. Located in a glass conservatory, this restaurant certainly isn’t short of light and offers attractive views to go with the excellent food.

The Tête de Solaise also likes to have fun. With a great glass bar, it’s a terrific place to grab a meal in the sun or spend the afternoon hitting their volleyball court if you get bored of skiing.

Comrade Brown has demanded an enquiry into how fraudulent British passports were allegedly used by the killers of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Six British Israelis say they had nothing to do with the murder, after their names and photos they maintain are not them were listed by the Dubai police in connection with the incident. Three Irish, one German and one French passport were also used to gain entry to Dubai in order to carry out the assassination, rumoured to be the work of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Israel’s foreign minister has refused to issue a formal denial in line with their ‘policy of ambiguity’ on security matters; the same policy used by Lady Gaga on gender matters.

President Obama has approved $8bn in federal loan guarantees to build the first two new nuclear power plants in the US since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Both plants are to be located in Georgia and built by energy firm Southern Company. Before you ask, yes there is a town called Springfield in Georgia, no it’s not near either site and the CEO of Southern Company is called David Ratcliffe, not Montgomery Burns.

The US has also made headlines by appointing its first ambassador to Syria since the assassination of PM Rafik Hariri in 2005, possibly green-lighting the removal of sanctions imposed in 2004 due to Syrian support for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The move to improve US-Syrian relations is seen as a request for their help in stabilising the situation in Iraq and influencing Iran’s continued nuclear ambitions.

An inquest into the suicide of gay fashion designer Alexander McQueen has heard that he hanged himself in his closet. You couldn’t make it up. John Prescott said that his cameo on Gavin and Stacey has done more for his profile than 40 years in politics. Strange that no-one remembers him holding Princess Leia as his slave in Return of the Jedi. A Dubai student has been apprehended after racking up over $97k in traffic violations. He was forced to pay 70% of the fines immediately, or 10% more than Dubai World are proposing to offer their creditors. According to a University of Kentucky survey, men need better fitting condoms. Wonder how they’ll vanity size those. Colossus, super colossus and jumbo perhaps? The Houses of Parliament have been approved as a wedding venue to members of the public. It will mark the first time anyone has entered the building with honest intentions since Guy Fawkes.

And finally, those BrewDog boys are at it again. After the release of their 32.8% beer Tactical Nuclear Penguin (Echo News, issue 1), a German brewer, Schorschbrau, released the 40% strength Schorschbock. They have responded by bringing out the 41% Sink the Bismarck. I love their style, have purchased a bottle of it and TNP, will be drinking them somewhere in Val over Easter and accept bribery over the location and company in the form of cash, credit card or (female) full frontal nudity. Until next week, I’m off to clear a nice, high spot on the liver transplant list.