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Prince Charles on fox hunting and skiing

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Today's Mail on Sunday (not my normal Sunday read, you may be interested to know) carries an intriguing report on Prince Charles's priorities in life:

He's said to have defied his mother's advice to give up fox hunting to ease the government's tortuous campaign. He will only kick the habit if it is outlawed.

If it is outlawed his plans become very relevant to us. Apparently "in an astonishing outburst witnessed by a senior politician" he said: "If the Labour Government ever gets round to banning fox-hunting, I might as well spend the rest of my life skiing."

With Fox??? I should hope so. Let's send our jovial snowHead out to Klosters this winter to relieve the poor man of his misery.

Anyway, a quick Google reveals that Charles made this "astonishing outburst" in December 2002. So he's missed two seasons of good skiing already, thanks to the procrastination of the government!


Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Sun 19-09-04 23:10; edited 1 time in total
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
OK here's my astonishing outburst for this evening:-


Quote:

"If the Labour Government ever gets round to banning working, I shall spend the rest of my life skiing."
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
I'm not a fox hunter (well never on horses anyway) but I find it disturbing that so many politicians have acted on this, they go with public opinion and seeing as so many anti hunt protestors cpome from the city wher most of the voting public live they get these laws passed, in what was a very underhanded manner, there seems to have been no real thought as to what will happen to the hounds or to those employed buy the hunt, after all they live in the country not the city so they can't be important can they ?

I'd be the first to admit that this is a cruel sport, however anyone who thinks that this will protect the foxes is sadly missguided, they'll just end up being shot, more humane perhaps but just as dead Sad

I suspect that this law is just another example of the government pandering to public opinion in its desparate struggle to stay in power, I'd be more impressed if they could sort out the pension crisis, the education system, the NHS or do some serious effort to combat Global warming
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" The english country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in full persuit of the uneatable. "
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
hibernia, nicely sumed up Laughing
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David, It's God awful something O'clock on a Sunday night, go give the missus a cudle and GET A LIFE! (even just a little one)
My excuse is that I've just found a major fubar in a tech drawing that I've got to fix and my love interest is the other side of the country. Skullie

edit:
And why are we even discussing the end of a 18th century elitist bit of fun that only became popular because royalty had dibs on everything else, every other predator had been hunted to extinction and horse breeding ‘hunters’ was where the money was made and was the WHOLE BLOODY POINT! The fox was only ever a sport made legitimate to assist in blowing the crap out of game birds. It is and always has been an artificial argument to allow a bunch of monied cretins to have fun.
What’s truly sad is the very real idea that our rural communities are so fiscally fragile that if fox hunting disappears, so will the entire bucolic infrastructure!


Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Mon 20-09-04 0:10; edited 1 time in total
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Masque, don't talk about fubar's in technical drawings, I spent most of last week making changes to tech drawings due to the client sending me the wrong blasted info. Mad Then they want the changes made yesterday and it's their own damn fault .... arghh what I'd like to do to them Twisted Evil
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D G Orf, It's my fault this time Embarassed
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Masque, I take your points. Just to address your friendly concern, Mrs G and I enjoyed an early Sunday morning bike ride and breakfast in the sunny garden of Kenwood House, Highgate. This is possibly the greatest breakfast location (and breakfast) in London for those who don't know it. I think we had a couple of cuddles too. May I wish you occasional infidelity from the computer, too!

As for the subject in hand, this news story (which is actually old (fox) hat in terms of the quote) just had to be broken to snowHeads.

Would you prefer to be denied the news, simply for the sake of my marriage?

Get things in perspective, for God's sake.
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David Goldsmith,

Quote:

Get things in perspective, for God's sake.


David I think you need a long holiday, somewhere snowy, as soon as possible Shocked
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
What would that achieve, DGO? I'm not trying to rid myself of a fox-hunting addiction.

I thought the phrase 'long holiday' was a euphemism for 'prison sentence'.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Leave David Goldsmith, alone! Stop being so rude!

Fox hunting is an efficient way of limiting fox numbers

Stop harping on like a load of liberal townies
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So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Thanks, Nadenoodlee. I've been bullied for the past 45 years so this bit of electronic zapping by my detractors is no major problem.

