The Echo Week 3 by The Val Echo

COVER ART By Olly Jobling @joblime_illustration Interview: Page 10

PROUDLY PRESENTED BY THE FOLIE DOUCE ART PROJECT Each week, the front cover of The Echo is going to be a different artwork produced by mostly local artists, but also several from further afield. This project is being very generously supported by La Folie Douce, whose contribution is allowing the artists to be paid ahead of time for their work, as both Folie and The Echo firmly believe in paying people for their skills. We want to encourage a community of creators and give people a space to use their talents, even if whilst out here, many are taking a break from “regular life”. Prints of the artwork are available to purchase on The Echo website, www.valecho. co.uk/shop, with profits going to the artists.

laging/ creating something in whatever medium takes your fancy, please get in touch by emailing contact@valecho.co.uk and we can discuss. Equally, if you’re interested in writing for the magazine or have ideas for a feature, drop us a line. At the end of the season, the plan is to hold an exhibition of all The Echo covers from the winter, and again Folie Douce is supporting this endeavour, as it fits with their creative vision. We can’t wait to see what the artists come up with each week and look forward to talking to them about their work and life in or

If you’re interested in drawing/painting/col-

out of the mountains.

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www.valecho.co.uk contact@valecho.co.uk Please recycle the magazine once you have read it. Or better still, hand it on to someone else. Contributors Sam Box, Ben Pryor, Caitlin Kennedy, Stephen McGurk, Alastair Nasmyth

RESORT GUIDE

The downlow on everything from the best restaurants to the numbers to call in an emergrcy.

SPOTLIGHT ON THE ARTIST

We chat to Olly Jobling, the designer of this week’s cover art about what kind of cat he is. The Cover Art is generously sponsored by La Folie Douce.

28 SPROG SEASON

New parents Al and Abi report on how season’s change with a child in tow

30 ROOMMATE ROULETTE

The trials and tribulations of finding a suitable non axe-wielding roommate. Stephen McGurk reports on his calamitous experience.

EVENT GUIDE

What’s on this week: -Town events -Bar nights -Sporting competitions

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14 OUT OF THE BUBBLE

A satirical spin on the week’s events from further afield than the Espace Killy.

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LEGENDS OF VAL

Quickfire questions with our seasonaire of the week.

PRO GEAR TIPS

Tips from the experts at Snowberry on how to not die becuase of your skis.

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SPOTLIGHT ON THE ARTIST

We sat down with Cover Artist Olly Jobling up at La Folie Douce to pick his brain.

How did you get into design in the first place? I was working for a rave while I was at Uni and was photoshopping random pictures to make collages. My boss asked me to do a poster and I said I’d give it a go. I had worked in illustrator before, all self taught, as a hobby. I realised it was faster to draw digitally than it was to draw on paper so it was a way to get a lot more ideas out. From there I launched Joblime about two years ago and through that I have got several jobs including this one at Arctic! Nice. What’s the weirdest job you’ve ever had? I was once paid in crystals to paint a Bulgarian woman’s house (Note: this story will be fully explored in a future edition of The Echo). I advertise as being able to draw anything and make it digital so I get a lot of random requests. Plus, I draw a lot of random, weird things anyway! When being creative, do you think more pencil and paper or digitally? Definitely more digital now because I come at it from more of a photo collage perspective so ‘how would this look if it was merged with that’ rather than ‘how

