Many skiers seem unaware that the speed comes from the aerodynamism of the tuck, and tot from holding your poles up to the sky like a radio antenna.

Before Poppy was a screamy metalcore goddess, she was still awesome. 39 days to first Poppy show. Which is bittersweet, because it means only 37 more days sliding this season.

For the first time in 30 years I'm not leaving Europe this year. Just booked a holiday in France. Tromping round the hills pointing and staring at Andy Goldsworthy art. It's usually a 10 day trek, but that looks too leisurely for a rampant ADHDer. Gonna do it in six. Holidays aren't meant to be fun.

My “push past the Paysants” pass worked today… First lift!

Wordle 1,711 5/6 ⬜️⬜️⬜️🟩🟨 ⬜️🟩⬜️🟩🟩 ⬜️🟩⬜️🟩🟩 ⬜️🟩⬜️🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 That was just miserable. Game of chance. Connections Puzzle #989 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟪🟪🟪 As a Star Trek fan, this was very hard. Rettel #835 30pts ⬜️⬜️🟦🟦 ⬜️🟦🟦🟦 ⬜️🟦⬜️⬜️ ⬜️🟦🟦⬜️ Always happiest when my Rettel score starts with '3'.

Bonsoir à tous. Our evening commenced with a lil sunbow.

Well that was unplanned and unexpected. But if you add both today’s sessions I did a 10k vert day by accident.

My favourite bit of Porteilh, which is ostensibly a blue run, is this section. Once it’s bumped up, it’s a pretty dark red. Intermediates are terrified of it. So in the afternoon lift lines stay short, while every other lift in the resort is crammed.

I know I call rapist traitor Trump a fascist… but I think I’d be worse If I had absolute power! People who stand in chairlift unload zones and people who pull the bar down before checking fellow riders first would be fed to bears.

Looking for Liverpool punks, Good Grief, I accidentally discovered Japanese emo pop-punkers Good Grief. It’s really wild to hear them throw Japanese into songs that could otherwise come from Astoria.

Palantir suing magazine for telling the truth. That scans. Keep these crazy fascist creeps out of our data.

no cheating, your last saved photo of a celebrity is your therapist Actually, mine is The Rapist.

Got target fixation on a “dark spot” in the middle of a wide open slope on first run. Nearly rode over the biggest dog shit I have ever seen. Some grem is gonna have a stinker of a fall when that melts

Drop A Crush From Your Youth

Wordle 1,710 4/6 🟩⬜️🟨⬜️⬜️ 🟩⬜️⬜️🟩🟩 🟩⬜️🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #988 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟨🟨🟨🟨 Rettel #834 32pts ⬜️⬜️🟦🟦 ⬜️🟦🟦⬜️ 🟦🟦🟦⬜️ ⬜️🟦⬜️⬜️

Porteilh is the nearest slope to my apartment. Strava says I’ve ridden it 287 times, but that ignores all the times I take the freeride, or the “black” variant. Must be pushing 1000 times.

Peaches, Manchester. Fuck it, why not?

Is the mocktail of OJ and lemonade a Dimosa or a Buck’s Jizz?

Yesterday’s wet slag has resisted piste grooming. So instead of being flat with corduroy is gently undulating in a way that makes it impossible to maintain a predictable edge when bombing.

The school holidays are making the lift lines long, and a heat wave is making the snow average. But down in the valley is gonna be 22ºC this week and Lourdes has a new pumptrack... might get some skateboarding done. Though the school holidays might make the pumptrack busy.

I made a post yesterday about how the sunshine outside my ski apartment was “too bwite for my poow wittew eyes”. I see now that this is the kind of post only a wanker would make. I apologise and I’ll try not to do it again. I’m going with the “low blood sugar” excuse.

Poppy Countdown: 41 says to the first concert

Wordle 1,709 4/6 🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️🟨 🟨⬜️⬜️🟨⬜️ ⬜️🟨⬜️🟨⬜️ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #987 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪 Rettel #833 25pts 🟦⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🟦⬜️🟦⬜️ ⬜️🟦⬜️🟦 ⬜️⬜️🟦🟦

What’s the etiquette when you smash a champagne glass? Buy a new set, or smash another and pretend it was a set of four?

On Days like today the view from my lounge window is so blindingly bright that I can’t see my TV or computer screen, so I keep the curtains closed all day.

Avvy bags are much more stylish today than when I bought mine. Part of me wants a nicer looking one. And part of me doesn’t want to spend €600-€1,100 on something I hope to never use and that I have a perfectly functional one of already.

24 hours may be a long time in politics it’s a lifetime in freeriding. Went back up Le Pic du Midi today to get away from the crowds which arrived later in the day because they’re drive ups. Couldn’t have been more different than yesterday.

