The final of my Top Ten Winter Sports Tips will look at Safety. It may not be as sexy as saving money or the environment, but nevertheless it is important. It is a controversial subject following the untimely death of the actress Natasha Richardson earlier in 2009. However, safety is little more than common sense. Don’t read these tips as a must do list. They are advice, you are free to disagree or ignore them, but if you do and get injured, then please don’t go claiming off your insurance and pushing up my Winter Sports Premiums!
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If you are a learner skier or snowboarder, then get lessons. Learn the FIS Code. You can get lessons at home on a dry ski slope or indoor ski slope. That way you will learn in your own language and be ready for action at the resort.
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Get fit before you go. This will reduce your risk of accident by strengthening your muscles, You will also not tired so quickly on the pistes.
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Use correctly fitting skis and snowboards. Lots of accidents occur because people borrow equipment from friends. Skis and snowboards and boots need to be matched to the user.
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Wear the right clothing and and other safety gear depending upon your activity. The most obvious requirement is clothing suitable for the predicted weather conditions. Helmets, wrist protectors, impact shorts and back protectors can save some nasty injuries.
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Read up on the weather forecast and read the advice at the resort regarding avalanche risk.
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If you intend riding off piste, then get trained in avalanche awareness and the use of transceivers, probes and shovels to locate buried riders. Take a trained guide with you.
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Don’t forget sunscreen for your face. The thinner atmosphere and reflections off the snow mean that it is very easy to get sunburn to exposed skin.
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Take plenty of water / drinks and high energy food / snacks with you, when you go riding.
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Try to ride with friends so that you can look out for each other. Put the number of the Piste Rescue into your mobile phone along with the number of who they should contact In Case of Emergency (store as ICE).
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Make sure you have adequate insurance. If you are the wrong side of the marker poles you may not be covered. A helicopter rescue can cost 20,000 Euros so check beforehand and carry a copy of the cover with you.
There are a lot more points that I could add, but above all have fun!
Tags: FIS code, safety, ski, snowboard, tips
Twitter is an excellent tool if used responsibly. I am fairly new to the Twittersphere, but already I am finding some activities very annoying. Here is my Top 10 Terrible Tweets on Twitter.
Spoof Twitter profile
10. I am not going to start with Tweets but Profiles. How many times do you read; “I am an expert at SEO, Web2.0, blah, blah, blah. My site is rated No1 on blah , blah , blah”?
Come on who are you trying to kid? If you were that good, you would not be posting tweets with links to your site. If you are that good, then go and spend time with your family and let someone else Tweet for your company!
9.”I am listening to “Your song” on Blah.FM”.
To be honest I don’t care. All you are doing is Tweeting a plug for the online radio station. Now if you were to Tweet “Listening to: “I fought the Law, by the Clash”; I am reliving that failed bank raid, I carried out”. Then it might well catch my attention!
8. “Good morning, Thank you and welcome to all my new followers who joined over night”.
I really don’t like this. It comes across only a little better than the auto DM’s sent to new followers. This is just the thing that those operating pyramid follow schemes post everyday.
7. “RT @twitrant New web page: How Twitter can change the world. http;//www.twitrant.com/change_the_world.htm”
ReTweeting masses of Tweets to inflate your number of updates. Unless your followers are likely to be interested in a Tweet, don’t do it. If you can, say why you liked that the Tweet you are ReTweeting.
6. “ @twitrant New web page: How Twitter can change the world. http;//www.twitrant.com/change_the_world.htm Please Retweet this”.
Asking followers for ReTweets, MrTweets, followfridays, Stumbles. etc. I’m sure I don’t need to explain this. If the Tweets are good, then they will get Re Tweeted and if we think Tweeple or their web sites are worthy of recommendations, we will give them. Its a sure sign of a commercial outfit, when they ask for this.
5. “New web page: How Twitter can change the world. http;//www.twitrant.com/change_the_world.htm”
Twitter streams that are nothing more than an RSS feed of their owners web site. So you joined Twitter, but can’t actually be bothered to Tweet about anything, so instead you add a widget to your site to automatically Tweet your web pages. Sorry, you will have to try harder.
4. “Pandemic of copied news headlines”
Looking up the news sites and posting the latest news headline. There are a few Tweeple that do this every single day. They just get a news headline, make a TinyURL , then Tweet it. No thinking required.
My browser already has a BBC News Headlines button so I don’t need your Tweeted copy. Now if you were to give your reaction or feelings to that news maybe I would be interested.
3. “Look how wonderful I am, I have 2000 followers”.
Don’t you realise that all you need to do to get followers is to find out those who will most likely follow you back and follow them? Of course its also bad form to brag.
2. “A quotation on Twitter only needs Control C and Control V - John Williams 2009″.
Excessive use of quotations annoys me and I believe Twitter, as they have suspended accounts for excessive use. Looking up quotations is real easy on the Internet. Unless your quotation describes how you feel at a particular moment or reinforces a point, then don’t Tweet them. A long list of your favourite quotations just wastes bandwidth. Furthermore, as internet servers have quite substantial carbon footprints, they are hastening climate chaos.
1. “Click on the link and you’ll get thousands of followers”.
There are lots of pyramid follow schemes available for Twitter. As I said before all you need to do to get followers is to follow people, who will follow you back. Then you could have thousands are even hundreds of thousands following you. However you could also be following thousands of Tweeple as well. What good is that?