would I draw that with that light’. For me 10 it’s all about colours and palettes which you get more of with digital work. I do a bit of digital painting as well which is more vector style stuff in Illustrator. I’ve drawn quite tactile animals in this way that I really like. It’s basically a painting that I can do in a week rather than a month. Where do you get inspiration for your artwork? A lot of it is online or in books, I’ve got 20+ photography books at home! This is the reason why I started Paused Perception on Instagram, playing on the idea of collecting imagery in a continuing aesthetic - a bit like keeping a sketchbook at school. Tell us about your clothing Note: Olly designed the very shirt he is wearing and points to the slogan which reads ‘Cool clothes don’t make cool people’. That’s all I have to say about my clothes! Basically I make clothes that I like to wear and I like to wear random things I’ve just thought of. I’ve also just designed a long sleeve riding T-shirt for Afterjam and did the uniform for Arctic. And what is ‘Joblime’ all about? It is just a creative alias, I have it so I can use it in whatever capacity I need it - I don’t think of it as a company. I use it for DJing, Artwork, T-shirts, Princes name was a symbol - at what point can you turn your name into a symbol? Instead of Joblime I want to be the creative alias known as Joblime. I’m not necessarily looking for financial success it’s just the brand itself I want to build. Thankyou so much Olly. Oh wait, vital question- if you were a cat what would you get up to? I’d do a lot of lounging but in really high up and obscure places so no-one is bothering me and I get to have a chill time, but I suppose thats why I live in Val d’sere.

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PLANKS PHOTO COMPETITION

Each week the winner of the Planks Photo Competition wins themselves a Planks beanie from the flagship store in town. This weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s winner: Thomas Davison Enter at www.valecho.co.uk/competitions

popularity soared after the Gulf War, but re-14 neging on his ‘Read my lips, no new taxes’ pledge and domestic policy questions led to him losing to Bill Clinton after just one term. Whether siring George W or choosing Dan Quayle as a running mate was his I’ll spare you the torpor of Theresa goneby- lowest ebb, his finest for me was the note he left for Clinton on his arrival in the White May’s Chequered Brexit this week and leave House: ‘Your success is our country’s success. I will be rooting hard for you.’ Damocles’s Sword firmly in place, save to

OUT OF THE BUBBLE

reassure you it’s still being handled like

At the G20, Angela Merkel needed a cheat someone running backwards through a field sheet to brief her on the new Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison; given leadof dicks hoping nothing will go wrong. ers are replaced Down Under with the frequency of a Game of Thrones episode, who President George HW Bush has died at the can blame her. The US and China agreed age of 94. A WW2 pilot, he was shot down to suspend their trade war for 90 days; over the Pacific, had to bail out and was Huawei’s CFO was then arrested in Canada rescued by a US submarine, preparing him with the US seeking extradition over Iranian well for political life. Becoming President in sanctions violations, which China deemed a 1989 after serving as Ronald Regan’s VP, his human rights violation; hello kettle, this

is pot. France has suspended planned fuel duty rises, due to take effect in January, for six months after continued rioting. Macron wouldn’t climb down himself, presumably because he’s already so close to the ground, so he let PM Edouard Philippe make the announcement. Burger King is now offering dog food; before you ask why this is news, it’s called a Dogpper and is specifically marketed to dogs rather than destined for or made from them. A vegan personal trainer drinks a daily smoothie with a teaspoon of semen supplied by her best friend; clearly didn’t understand her doctor’s advice to get extra protein from nuts. A man asked his Tinder date to wear black to their date, then took her to his grandmother’s funeral; grief may be nature’s greatest aphrodisiac, but if you’re using Wedding Crasher theory to convert a Tinder match you’re overthinking

it. PETA followed last week’s attempt to change the name of the town of Wool by championing a Swansea University academic who wants phrases like ‘bring home the bacon’ removed to avoid offending animal lovers and increase awareness of animal cruelty; that’s killing two birds with one stone. And finally, a man proposed to his girlfriend by putting the engagement ring on his penis and asking her to fellate him. She was delighted with the 1.6 carat diamond; if he’s endowed with something the same thickness as her ring finger then without it he’d be rather surplus to requirements. Until next week, I’m off to recommend a protein supplement.

LEGENDS OF VAL Every week we take a closer look into the fascinating lives of some of Val’s finest seasonaires. Up this week, Bert Bender, who is embarking on his 4th season.

18 What can’t you live without here? Getting up the mountain is so important for me, Val is a big resort but you can feel quite trapped if you’re just working and drinking all week. Also happy hour, I couldn’t live without happy hour. Here here. What do you want to be when you grow up? I’d love to run my own bar or restaurant, but if that doesn’t work out then maybe the next mayor of Val, I heard there’s a position going. You’ve got our vote. How did you get the Go-Go dancer job at Fall Line? Jono and Ben had availability one night so I thought I’d get on the bar and show them my moves, I still haven’t heard if I got the position.

