Get back in the garden shed

Dominic Roskrow goes head to head with a top British journalist

Jeremy Clarkson is a British journalist who has made a name for himself on television for his knowledge of motoring and the motoring industry. He also writes for the Sunday Times in London and along with his pal AA Gill, provides controversial, opinionated, inspired and often excellent prose that goes a long way to keeping old paper alive.

Mr Clarkson doesn't hold back, so when he turned his attentions to Scotland recently, I made sure I was sitting down before I read on. He didn't disappoint. His subject? Skiing.

You may recall that in the last issue I expressed concern over Scotland's weather and the fact that there was no snow on the Cairngorms when there should have been. Leaving aside the fact that Scotland got all its winter snow very late in February, the point was that the weather should concern us.

Clarkson doesn't agree. Indeed, he says, Scotland without snow is a good thing. The country, he says, should never have offered skiing in the first place.

“I would imagine anyone who tried skiing for the first time in the Cairngorms would come away from the experience with frostbite, hypothermia, iced-up hair and a passionate resolve to give up the sport for good,” he writes.

“Learning to ski in Scotland is a bit like learning to scuba dive in a quarry. You get the basics but not the point.”

If that has you spluttering into your porridge, then it's intended to. But there's more. It's good, he says, that the Glenshee Chairlift Company is in trouble.

“(It)...

To read the rest of this article you can do any of the following.

• By : Dominic Roskrow
• In : Editor's View
• Issue : 14
• Page : 3
• Words : 676