As for fox hunting being "efficient" I have to question your definition of efficiency. How many huntspersons, hounds, horses, portions of horse and dog food, bugles, and support staff does it require to reduce the fox population by - say - five?

It's almost as inefficient as skiing!
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Efficient meaning- it does the job
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Ah. I think the word is 'effective'. Or 'wasteful'.

Come on, let's be honest about it. It's the aristocrats' favourite pursuit and they will use any disingenuous argument to justify it. I just thought it hilarious that our future King saw his only choices in life as hunting or skiing. It's just a shame that we're second best.
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 Poster: A snowHead
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A naive question (I'm getting better at those) - why do fox numbers have to be limited (in the opinion of certain members of another species)?
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The thought is actually quite frightening - so when the governmant ban Fox hunting, there'll be more chinless wonder braying all over the slopes!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
There was a wildlife programme on BBC last week featuring Australia, one of the topics covered was the introduction of the fox to Australia by the early settlers who wanted to continue hunting as they had in England, Ireland, Scotland. There are now estimated to be over 1 million foxes in Australia and they have decimated the natural fauna. I think that kills the arguement for hunting being efficient or effective. It also supports Masque's theme that hunting has nothing to do control of vermin but is to do with pleasure. The least said about people who find killing animals pleasurable the better IMO.
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Alan Craggs, they kill sheep etc

Red Dave, get back to reading the Guardian


Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Mon 20-09-04 10:18; edited 1 time in total
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Quote:
why do fox numbers have to be limited

'Cos they're a nasty little animal which given the chance will kill hens for the sake of it - rather in the manner that Hunts will kill foxes. In fact, they're well matched to each other.
Whatever you feel about hunting, it is not a good way to control the fox population. Farmers shoot far more than hunts eliminate.
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I think that they'd be viewed better if they dropped the animal control idea and actually came clean that they thought it to be fun. There was a comment from a listener on radio 4 when there were the protests in london that the pro-hunt people always complain that we townies don't understand country traditions. Don't they understand that being beaten by the police is part of traditional city living!!
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David Goldsmith, aren't we forgetting Chassa's primary pastime of talking to plants. Skiing is a poor third, I'm afraid. Given this one-piece and a bobbly hat, perhaps he should demote it even further


Last edited by Then you can post your own questions or snow reports... on Mon 20-09-04 10:23; edited 1 time in total
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The plants give him snow forecasts.
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Nadenoodlee, to be fair foxhunting is far less effective than shooting the damn things, I'm not in favour of hunting but at the same time I do not feel the need to ban it just because it's cruel, by all accounts so is fishing so I suspect that will be the next target of the anti bloodsports brigade (no I don't fish either).

Unfortunately we now live in a society governed by the politicians and the press
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I'm never quite sure whether shooting is a less cruel way of killing a fox.
What's better; to get a 12 bore up the jaxi from 300 yards away and crawl off into the den and die horribly over 3 days or be chased for a couple of hours and get torn to pieces in 2 seconds flat?

Also, I do not like the idea of anything that promotes increased gun usage. Last weeks lamping tragedy with that 13 year old boy proving this point.

I feel like DG says that this is more about the Government not losing face than any real care over animal welfare.
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Paul Holland, anybody shooting a fox with a 12 bore at 300 yards will not even touch it, the effective range for such a weapon is just 50 yards at best, as a responsible son of a farm manager I was always taght never to shoot unless you know exactly what you are shooting, what there is behind it, to only take the shot if I were certain of a kill and should the shot fail to kill to follow up my target and ensure it does not suffer any more than it has to. Sadly these sort of responsibilities along with the safe use of firearms does not always get taught to others.
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D G Orf, I admit I am not an expert in shotgun ballistics Wink .
I fully believe you are nothing but responsible in the use of your gun and any subsequent suffering of the animal, but unfortunately not everyone is.

While riding my horse a few years back in the outdoor school on the farm where I kept him, I found myself staring down the barrel of a shotgun. Basically, the guy shot a pheasant about 20 yards in front of me to my right! He shouldn't have been where he was, and he was shooting from a small hill down onto us. We were probably out of range, but still....

Ever since then I've been nervous about any kind of gun rolling eyes
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What's going to happen to all those beagles? Suppose they'll be back on the fags again!