Bert in a rare moment of wearing clothes

Life motto? Either “Just send it”, or “one more”. Proudest moment in Val? Being asked to be Seasonaire of the week by my favourite mountain magazine. And most embarrassing? Oh dear, well I know you guys have probably seen or documented most of them. Losing shoes on a night out, being locked out on my balcony naked, passing out in various locations, the list goes on... What would you be doing if you weren’t doing seasons? Probably something boring like uni, I started my first season straight after finishing school in Australia and I couldn’t be more happy with my decision.

Good luck with that. Your beach bod is legendary in town. Any advice on how to achieve such a god-like physique? A very well balanced diet of alcohol and all of the cheese France has to offer. If you could be any cartoon character, who would you be and why? Fred from Scooby Doo, because he’s got a good head of hair and his Mrs is well tidy. We’d probably describe you as Shaggy but ok. Thanks Bert, see you on the D-floor.

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PRO GEAR TIPS If your employer has an arrangement with a local shop who lends equipment to you free for the season, you’ll probably be picking your skis up very soon. One of the most important things is to make sure your bindings are set properly and safely, to minimise the risk of serious injury and a ruined season –a torn knee ligament can take a lot longer to heal than a broken bone! Ski bindings are pretty sophisticated pieces of kit and they have to perform a difficult balancing act between holding your boot securely on the ski in normal skiing and releasing it quickly in a fall so that your knee isn’t twisted while stuck in the ski. Both functions are equally important – a “pre-release” where the ski comes off for no apparent reason can have equally serious consequences. Without going too much into the details of it, this involves the ski shop working out how tightly they need to compress the springs in the heel and toe pieces to create the optimum pressure for each individual so that the binding holds when it should and releases when a fall becomes inevitable. All Alpine bindings these days have a common numbered scale which defines how tightly the spring is compressed. All the shop has to do is to work out which number is the appro-

priate one for each client and tighten the spring till the indicator reaches that number. There are various of methods of doing this, from a scientific calculation involving the diameter of the tibia to the “take a look at the client and guess” method! Most reputable ski shops however use either the method laid down by ISO norms or, in France, the slightly different AFNOR (French standards authority) norm. To do this, the shop should ask your weight, height and age as well as your ‘skier type”. This isn’t just a question of whether you’re a beginner, intermediate or advanced skier, it’s also to do with your aggression and style. Lastly they should take your boot sole length into account too – the length of the “lever” affects the amount of torque applied to the binding in a fall. Finally, a couple of warnings:Don’t over-estimate your ability or under-estimate your weight! Both have a significant effect on the correct and safe setting. You’ll improve quickly over the season, so don’t forget to go back to the shop to change your binding setting. (You might need to upgrade your skis too). Watch out for boots that are too big – too much movement in the boot dilutes or delays the force exerted on the bindings and can mean they don’t release when they should. And watch out for bindings that are way past their sell by date.

OFF PISTE SNOW REPORT

While off-piste snow depths are current- 24 ly quite sketchy below 2400 m, the new snowfalls will change all that.

We’ve had a very mixed bag of off-piste conditions this past week. The wind’s been Report on the current snow conditions for playing a massive role, blowing the snow Off-Piste skiers, and a look at the coming around the mountain. In exposed areas and week’s weather. Brought to you by Henry’s mountain tops, the snow’s become dense Avalanche Talks. and crusted, if not blown off altogether. Conditions have been a lot more consistOff piste snow and weather report 07 ent a little lower down at around 2800 m, Nov – 15 Dec for Savoie, French Alps where it’s a bit more sheltered, and we’ve sometimes even ended up with a The big news is that it is going to get cold- surprise bonus 15 to 20 cm of fresh power and we are expecting significant snowfall der. We have found some great snow up over the weekend especially on Sunday. around 3000 m though. It’s always worth The drop in temperature starts on Friday going out there to see what you might find! night and next week we will see freezing levels down at 300 to 800m whereas during After mild conditions and rain at the bethis last week the freezing level was much ginning of this past week, it’s now getting higher between 2000m and 3000m. colder and snow conditions are improving. The weather looks brighter on Tuesday and Wednesday, after that we will enter a prolonged period of unsettled weather and generally cold to very cold. This will continue up to and beyond Christmas. There will be bright spells in between the snow and clouds. But we are expecting a northerly and northwesterly flow of air bringing regular snow and clouds and cold weather. Off-Piste Snow & Weather

