the insider tells all

It's sad but true - last winter I was at the bottom of the Aiguille du Midi cable car in Chamonix (waiting for my annual Plan d'Envers descent) when I genuinely heard a loud American (sorry, but true) ask: How much is a ticket up Everest?

This seemed destined to be the punter statement of all time until this summer, when out playing golf in the Algarve I overheard the following conversation between a rep and his delightfully informed guest.

Rep: Welcome to the Algarve!
Guest: Don't give me any of that - I paid to come to Portugal, not the Algarve!

This is another beauty picked up from the airport - the best source of gossip in the Alps, as reps kill time waiting for delayed flights swapping tales.

This particular weekend was another of major delays and as time moved on, so tensions rose. Paul, a rep from La Plagne, has a reputation for being so laid back he's been nicknamed 'Deckchair'.

After dealing with some lost luggage which had delayed the departure of his coach, he was greeted on his return by a sarcastic comment from an irate guest, eager to get moving.

'Chill man, I'm here now,' Paul replied. But he'd picked the wrong person and the wrong end of the day for this friendly approach: 'Don't use that drug language with me, young man!'

Oh, when cultures meet.

All you need is a minor event in the mountains and suddenly you got journalists buzzing around you.

My mate Neil worked for Thomson in Les Arcs a couple of years ago and once told me a terrible story of a guest who'd skied into a tree and died (before it was fashionable!). He found out about it at 4pm from a relative and by 4.30pm there was a British tabloid on the phone ringing the chalet for a comment.

Neil's theory is that it there must be a mole in the embassy or the hospital. Someone must be paid off to tip information though as quickly as possible.

The journos can be very persistent. A couple of years ago, I heard about a chalet girl in Zermatt who got it together with one of her guests on the Wednesday, got engaged on the Thursday, packed on the Friday and left on Saturday.

Chalet girls get marriage proposals on a regular basis, but they are usually based on the strength of a beef stroganoff rather than lurve. Either way, by Sunday there was a very un-Alpine looking chap strolling up Bahnhofstrasse accosting any resort workers he came across: 'I'm from The Sun, what's the go on this chalet girl elopement then?'

David is a good friend of mine who was working as a resort manager in Val d'Isere when he told me this story. One of his chalet boys had turned up to the weekly budget meeting looking a very unhealthy colour. There was something very strange about him. It took some time studying him to work out the problem, before he realized that he was missing an eyebrow.

The unfortunate guy had had the dubious pleasure this week of looking after a group of lads, who had turned up 'very, very drunk' and kept going. Cajoled into joining in their drinking games, he had swallowed more than he could chew, as they unknowingly spiked his drinks with vodka until he fell unconscious and their tonsorial talents took over.

David gave him the evening off to try and increase the amount of blood in his alcohol stream!