The amount of parliamentary time and money wasted on this issue is a disgrace. Foxes do cause a good deal of harm. Relatively few are caught by a hunt.

17m lambs are born in England and Wales each year. 340,000 lambs are reckoned to be killed by foxes each year, or £13.6m in lost revenue to farmers. Hunts also retrieve "fallen stock" for farmers - thought to be about 366,000 head.

250,000 people take part in hunting.

Richard Course (former Chief Executive and now defector from the League Against Cruel Sports) recently stated that hunting is irrelevant to animal welfare, and stated that the move to ban hunting is because of bigotry, prejudice, class animosity amd narrow mindedness.

The police are also concerned that their resources are already too far stretched to cope in the event that hunts break the law once it's passed.

Banning hunting is no more than a sop to "Old Labour".

There are far more pressing concerns - Health, Education, Pensions, Crime and something dear to all of us - the Environment.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
The thing is that this is an easy issue to get through parliment with a simble solution .... Ban it just two short words for MP's to recall

The more important issues require people to actually think about them, something modern politicians can't manage very well without the aid of a spin doctor Confused
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Quote:

'Cos they're a nasty little animal which given the chance will kill hens for the sake of it

This is not actually true. When left alone, the fox will return to the dead birds and take them all away to bury for future meals.
Foxes were there before farmers, as were the North American Red Indians before the cowboys.
Killing of either just for sport is wrong
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New Kid On The Block, not strictly true, the problem is that foxes are quite intelligent but they are also oportunists, thus if you have a hen house they will find a way in, on the other hand if you leave any dead birds outside that same hen house the fox will take them in prefrence to getting a live bird, a family friend tried this after several major fox attacks and found that it worked
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Nadenoodlee wrote:
Fox hunting is an efficient way of limiting fox numbers


Hold on a minute... There's only 1 of me. If you limit my numbers, the only answer is NONE of me! Shocked
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
I live in "the sticks" in a small, 50 dwelling village. We have the Hurworth Hunt based in the village. Both I and the boss, are in favour of animal welfare. The problem as we see it is that with hunting the fox either dies a quick death after a chase, or gets away unharmed. There is no half measures here. With all other forms of control there is a much increased risk of suffering.

The full time hunt staff are kind, friendly, polite and obliging people, who dedicate the entire lives, working long hours for buttons. They are usually intelligent, articulate and well educated folks who have chosen a particular lifestyle. I can see where their emotion comes from.

The BIG problem as far as family "Frosty" is concerned are those that follow on horseback and on foot(or car). Many (not all) are arrogant, ignorant, obsessed, toss pots who have no consideration for the health of their horses, or for the feelings of their fellow human beings. Despite our first hand experience of these people, we have no desire to ban what they do, as one day someone may want to ban skiing!.
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"Many (not all) are arrogant, ignorant, obsessed, toss pots who have no consideration for the health of their horses, or for the feelings of their fellow human beings."

Utter rubbish. Especially when compared to some of the tricks the anti's have used to immobilise horses and hunts...


Foxes need to be controlled because they have no natural predators. If left unchecked, they will reproduce to the extent there is insufficient food for them. As a result of this, ALL other wildlife will suffer - because the foxes wil eat it. Check what's happened in Holland, where only shooting is permitted. Large areas are remarkably scarce of indigenous wildlife, including birds, fish etc, as the foxes have decimated it in an effort to find something to eat.
If we follow the same route, the fox population will explode (it'll take a few years, lag phase, popn. bioogy etc), but it will. Wait for the first human baby to be snatched by a starving fox, then what'll the anti's do ? Foxes are already taking domestic pets in cities where the fox popn is near saturation point.

Foxhounds. Of the ca. 1000 hounds that were present in Scotland prior to the ban, roughly 350 have been put down as a direct result of the ban. The same will happen here. "Animal welfare", did I hear someone say ?