The rain-snow limit has recently been at around 2400-2500 m (give or take based on local microclimates). Below 2500 the snowpack conditions have become a lot more stable due to the snowpack ‘humidified’ by the rain – compacted down and refrozen. At higher altitudes above the rain/snow limit, it’s much less stable. There’s been significant natural avalanche activity over the last few days, with slabs popping out and releasing. Some big slopes have slid. Henry reports that most of this activity seems to be localised i.e. not entire slopes coming down, but slab releases big enough to be dangerous. He’s noticed recent avalanche activity above 2400 m on all slope orientations. The primary reason for all this diverse avalanche activity is a sensitive weak cohesionless layer of ‘faceted grains’ on all aspects /all slope orientations above this 2400 m threshold – this also confirmed by reports from piste patrollers. This will make

25 for a particularly unstable and dangerous snowpack during and after the snowfalls.

tle less than 5-10cm around 2000 meters).

SUNDAY DECEMBER 9 Off-Piste Snow & Weather In the mountains, the conditions remain unsettled. Expect a storm (gusts 100 to 150 Once the snow comes, we’ll be staying km / h from 2500 meters) with snowfall on mostly on slopes less steep than 30°. If we and off. Initially snow from 600-700 meters do decide to enter into areas that have then from 1800 to 1900 meters then down slopes steeper than 30°, it will be after a lot to 1000 meters. Some places will have of thought and discussion. We will then be snow all day (about 30-50cm at 2000 mesticking with the decision making and risk ters). reduction HAT Framework: avoiding all terrain traps, keeping our distances between MONDAY 10 AND TUESDAY 11 DECEMeach other as we ski, stopping at islands of BER Some snow and showers until Tuesday at midday; then expect the sun to come back The rain-snow limit is 900 to 1200 meters. Wind variable and light but some strong gusts. WEDNESDAY 12 AND THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13 Mostly sunny, then chances of rain and snow. The rain-snow boundary is in the valleys. Weak wind, variable. safety and generally looking out for each other. The daily avalanche bulletins are now starting to appear, and are full of vital information. Always check them before you go off-piste, talk to the pisteurs, and look what’s happening for yourself. Val d’Isère’s avalanche risk will rise with any significant fresh snowfall accompanied by wind. See our descriptions of what all the avalanche danger ratings mean. Detailed off-piste snow and weather forecast for 8 – 15 Dec SATURDAY 8 DECEMBER In the mountains, conditions remain windy (gusts 50 to 80 km / h from 2000-2500 meters). Cloud and snow with some clearings, Isotherm 0 to 1100-1300 meters. Some flurries fall at times up to 800 meters (a lit-

FRIDAY 14 AND SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15 Chance of snow and showers. The rainsnow limit is 300 to 700 meters. Tip of the week Read the avalanche bulletin. There’s a lot of new snow in the weather forecast for the next 7 days. And it will get much colder. The avalanche bulletin reports that there are faceted grains of snow in a weak layer under some slabs above 2500m. So read the avalanche bulletin to see how this develops as the new snow falls. In many places, it will fall on a weak layer. It is important to understand where the weak layer exists. This will determine the stability of the new snowpack during and after the new/recent snowfalls. Enjoy the fresh snow. Safety is Freedom!

