It’s what we all say when it gets really cold skiing, it’s like a code word that we expect people to know. It’s one of those little lies we say that are nearly true, and in fact are only not true because we didn’t get a picture of a thermometer the precise moment we thought we were about to die of cold.
Really what we want to say is it was F’ing cold, but sadly no one has been inarticulate enough to invent a swear word that is explicit enough. So we lie, just a little to make a point.
We do it all the time, especially around holiday and mainly around the more extravagant of our travels. Skiing, Safari, Pony trekking across the Andes, Dolphin riding around the Galapagos all come with a hint of a lie to make our stories sound better, never more so than if you write them down!
When was the last time anyone told the truth about how long a long drive took?? “I once drove from London to Inverness in 5.5hrs” – no you didn’t, but I like your chat.
Skiing has always given us the greatest scope for talking twaddle,
“Little Foo Foo was skiing when she was 7 months old, she’ll probably ski for England” It’s plain old b*llocks and in fact we all know Foo Foo wouldn’t get picked for the village tiddly winks team, but we let the lie go.
It’s part of the appeal of skiing, it’s very difficult to prove someone is talking nonsense when they say “we skied for 14 hours” “we skied so hard we covered the whole resort in 2 hours” “we were skiing at over 100kmh” it’s obviously all complete piffle paffle, but we soak up the lies and tales like a cheap sofa soaks up the smell of fags and BO.
But one thing ruined all the lies – Ski Tracks.
About 10 years ago or so some bright spark made this little blue app of doom, it quite simply records your top speed, distance covered and altitude skied throughout a day. It has just ruined a perfectly good ski holiday for me.
I really like skiing fast, its exciting and exhilarating and all those things. For a solid week I was topping the speed list amongst our group of friends in Georgia, when out of the corner of my eye on a particularly fast run one of them caught me…not what I had been expecting and not what I had planned – It was too late. 98kmh or 61mph. The bastard. (I won’t name him, I don’t want him taking more glory, but his name sounds like…Jon Pong Wees)
16.4 football pitches in 1 minute. That’s insanely fast. I couldn’t beat it. He had proof, Ski Tracks said so. I couldn’t argue, I couldn’t lie, there was no argument to be had. Look at the picture! It would actually be a massive exaggeration to say that it ruined my holiday…but I think that’s what this whole post is all about. So it ruined my whole holiday.
I have since deleted Ski Tracks. From now on I am going to continue lying and feeling like I won, even when I know I didn’t.
I stopped competing on this front when Camilla beat my previous quickest of 103km/hr with 107km/hr. I’ve since resigned all hope of ever reclaiming the crown.
Particularly galling because I think I got my top speed whilst falling over. Hers is legit.
This is the problem…no photo, no proof!
At least if you simply lied I would be forced to believe you.
Great content! Super high-quality! Keep it up! 🙂