Superb weather, superb snow, the pistes are not crowded and the queues are not long. It seems Saturday is changeover day. Smash a few pieces and give the son time to soften the big mountain slope. Then I’ll hit that after lunch.

SaturdADHD… i’m wandering round my apartment, wondering what to do next. You’re going Snowboarding… Put your fucking snowboard boots on.

Wordle 1,708 4/6 🟩⬜️⬜️🟨⬜️ 🟩⬜️⬜️🟨⬜️ 🟩⬜️⬜️⬜️🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #986 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪 Rettel #832 32pts ⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🟦🟦🟦⬜️ 🟦🟦🟦🟦 ⬜️🟦🟦⬜️

La Mongie is a freeride goldmine. Our crown jewel is the drop you can see at 1:40 in this video But it can only be ridden like that on a couple of days a year; when there has been a dump, and no wind. We've certainly had a dump, but the winds have been insane, and that drop is scoured and hard.

Vanessa 35€ I fucking love France!

Instead of whining about the lift lines, after my 11 o’clock meeting, gonna go up the big boy slope where these vacationers aren’t allowed*. * Strictly they are allowed, they just haven’t got the required pass and avalanche bag.

Made first tracks on first run. Made a huge cock of myself on second. Wrong line choice saw me sat on the edge of a cliff. Had to bum-shuffle back up a steep icy slope. Everybody in about 20 chairs witnessed my ignominy.

Just saw three people on the left while I’m still booting up and nearly spat my dummy. Then I realised that it’s the top station staff.

Wordle 1,707 6/6 🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ⬜️⬜️🟩🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩⬜️⬜️ 🟩🟩🟩⬜️⬜️ 🟩🟩🟩⬜️⬜️ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #985 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪 Rettel #831 30pts ⬜️🟦🟦🟦 🟦⬜️🟦🟦 ⬜️🟦⬜️⬜️ ⬜️🟦⬜️⬜️

Some of the time, most in fact and despite punk being my favourite genre, this is my favourite song. Mainly for the lyric, though the delivery is masterful. A whole story arc in three brief verses; no chorus, no bridge, no refrain. Perfect concision.

This very pretty fungus/mould has grown in my food waste bin, which mainly contains coffee grounds and egg-shells. This has never happened before. But since that early Twilight Zone(???) episode where mold from a meteorite grows on everything, I have been very fungi-squeamish.

People saying the 88 avalanche casualties this year were preventable never say that the 300+ annual UK motorcycle deaths are preventable. I think most freeriders (and motorcyclists; I am/have been both) would rather die doing what they love than live without ever doing it.

Wordle 1,706 5/6 ⬜️⬜️🟩⬜️⬜️ ⬜️⬜️🟩⬜️⬜️ ⬜️🟨🟩⬜️🟨 🟨🟩🟩⬜️🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #984 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟨🟨🟨🟨 Rettel #830 27pts ⬜️🟦🟦⬜️ ⬜️🟦🟦⬜️ 🟦⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🟦🟦⬜️⬜️

After yesterday's blue skies, I went to bed skeptical of today's 50cm forecast. But we've had 14cm already, and it's pleuting with neige out there. Saturday's gonna be sunny, and I'm gonna spend all day trying not to die in an avalanche.

In a past life, I was a magazine editor/writer, in a fairly low-brow commoditised specialist sector. We did a lot of in-house freelancing, and generally got paid between £60-100 per thousand words. We were writing about stuff we knew and not a lot of research was required.

Freeride looked sweet today. But it had a wind scoured crust that even my fat ass could not break through. We're forecast for 45cm tomorrow. If we get it, it will prolly be 'lanchy as fuck. Ima drop the green. If that does not slip, Ima go for amber... then red. I will be wearing my avalanche bag.

Fuck off to lunch you crazy French bastards!!!

2026 shaping up gig-wise. One down, 10 more lined up.

Great snow, great weather, horrible lift queues. I’ll be back at lunchtime..

Turns out Guitar Wolf is supporting Lords of Altamont. Two of my favourite live bands - 25€

After nine years, The Lords of Altamont are back with a new album on April 10th delivering more heavy psychedelic sounds. And they are playing a gig "near" me in May. Tickets acquired. What they lack in originality, they make up for in live energy.

Wordle 1,705 4/6 ⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️🟨 ⬜️🟨🟨🟩⬜️ 🟨🟩⬜️🟩⬜️ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #983 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟪🟪🟪 Rettel #829 27pts ⬜️⬜️🟦🟦 🟦🟦🟦⬜️ ⬜️🟦🟦⬜️ ⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️

Can't believe Modern Toss has been on Bluesky all this time and I didn't know. I love how they accurately depict totally normal everyday conversations.