ROOMMATE ROULETTE By Stephen McGurk Ah the seasonal apartment hunt. What a joyous experience, desperately trying to find several square inches to park yourself and your plethora of belongings for 6 months. And that doesn’t even factor in the high probability of getting stuck sharing with at best, a socially inept weirdo; at worst a knife wielding psychopath. Which brings me onto the subject of this article. In a bid to avoid such a calamitous situation, I decided to jump the gun, put all of my hard earned cash down on an apartment for two and recruit a room mate myself. So a string of prospective room-mates manoeuvered themselves along the narrow hallway of the studio to view my tiny palace. My ‘room’ was semi-partitioned, but the lucky winner would be sleeping on a pull-out sofa in the middle of the living space. Perfect if you didn’t want any privacy whatsoever. The bathroom was ancient, and the kitchenette had the benefit of being so small that you could stand anywhere in the room and still prepare a meal. The only real highlight of the gaff was the ranging balcony with spectacular views of the bins. This was my main selling point. “Yeah the apartment is for all intents and purposes a cupboard, but you can spend your day lounging on this beautiful balcony”, (“soaking up the sweet smell of trash”- I didn’t add). The first person to view the studio was a Spanish girl who very politely, but immediately, turned it down. An English guy dropped by, drank three cups of coffee, destroyed the toilet and left. And then along came Pierre, who fell firmly into the latter category of aforementioned bad roommate scenarios. Pierre arrived on a Friday. From his incessant phone calls and messages prior to

his arrival I knew it wasn’t going to work. 28 The timbre of his voice sounded way older and I could tell he was nowhere near chilled enough. He rang me at least ten times during the week to make sure he could come and see the apartment. He hadn’t arrived in resort yet but he was adament he would take the bed for the season. Even after all these set-up phone calls he chose the much-maligned surprise arrival technique; turning up out of the blue, at midnight with luggage and skis in tow. He entered; flung his orange ski-jacket across the studio to reveal a full-set of body armour underneath, then prior to introductions he began ranting about the size of the studio. Don’t get me wrong, I was aware the place was a shit-hole, but by-Christ it was my shit-hole. “Ok” I thought, “Cya later”. But as it happened, Pierre, had nowhere else to go and demanded in his strong Eastern European accent to stay the night. Call it a gut reaction, but I didn’t particularly like this guy. Being perfectly honest, he terrified me. But I’m not one to throw someone out into the snow at midnight. I’m Irish – we’re better than that. “You want sandwich?” Pierre asked. “No thanks man, I’ve just eaten.” I lied. Pierre dug into his duffle bag. He pulled out a huge hunk of meat and a crust of bread, clicked open a 6-inch blade, cut off a piece of rancid meat, ripped off some bread and chowed down while spewing crumbs all over the carpet. In a state of panic, I took a kitchen-knife to bed that night and slept with it under my pillow. It was probably the first time I’ve been genuinely scared for my life. After barely an hour’s sleep, my alarm went off and I burst out of bed making as much racket as possible to try and wake Pierre. “Good night’s sleep Pierre?” I hollered. “Yis, yis, very good”. Good for you pal, good for you. I stood in the kitchenette eating cereal when Pierre crawled out of bed and started doing his

29 morning stretches. Unfortunately, I remem-

ber this image vividly- he wore a mid-length yellow T-shirt...but nothing else. And there they were. His pert buttocks flexed in front of me, burning into my retinas as I choked on a mouthful of Coco-Pops. “C’mon Pierre! Put some pants on man”. Call me unreasonable, but I am of the opinion that it is never, EVER acceptable to do stretches barely clothed in front of a complete stranger. There’s certainly no chance this maniac was staying for the rest of the season. I frogmarched him out the door at 8.18am so I could catch first lifts– and told him about a nearby hostel. A day of snowboarding took my mind off the horrific sleepless night I’d had and by the time I got off the hill I’d almost completely forgotten about Pierre and his mentally scarring stretches. But I was in for a rude awakening. When I got back to the apartment that evening, there was my unwelcome squatter.