Shooting. To acheive a "clean" kill, you need to hit an area the size of a tenis ball, max. Head-shots are not viable - the head moves too much. Ask anyone involved in dear culling - and the target in a dear is somewhat bigger than in a fox....
If you miss (far more likely), the fox suffers a long, lingering, painful death. If it's lucky, you'll immobilise it, then it only has to wait, say 15minutes while you get to it and exectue the kill. Unlucky ? That's several weeks with a festering, gangrenous wound. Remember, you have to use a rifle - a shotgun is simply not powerful enough to penetrate sufficiently deeply to cause instant death, unless you're firing from near-point-blank, which you only exceptionally rarely will.
Dogs ? 15-20seconds max. And the method of death is the same as the fox uses to kill it's prey - so it must be acceptable, as I've never heard an anti condemn the fox for acting naturally...
Ratios - dogs - 100% kill, 20sec max. Guns - clean : miss - 1 : 20.
So, which is cleanest, quickest, best for the welfare of the fox, then ?

More population stuff. Every method of control, except using dogs, is totally random in it's choice of victim. ie you see it, you shoot it; you gas it, they all die.
Hunting with dogs ONLY removes the weak, the lame, the ill, the terminally stupid. If you prevent the weak and the thick from breeding, the genetic quality of the population improves ie. the population becomes gentically more intelligent and stonger.
Of course, I suppose we could always condemn it on a 'eugenics' basis - but a bit bizarre though, banning something that actually improves the quality of the breeding stock....

Humans. Country Sports – primarily hunting, shooting and fishing - account for annual direct expenditure of some £3.8 billion. According to the most comprehensive surveys of the rural economy this expenditure generates direct employment equivalent to over 60,000 jobs and indirect employment equivalent to a further 30,000-plus jobs.
Ok, so that's not just hunting, but the arguments used to stop foxhunting apply to shooting and fishing too. Some fair dent to the rural economy, isn't it. Yes, that was 3.8 BILLION.
Foxhunting - about 10,000- 15,000 jobs, direct and inderect, result from foxhunting. So the cost to the economy is all those jobs, plus 15,000 x unemployment benefit, income support etc etc, per week. And YOU are paying for it.



S K I I N G
The arguments used to stop hunting apply equally well to skiing. Environment issues, animal wlefare (all that natural habitat lost to pistes and hotels), elitism (well, it's not cheap, is it?) so on and so forth.

Ok, so they'll never ban skiing, huh ?
20years ago, you'd never have thought they'd ban hunting, either....
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Quote:

Utter rubbish. Especially when compared to some of the tricks the anti's have used to immobilise horses and hunts...

austin7,

My missus has owned and ridden horse for over 30 years. She has hunted on many occaision. We have seen 1st hand, horses being galloped on tarmac, Injured horses being ridden rather than pulled up, the obnoxious attitude of followers.

This is the view of someone who doesnt want a ban, someone who recognises the part a hunt plays in the community e.g. fallen stock removal and disposal. if you cant recognise that part of the problem is the attitude of "some" the hunt participants then that proves my point.
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Frosty the Snowman, fair enough, if you've seen it then it's happened - but I think you'll find they're very much a minority. Certainly round where I'm from, such behaviour would not be tolerated. Presumably, you've had a quiet word with the Master, explaining your position as NOT that of anti ?
As for the followers, given the uninformed victimisation they've had to put up with, is it any suprise if they get a bit shirty now and then ?
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austin7, I agree that the prats are a minority, but look at the problems footy has had with a few nutters. As i said earlier im totally against a ban and get quite excited when someone makes a stand against Tony B, the fuel protest was superb. I just hope the Pro hunt groups think up something a little more imaginative than road blocks. I thought the invasion of the House floor was great. To see the MPs getting in such a tizz just cosz some blokes did a bit of tresspassing, now they now how insecure the rest of us feel.
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Frosty the Snowman, apparently there is something big planned in Brighton next week as it is the Labour conference, i've heard something on the tv, radio or internet today about bringing the dogs along a simulating hunting the mp's. I think i'll go along and see what happens.

p.s. great debate guys!
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Rural affairs minister Alun Michael has cancelled his second rural visit in as many days, the cause .... 250 peacful hunt supporters who wanted to meat him.

Apparently he has denied that the hunt supporters are making the countryside a minister free zone
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Dan, Dont call them dogs, it is a lynchable offence. Hounds, and if describing the numbers they take to bright you must be even more careful. 131e.g. hounds do not exist, it would be "65 and a half couple".. no honest Puzzled
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