IRONY- all the bitter satisfaction of sarcasm without the dirty looks.

The traditional climates of some ski resorts are beginning to take a terrible turn for the better. Its a calamity. Communities which had long since given up any hope of clement weather and succumbed to the jingle of global tourism are now undone by a climate switch partly fuelled by - you guessed it - global tourism. They finally get the break in the weather their grandparents dreamt of, and they're ruined. All that money and all those hopes tied up in pink puffa jackets and expensive cocktails for so brief a bubble. How many other parts of the world currently alarmingly dependant on trans-global partying are staring down the barrell of this particular gun, I wonder. Tomorrow I shall think of the actual people involved and hang my head in shame.

Any accusations of unresolved weak-kneed ski-envy will be rigourously dealt with by my legal team - Messrs Reedham and Wheape of the Robin Getz Partnership.