“I think I join”, he said. “What’s that?” “You. I join you here.” “What? Oh, eh, no, no!” “I join”, he repeated. He pulled out a grand in cash and tried to force it into my hand. Now that’s a very tempting offer for a lad who’s just spent an arm, a leg and then some an apartment smaller than most club toilet. But hell-no was I going to let this maniac ruin my first eason with his prehistoric eating habits and even more bizarre views on what was socially acceptable. Instead, I insisted on helping Pierre with his bags to the nearest hostel. He confirmed that I’d made the right decision by unnervingly walking three paces behind me the whole time. As soon as he was through the doors, I yelped with joy and pent up relief at not having been murdered in my sleep and skipped home to my haven of safety. So take care when choosing your roommates. They might put you off your breakfast.

NOTES FROM THE NURSERY SLOPE Updates from Abi and Al Nasmyth as they take their baby on a ski season. Al: Packing. Packing for any season isn’t easy. Should I take all 10 of my Holister sweat pants? Is 2 pairs of moon boots too many? But when we decided to take our 4-month-old son on our season, it opened a whole new can of worms. When my partner Abi got pregnant, it wasn’t long before she was planning what we’d get up to on her maternity “holiday”. Luckily, due to my amazing conception choreography, this winter has fallen slap bang in the middle of her very generous post natal leave. Result! We were going to break the mold. We weren’t going to let having a baby end our season plans. We could juggle nappies with pow-days, breast feeding and park laps and tummy time at happy hour. In the famous last words of so many parents: how hard could this be…? Our first idea was to drive out together. Even before the wee man was born he’d turned our modest spare room into a scene from storage wars so we’d need to take our van. One of the bonuses of the long drive out for most is the ability to take all those luxuries that you normally have to live without. Maybe we could stop at a few vinyards or medieval towns on the way and fill any receptacle available with cheap plonk to take the sting out of resort alcohol prices.

Sadly it looked like we wouldn’t be able to do a booze run. Due to the logistics of infant transport, multiple stops were looking likely. When you have a child you end up acquiring lots of child manuals either through the stubbornness of not wanting to ask your parents for help or your friends and family’s lack of confidence in your abilities. Most of these manuals firmly suggest that young children shouldn’t spend longer than about 2hours in a car seat or they will end up like Tom Cruise (I mean short - not the front man of a cult). Fitting in these stops to straighten out his spine, more stops to feed him and then a couple more for his weakling parents to rest was moving the ETA from a 21st century time frame to one that might be expected before the invention of the automobile. As much as I’d like to lazily meander through the champagne region taking in the odd chateau, I should probably be saving for my child’s first house deposit. The travel plans evidently needed changing. Abi would take the luxury of low budget airline and enjoy all the coo-ing from passengers as our baby did no more to disturb them than gurgle and look cute. I would make a Mad Max inspired run for the hills carrying our special cargo of baby crap.

I’m a lightweight, streamline packer. I’d like to say I’m an alpinist: fast and light, but in reality I’m too lazy to drag a heavy bag through airports or train stations. So that’s how I intended to approach the task of choosing what baby related kit we needed to take with us. The good thing about babies is that they’re small and so are all their clothes, but like a heavy drinking chalet host, they have little control of their bowels so require many changes of clothes every day. The other difficulty is the damn thing keeps getting bigger.

So not only does he need an average of 2.5 outfits per day and enough to last the week without using the washing machine, but he also requires enough sizes to cover an unspecified increase in weight over the next 4 months. It was starting to look like I’d need a trailer as well as the van.

poles may have moved a little but I’ll still be able to smash out a few fun Palafour runs to start with and he’ll be on solids soon.

