Brits give ski helmets the cold shoulder

Posted by Dan Curley

A recent poll has shown that more than half of British skiers don’t plan on wearing a ski helmet this coming season. The survey, carried out by the Ski Club of Great Britain (SCGB) and Ski Republic, reveals that only a shockingly low 42% of us plan on giving our heads any protection before sloping off on the piste.

What’s more concerning is that the report shows that, of the 17,500 head injuries suffered last season, 7,700 could have been avoided had the proper headgear been donned. It also indicated 11 deaths could have been avoided – highlighting the high-profile death of actress Natasha Richardson who died in March at Mont Tremblant Resort in Quebec. She wasn’t wearing a helmet.

A spokeswomen for SCGB warned: “We urge people to take the risks very seriously. We advise that all children under 13 wear ski helmets this winter and adults do so at their own discretion.”

Studies carried out in Sweden and Canada show that snowboarders are at the greatest risk and up to 400% more likely to get injured than skiers. Men are also at bigger risk than women, probably due to men being more likely to show off with ill-advised trickery.

This is all disconcerting stuff, and it’s a shame the majority of skiers are apparently more concerned about their head being in their holiday snaps than they are about ending up with their neck in a splint.

Do you have a skiing holiday planned? Are you intending to keep your skull safe from shattering? Or do you think helmets are a waste of money and just make you look like a ponce in the holiday pics? Post your comments below

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The Top 10 tackiest tourist trinkets

Posted by Dan Curley

A survey has just been carried out by Holidaylettings.co.uk showing what tasteless, crappy souvenirs holidaymakers most frequently pick up

Top of the list came a gravy boat featuring Thérèse de Lisieux, a 19th-century saint who’s said to be “popular”. Well, apparently so.

The other nine bits of popular travel tat are…

Swine flu fears don’t fly with US passengers

Posted by Sophie Morris

After 9/11, the number of Americans travelling by plane fell dramatically. So how are they reacting to the current crisis, swine flu, which President Obama termed a “national emergency” just last week?

Will they stay indoors and away from other people if any flu-like symptoms turn up? Hell no! In a poll conducted by TripAdvisor.com more than half say they’ll be taking any planned flights no matter how they feel, simply because the cost of changing bookings – normally around $50 to $150 (£30 to £90) – is too much money to waste.

Lucky escape as pilots log off

Posted by Dan Curley

Two airline pilots currently have their unmentionables on a BBQ after missing their landing destination by 150 miles. Their excuse? They said they were checking their crew schedules on their personal laptops and lost track of time. As you do when flying 144 passengers at 37,000ft.

For more than an hour, air traffic controllers were unable to contact the Northwest Airlines flight from San Diego to Minneapolis. Original reports suggested the two experienced pilots had fallen asleep mid-flight, something they rigorously denied, insisting they were just distracted by their computers.

Rowdy flyers: it’s all the rage

Posted by Sophie Morris

Most people slip into holiday mode the moment they sit down on the plane. You’ve got through the frustrating security queues, grabbed your last-minute toiletries and magazines, so “a large gin and tonic, please” seems like the appropriate way to signal the start to a blissful break.

Yet more and more of us are drumming up the holiday spirit with a little too much enthusiasm, according to a new report on air rage from the Department of Transport. The number of disruptive incidents on British planes has shot up in the past year, from 2,702 to 3,485 – and 37% of them involved alcohol.

Honeymoon’s over for litigation madness

Posted by Darren Lee

The silly season should really be over by now, but reports that a Scottish couple are taking legal action against Thomas Cook, after they became ill while on honeymoon in Turkey, prove it’s enoying a modest revival.

Ewan and Leah Gurr from Dundee say they contracted a gastric illness while on holiday at the Hotel Tuana in Side, near Antalya. Their symptoms were so severe that they spent three days in hospital and spent £2,000 on medical bills. The Gurrs have instructed legal firm Irwin Mitchell to investigate their claim against the operator.

Time to get tough on in-term holiday-goers?

Posted by Dan Curley

Taking your kids on holiday during school term is a subject we’ve discussed before. The pros and cons are pretty black and white – do you pull your kids out of school and bring the cost of the holiday down considerably, or go during the school holidays and let your bank balance take the strain as opposed to your child’s education?

Recently, a law was passed that allowed local authorities to fine parents £100 if they pulled their kids out of school, but only recently has the law been put into practice. Matthew Luck from Crewe took his two five-year-old daughters to Turkey for a fortnight between 2 and 14 September.

A new lease of life for Gatwick?

Posted by Sophie Morris

What will £1.5bn buy you? Gatwick Airport, if you’re the canny investment fund Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) which has just confirmed it’s purchasing the south London airport from BAA.

The move will break BAA’s 40-year monopoly over the south of England’s main airports, Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted, so in principal the sale should introduce a little healthy competition to the market and improve conditions for travellers in the future.

BA execs provide Christmas stuffing for workforce

Posted by Dan Curley

Things aren’t looking good for passengers who’ve booked a Christmas holiday flying with British Airways.

Recent talks between the operator and cabin crew union chiefs dissolved without any progression, leaving the threat of industrial action looming large and smack bang in the middle of the busiest period of the year.

BA chief exec Willie Walsh held talks with Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of cabin crew union Unite, and both left the table empty-handed. The problems start with Willie’s plans to restructure each plane’s crew in a bid to cut £140m from the carrier’s annual wage bill.

Carbon offsetting – a convenient myth?

Posted by Sophie Morris

Finally, a travel company has held its hands up and admitted that carbon offsetting is just an expensive way of making us feel better about flying.