That’s my rant over. Actually, Twitter can be very useful and will only improve as stream filtering produces more relevant Tweets to your likes. Twibes seems like a good start in this direction, with Tweets grouped by like minded people and including up to three keywords. I am hopeful that Twitter will be an even better experience in the future. Which Tweets annoy you on Twitter? Where do you see the future of Twitter?
Tags: cut and paste, quotations, terrible, tweets, Twitter
Wednesday of World Water Week so time for two more water saving tips for travellers.
Tip 5
Report any leaks to your accommodation provider immediately. It could be a leaking tap or a toilet cistern constantly dripping water, but the water wastage over time is significant.
Tip 6
Do not support golf courses, theme parks or ski resorts that consume excessive amounts of water. You as a consumer have the final say as to whether or not a business thrives or fails. Golf courses are often an oasis in a desert. This is because they consume vast amounts of water keeping their greens and fairways irrigated. Often this is at the expense of local agriculture and inhabitants. Golf courses regions with a water scarcity should be looking at using strains of grass that do not require much water. Sure they may not look as attractive or be as soft to walk on, but they can be sustainable, whereas some of the oasis type golf courses certainly are not sustainable. The same applies to landscaped gardens in attractions such as Theme Parks. Finally ski resorts now increasing use snow cannons to supplement natural snowfalls with artificially made snow. An additive is used to stop the snow from melting as easily. This all ends up in the mountain environment. The process also consumes vast amounts ‘of water potentially straining local water supplies. Mountain-riders.org produce a booklet that compares the eco performance of many of the world’s ski resorts. Check whether your resort relies heavily on snow cannons.
Tags: golf courses, leaks, shortage, snow cannons, water
Its Tuesday of World Water Week 2009. Here are two more water saving tips for travellers.
Hallgerd - Fotolia.com
Tip 3
Do not leave the tap running while brushing your teeth. All you need is to wet the toothbrush.
Tip 4
In a similar vein. If you are staying in self catering accommodation, and are doing washing up, then use the dishwasher if it is provided. Dishwashers consume resources in the form of energy, raw materials, including water when manufactured.
If they are there use them.
They use less water than hand washing.
If washing up by hand then fill the sink. Do not use running water to wash your pans and dishes.
Tags: dishes, travel, water saving tips, World Water Week 2009
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This week is World Water Week a cause very close to my heart as WaterAid is my favourite charity. It is a sad fact that 884 million people in developing countries have no access to clean water. Many walk miles for a container of dirty unsafe water each day. Every 17 seconds a child dies of a water borne disease. While about 70% of the Earth is covered by water only 3% is in the form of fresh water and the majority of this is in the polar ice caps. WaterAid works on projects to bring safe water and sanitation to communities. it along with other organisations is making slow headway as there was closer to 1 billion people without safe water 10 years ago.
There is a long way to but as populations increase there can be no corresponding increase in fresh water on this small planet.
Tourism can also put strains on water supplies. It is a fact for example that the average water consumption by a French person is 140 litres of water per person per day while at home. When travelling this rockets to 300 litres per person per day! A typical occupied hotel room in the USA consumes 825 litres of water per day! A modern toilet flush will only produce 4.6 litres of water, so that’s an awful lot of flushes. These rates of consumption put tremendous strains on water supplies in some parts of the world. So how can we be more frugal with our use of water while travelling (or at home for that matter)?
Tip 1
Do some research before your travel. Will you be staying in accommodation that has considered sustainability. Do they have measures in place for conserving drinking water such as dual flush toilets, aerated shower heads and tap faucets, do they make use of rainwater or grey water? You might also want to consider energy reduction measures and waste minimisation measures adopted as well.
Tip 2
Obvious really but short showers consume less water than long deep baths.
Finally as it is World Water Week consider supporting a water charity such as WaterAid.
Information - WaterAid, Mountain Riders and Fairmont Hotels
Tags: deaths, disease, sustainability, water supplies, WaterAid, World Water Week 2009
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Place Flagey, here in Brussels has had an extensive makeover. The square was repaved and a new covered tram stop erected. It was reopened in July 2008.
Now there is a good market held here every Saturday and Sunday morning. There is a choice of stalls offering locally produced organic produce, so it is a good option for me to source some in season organic vegetables, organic cheeses and some bread. I made a video of the shopping experience as an experiment. Hopefully future videos will be better produced.
Tags: bio, brussels, organic food, Place Flagey, shopping
ACCOR the world’s largest hotel chain, owner of Formule 1, Ibis, Novotel posted their results today and recorded a 35% fall in profits. Their report identifies the global economic downturn as the major reason.
Business travel is being curtailed and hotel chains are suffering. The good news is that there are some excellent deals now being offered by the hotels to travellers and surveys show that the price of hotel rooms is starting to fall.
BAA the operator of seven major airports in the United Kingdom today revealed that it had made a loss of nearly £2 billion. Half of this was as a result of tax changes but the other half was due to a decline in passenger numbers through its airports which include Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Glasgow.
Tags: ACCOR, BAA, credit crunch, hotel chain
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Hi,
This is my first post. I am learning Wordpress as I start bogging. So expect changes in the look, layout and navigation of this site as my competency increases. Feel free to offer tips if you can see ways of improving the browsing experience of the visitors to this blog.
John
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