 Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I agree. I thought that segment was entirely pointless. I was expecting siome information about the skiing there, not just an advertorial for the hotel.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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That was an unusually poor piece in what is IMHO an excellent show, largely due to Nick's lively presentation and commentary.
What type of races do folks enjoy watching the most? There can be entertaining events in any of the disciplines but GS is generally my fav. Ski Sunday's preoccupation with DH used to be annoying.
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alex_heney, when they introduced the piece as 'if you're not sure where to ski this year, how about Lake Louise', you'd be right to expect some mention of the skiing, rather than the hotel's honeymoon suite, spa and restaurant!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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If I wanted to stay in bed and play with Mrs Eeyore, I wouldn't fly to Canada to do it. I would fly to canada to ski.
A shameless plug for a Hotel - I wonder what the inducement was?
Anyway,
http://www.hothouse-productions.com/contact-us
If you want to moan at them.
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doctor_eeyore, I was more shaken by the near nudity of the Nick fellow than the product placement!
As a rule, I'm a fan of the program. Any skiing on TV is better than none IMO.
balernoStu, I love Downhill because of the sheer speed.
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balernoStu, which is my favourite discipline to watch? Why all of them of course! All offer something different of course, although, if anything DH is my least favourite (a complete turn-around to how I felt a few years ago). I am taking a fancy to SL at the moment though, the agility the skiers display is something else.
Haven't seen any of this weeks coverage on Ch4 though, but I have spend most of the weekend on Eurosport, just a shame none of the Brits were involved this week for one reason or another.
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Lake Louise is a good spot for a honeymoon. I was heading there this time 3 years ago.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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johnboy, Yes, but we really don't need to be told that as the main point in what was supposed to be information about the resort.
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| johnboy wrote: |
| Lake Louise is a good spot for a honeymoon. I was heading there this time 3 years ago. |
my parents went to the rockies 17 years ago for their honeymoon and said it was brilliant and went to lake louise.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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doctor_eeyore, I have written a message of complaint to them.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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You know it makes sense.
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| Quote: |
What type of races do folks enjoy watching the most?
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The ones with the most crashes or is that just me??
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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I missed all the pre-amble...fortunately it now seems (although gutted to miss the bit(s) of Chemmy). So only saw the racing.
I'm afraid I find the concentration on DH a bit tedious. Fine, lets see it occasionally, but the TV hardly gives any sense of the speed these guys/gals are travelling at, so there's precious little excitement I'm afraid. SL there's always a reasonable number of ski-outs (except when they edit it to only show the successful runs  ), GS you really get a sense of them desperately hanging on round the turns, and SG gets the combination of the turns + speed. So I'd much prefer any of them to wall-to-wall DH.
| balernoStu wrote: |
| ...largely due to Nick's lively presentation and commentary. |
I'm afraid it's that that puts me off the CH4 show. The peripheral stuff may be OK, although I prefer Graham Bell's stuff, but I think his actual commentary is pretty pathetic actually, in that he over-eggs everything. Fine, be enthusiastic and communicate tension when it's there, but don't spin everything - as we can't then tell when he's saying something that actually means something. The number of times I saw skiers coming down losing 1/4 sec plus between each split time and Fellowes was still going on about "one last push to make it to the top spot", or some similar cr@p, when there's clearly no chance whatever of that was beyond belief. Did nobody ever tell him the story about crying "wolf"? The job of a commentator is to add something to what's on the screen, not just parrot what any moron can see (or even commentate on a different race, which is was I often think he's doing). Fellowes was a UK team member, so has detailed technical knowledge and should have an eye for this. So why doen't he use it? I think I heard only one comment about a skier making a line mistake in the entire program. As skiers we probably see a bit more than the average punter (but what average punters are going to be watching skiing at 8am on a Sunday?), so we can see the major mistakes, but as we're not high level racers there's loads he should be seeing that the vast majority of us will miss. It doesn't need to be a tedious flat analysis, but he should be able to see...at every gate!...when a skier pulls off something subtle that sets him up for a better route through subsequent gates, or makes a bit of a boo-boo and recovers well. And then make the choice of how much of that to tell us. As it is he's less believable than Murray Walker! Ken Read was way better than Fellowes on almost all counts. Similarly Konrad Bartelski made me want to listen to him in the Solden (IIRC) commentary, and really irritated when Fellowes came back in with his incontinent hype.