For the uninitiated, carbon offsetting is a process whereby travellers can choose to pay a little extra when booking their flight or holiday, on the promise the money will go towards green projects, thus “offsetting” the impact of their flight on the environment. If you were flying to Malaga, for example, you could pay £3.82 to ClimateCare for the return flight, and they might invest it in a wind farm in China or green stoves in Uganda.

Master chefs hit the high seas

Posted by Sophie Morris

Most celebrity chefs have a number of outposts bearing their name – Gordon Ramsay has a global empire – but finding them sweating over a hot stove in one of their own restaurants is incredibly unlikely.

So three cheers for Gary Rhodes, Marco Pierre White and Atul Kochar, who have all agreed to visit their restaurants on P&O Cruise ships next year. If you’re lucky enough to bag a berth on one of these departures, you’ll find them giving cooking demonstrations and doing Q&A sessions and book signings (ah – there had to be something in it for them!) as well as coaching their teams in the kitchens and hobnobbing with customers.

Ryanair: the PR war continues

Posted by Darren Lee

Question: who is described as “a kind and gentle, caring and thoughtful, sensitive and saintly human being widely beloved by all” on a press release issued yesterday?

If you answered the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela or Dame Vera Lynn, then close, but sadly no cigar. The correct answer is, improbably, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary, who issued the bizarre statement in response to what he describes as a “hatchet job” against his airline by the BBC on Monday night’s Panorama.

New airport scanner can see you naked

Posted by Dan Curley

Manchester Airport has rolled out a new X-ray machine which does a full-body scan for weapons and explosives – the only problem is it reveals more than most people would prefer. Not only will it show up breast implants, piercings and false limbs, but your most private of parts will be clearly outlined.

The image will then be checked by one officer before being removed from the computer. It’s not compulsory yet, and passengers can forgo it in favour of the more conventional pat down.

Heathrow expansion plans hit turbulence

Posted by Amanda Welsh

Just when it seemed like a done deal, plans for a third runway at Heathrow have been scrapped before next year’s general election – because the Tories have said they will oppose expansion should they win power.

BAA has not ruled out submitting an application to build another runway altogether, but claim the planning proposal will not be ready before the election. Yet, seeing as the Conservative party has said it will not support expansion, it looks like BAA will have to change tack next year if, as expected, the Tories seize power.

Time to ease the 100ml limit?

Posted by Darren Lee

Reports out today suggest Britain could soon be the only EU country where the 100ml-per-item limit on taking liquids on aircraft remains in force. European transport ministers are meeting in Luxemburg on Friday to discuss easing the restrictions, something the UK Government is strongly opposed to.

The restrictions were imposed following the attempt to down transatlantic airlines in August 2006 using liquid explosives. Anyone who’s flown out of a UK airport since then has first-hand experience of how annoying it can be. The situation is made worse by frequently aggressive and unhelpful security staff, as well as a lack of clarity about the correct procedure – recently I bought a bottle of water inside airport transit, assuming this was OK, only to have it confiscated at the boarding gate.

Chinese men set sights on Sweden’s Sapphic city

 Posted by Dan Curley

A recent report by a Chinese news agency has had the country’s men stirring over Sweden – they’ve been led to believe there’s a town entirely populated by lesbians.

Supposedly founded in 1820 by a rich misandrist (man-hater, vocab fans), the town of “Chako Paul City” is said to have two blonde guards as sentries, and any man who tries to enter is “beaten half to death” by the female police.

Don’t let Ayers Rock go down the toilet

Posted by Sophie Morris

Australia’s Aborigines have long been dismayed by the throngs of tourists who flock to the sacred site of Ayers Rock, or Uluru, every year. And no wonder – apparently visitors have been peeing and pooing all over the revered rock, because there are no toilets on the site.

This behaviour has already killed off one species of shrimp which lives in the pools on top of Uluru, and park officials are now wondering if tourists should be banned from visiting the area altogether. There are in fact signs asking people not to climb up, out of respect for Aboriginal tradition, but one third of the 350,000 who make the trip there each year scramble up anyway.

South Africa hotels prepare for World Cup foul play

Posted by Dan Curley

As was to be expected, hotels in South Africa are planning on making the most of next year’s World Cup by charging the world’s footie fans extortionate rates. But the Daily Mirror just carried out an investigation that reveals just how extreme the fleecing will be – one hotel is apparently set to charge 440% its normal rate.

You could kick the old “supply and demand” argument into play here, but what makes it sinister is that these hotels are Fifa-approved and managed by accommodation agency Match. If this was local hotel managers trying to score a few extra Rand from the month-long event, we could understand it, but this scandalous monopolised price hike has been orchestrated at a corporate level.

Sacre bleu! McDonald’s opens in the Louvre

Posted by Sophie Morris

The French and the Americans aren’t known for being the best of friends but at the moment the Yanks are one up on their Gallic frenemies – it’s just been revealed that a McDonald’s is to open in the Louvre, Paris’s grandest art museum.

The French are rightly proud of their cuisine and culture, so pitching the golden arches within a burger bun’s throw of the Mona Lisa seems like madness, if not a practical joke. Yet a spokesman for the Louvre claims the fast food joint, due to open next month, will be the American representative in a “rich and varied” food court.

Concorde available for wedding

Posted by Dan Curley

 

Couples with a love for all things supersonic can now hire out their dream plane for their wedding – joining each other in holy matrimony on Concorde.

 

The grounded Mach 2 monster was famed for carting people from London and Paris to New York in less than half the time other planes could manage. Based at the Brooklands Museum in Weybridge, Surrey, the G-BBDG has been given an official licence for weddings and civil ceremonies. This service launches exactly 40 years after the bird made its first supersonic flight, on 1 October 1969.