Current deluded season goals (let’s see how these go!): • 1 full day on the hill per week, • 3 mini shreds a week (swing by on Al’s Mum’s the word: lunch hour to be relieved of child and grab a It’s six years since I accidentally got a real job few blasts), back in the UK and stopped doing seasons; • 2 evening climbs (we need to find a how the hell did that happen?! Watching third wheel, but the idea is that we’ll be able winter through an Instagram smugness winto swap holding wee un as apparently it is dow from my office desk, consoled only by frowned upon to hold a baby whilst belayholidays to visit Al in whichever snow hole ing), he’d based himself in, was starting to wear • Join baby swim class, meet some thin. So, when my oven found a bun in it French mums and become bilingual last winter, rendering me a fat fragile egg for • On down time, during baby nap time, the entirety of one of the best snow seasons gain a new qualification that will enhance for many a donkey’s year, I powered through career. with a mission to get back those missed pow- What could go wrong? der days. How hard could it be to pump out some milk, leave the wee man with Al for the day and get some turns in? We’re four months in and that plan is starting to come together. Well we’re definitely headed out but it turns out those small beings are quite demanding. Who knew?! So far, I think I’ve managed three consecutive hours away from the boob guzzler. The bottle training regime was admittedly hindered by Al, in a rather elaborate plan to get out of changing nappies, breaking his collar bone at the local fridge (he claims he’s an instructor, so you think he’d be able to snowboard without breaking things by now). However small victories, he takes a bottle now (the wee man, not Al) but the trouble is, expressing takes ages sitting with an annoying electronic mooing machine (it does actually sound like a mooing cow) and you can’t just pump out a job lot one day and fill up your freezer. So just give him formula right, it’s not going to kill him? True, but if you don’t feed him you end up in a surprising amount of mammary pain and I don’t much fancy having to manually decant behind a tree. As a result, piste

TALK OF THE TOWN Defiled sleep.

Alex (everyone’s favourite ginger doorman) arrived back to Val, looking forward to a good nights sleep in fresh bedsheets. However, on his return he discovered an open condom wrapper on his bed, his new Swedish flatmate’s underwear on the floor and sheets that bore the distinctive scent of a cocorico barman. In a fit of fury, Alex’s face turned the same colour as his hair.

Megan: Yeah that works! Spaniard: Really? Megan: NO. (Had to listen to some ‘Reggaeton’ after to see what all the fuss was about. The verdict? Don’t.)

Quote of the Week

Callum was totally unaware of the sudden influx of Spanish students to the resort. However, on acquiring this knowledge, he enthusiastically growled ‘ME GUSTA’ before making this face and bounding into the club.

Pass the Aux

We were extremely impressed this week by the apparent patience of Dicks’ resident DJ Megan.

First impressions matter Overheard: Spaniard: We are from Spain, can you play Reggaeton? Megan: No, sorry. We only play house music. Spaniard: But what if more Spanish people come? Megan: No. I don’t even have any Reggaeton. Spaniard: What if you plug my phone in?

One new Danois barmaid made a great first impression on her first day in Val. Within 10 minutes of arriving, she was on her way to Folie with some of the other staff, and a very long day of boozing ensued. She ended up at Club 21 where the contents of her stomach made an appearance at the bar. Even more unfortunately, this occurred in front of her bosses Martin & Henrik. She was swiftly asked to leave the premises.

tion of the many overlooking neighbours 42 who witnessed the couple in shock, stood Now for a story we have been given minutes before publishing but on the condition by the window watching the fire die out totally starkers. of anonymity. Last night, a hot and steamy encounter between two seasonaires nearly In a further peculiar turn of events, only became a hot and firey debacle. The chain hours later when the couple had to go to of events was set into motion when ’Chalet work, there were footprints in the snow Girl’ insisted on getting busy before eating up to the window and NO PIZZA TO BE FOUND... their takeaway pizzas. Once the brief encounter was over, they popped the pizzas in the oven to warm them up and got in the shower.

PLAYING WITH FIRE

On leaving the bathroom they discovered the kitchen full of smoke and flames roaring: ‘Chalet Girl’ had not considered the issues with putting cardboard pizza boxes in the oven. ‘Chalet Boy’ threw the windows open and gestured to throw the flaming box out. The act was a success and the If you have any information regarding the couple/building were saved. However, all whereabouts of the aforementioned pizza, the incendiary commotion drew the attenplease contact the Gendarmes.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH

Callum - Arctic Juice Cafe

Dustin - Stranger Things

ICONIC

two

‘80S meet as

INSTITUTIONS heads to

DICK’S TEA BAR 14th & 15th December, 2018