As an example of a great commentator I would cite Ed wotsisname the snowboarder from BBC. In the Olympics he made the snowboarding events captivating, despite me having no real interest in them, by his combination of excitement, analysis of what we were seeing and provision of relevant background on the competitors.
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Poster: A snowHead
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GS and increasingly slalom are my preferred viewing habits, especially if I can watch them with a bit of slow-motion every now and again. The DH focus is wearing thin for me as well. More interviews with the athletes and a bit more information about their training activities and life away from WC weekends would be of interest for me.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Rob, that's not exactly surprising as we're looking at it with specialists eyes...."oh fine, no probs, I could(n't) have done that"! I do have to say though that SL and GS were always my favourites to watch, even before I'd touched a pair of skis myself.
Last edited by Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person on Mon 26-11-07 20:40; edited 1 time in total
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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GrahamN, yes I agree, but I can but hope  How was Ipswich?
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Extended show tonight (well, 0155 to 0345) folks, so if you missed the excitement the first time round you can see it + much more too. 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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rob@rar, interesting. Quite scary at times as it's unlike many other slopes in that it's got real terrain - rollers and hollows that are not regular, and quite believable as natural hillside contours! Glad I went - even more so in that I got the fastest times of the day (despite Bev looking really good)!!!
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GrahamN, nice one!
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GrahamN,
I have to agree with you about Nick Fellows shortcomings as a commentator (and they're especially obvious when he's alongside Ken Read, whose contributions are always worth listening to).
My way of handling it is to try and guess in advance when we're going to get one of his more frequent cliches (like "he/she's really at the top of his/her game", "three tenths of a second: that's an eternity in alpine ski racing" and ".....as we say in ski-speak"). In fact, with a bit of organisation, we could turn this into quite a good  sweepstake (a bit like those village fete cowpat lotteries).
To be fair, he is the driving force behind the entire programme (he produces it), and the coverage on C4 is way better than that on Ski Sunday (although the BBC production values are higher), so for those of us who refuse to put our hard-earned into the Murdoch coffers, and stick with terrestrial TV and Freeview, Nick Fellows is, on balance, a Good Thing.
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| Acacia wrote: |
| In fact, with a bit of organisation, we could turn this into quite a good sweepstake (a bit like those village fete cowpat lotteries). |
Or even a snowHeads' version of Bullsh!t Bingo.
I agree that as the driving force behind it he's a good thing, it's just a shame some "good friends" can't tell him what a shte commentator he is, and he should stick to doing the behind the scenes fixing - or give him some commentating lessons. (I sometimes wonder whether he learned from a Monster Truck Derby commentator).
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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GrahamN, Agree about the over enthusiastic commentary. I get the impression with him (and Graham Bell) it's dumbed-down, which is probably fair enough as the average person on here probably knows more that your average armchair Ski Sunday viewer.
For the subtleties at each gate, pointing out the "money turns" etc, John Clarke on Eurosport is streets ahead.
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Jerry, yes, the Chemmy bit amounted to "do some exercise before you go skiing. Here I am in some tight shorts." Better than Fellowes doing the same thing, I suppose..
I can't vouch for the Eurosport coverage as I am strictly terrestrial, but the commentary on Ch4 was greatly improved by Ken Read (if he was the 'Crazy Canuck' who was commentating on Sunday?).
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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I agree that the C4 commentary is Murray Walker-esque in its over-hype and shrillness. Less shouting and more technical insight from the week's expert would be a great advantage to those of us who marvel at the athletes' obvious skills but know little of the subtleties involved.
The shameless plug for the Fairmont in Lake Louise was presumably a 'nice little earner' - no other reason for it IMV.
I've never understood why the commentary is half a second ahead of the action - I find it annoying that the commentator screams, "Third place" or something similar before the timing clock has stopped.
Incidentally, I'm sure the credits at the end of the prog include 'Commentator' - and I don't think it's Nick F.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| GrahamN wrote: |
I missed all the pre-amble...fortunately it now seems (although gutted to miss the bit(s) of Chemmy). So only saw the racing.
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Not to worry Graham, I think its the start of a series so we should see plenty more fitness from Chemmy 
I do agree about Ken Read and Konrad Bartelski's commentary for its technical insight. Both managed say something that made you notice more than might have been obvious. We (my wife watches too) find Nick's sheer enthusiam entertaining though!
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| Quote: |
Incidentally, I'm sure the credits at the end of the prog include 'Commentator'
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Yeah, they always have an additional commentator credit. Sometimes its someone who's commentating on another race, somewhere else: sometimes it's the guy who does the voice-over for the competition (in which mountain range is Lake Louise? (i) the Rockies (ii) the Himalayas (iii) the Gog Magog Hills?)
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You know it makes sense.
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| Acacia wrote: |
| sometimes it's the guy who does the voice-over for the competition (in which mountain range is Lake Louise? (i) the Rockies (ii) the Himalayas (iii) the Gog Magog Hills?) |
They seem to have done away with teh weekly competitions this year (possibly not enough people were willing to pay to enter).
They just have the one competition running so far, for entry to the "Cryatsl Ski Challenge".
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Nick Fellows is known as "Nasty shouty man" in our house. Graham Bell is streets ahead both as a commentator and for his trips down the course with the video. Always prefer BBC's sports coverage to others, unfortunately they are too busy doing reality tv and foopbaw to cover real sports these days.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Was it just my screen setting or could anybody else not see the timing clock?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| rainman wrote: |
doctor_eeyore, I was more shaken by the near nudity of the Nick fellow than the product placement!
As a rule, I'm a fan of the program. Any skiing on TV is better than none IMO.
balernoStu, I love Downhill because of the sheer speed. |
Not - *GASP* - nudity??!!! What, for real ???!!!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| magriggs wrote: |
| rainman wrote: |
doctor_eeyore, I was more shaken by the near nudity of the Nick fellow than the product placement!
As a rule, I'm a fan of the program. Any skiing on TV is better than none IMO.
balernoStu, I love Downhill because of the sheer speed. |
Not - *GASP* - nudity??!!! What, for real ???!!! |
Nick Fellows's naked ass, modestly and only partially covered by a towel. Yeuch. And the man has no clue how to open a bottle of fizz.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Peter Ross, ME TOO
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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magriggs, nobody, and i mean NOBODY, should have to be subjected to that at 8:15 in the morning. Fairly made me choke on my cornflakes. And above all, think of the children. It's enough to put them off skiing for life 
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Peter Ross, Your screen setting I think.
It was in widescreen I noticed (black bars at top & bottom), so it is possible your TV was cutting off the sides rather than using black bars at top & bottom.
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| Quote: |
And the man has no clue how to open a bottle of fizz.
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Maybe if he'd been more successful as a racer he'd have had more practice?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Maybe it's me, but Eurosport hit the spot with the racing coverage...cos that's all it is racing coverage.
Not some video brochure for a resort "you might like to visit" (like the ones I keep getting in the post that I DON'T remember signing up for...I'm looking at you Daily Mail Ski & Snowboard Magazine) or some gratitutous shots of some snow bunny "hanging out" in between races.
If I want "gnarly stuff" I'll watch the Extreme Sports Channel (well...I love it!)
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dazman, get watching then!! Mens combined on Eurosport at the moment
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