WHY SKIING SHOULD BE ILLEGAL

LET'S GO (SHIVER) SKIING

WELL the leaves are falling off all the trees again, signalling an end to that quirky ``daylight saving'' summer season and heralding the arrival of ``winter'' (an Aboriginal word meaning ``set fire to some wood'').

And while most sensible people follow the accepted survival logic of considering a sojourn somewhere warm and safe, my dearest pals here in the inner west will take the contrary option of heading to the High Country so they can risk their lives hurtling down steep snow-covered hills on skinny little sticks of plastic. Yep, for a holiday idea which weaves the prospect of outdoor fun with the possibility of knocking over a snowgum with your chin, you can't go past snow skiing.

Last year we went on a ski trip to Thredbo (an Aboriginal word meaning ``sticks with no brakes''), and it was an adventure we will remember fondly for many years while our fractures knit. Now my masochistic mates plan to do it again!

If you want a successful trip to the Snow Country, you must have a plan, by which I mean: piles of money. For starters, you'll need a special outfit approved by SCFP (Snow Country Fashion Police). In order to get the SCFP tick of approval, your clobber must: (a) cost as much as a small family sedan, and (b) make you look like a fat, fluorescent alien.

Next you'll need ski goggles, which cost a minimum $80 per eyeball and are scientifically designed to avoid fogging up  unless, of course, you wear them. Then they provide about the same transparency as a lump of snowgum, so don't pull them down over your eyes until just before you hit something.

You'll also require ski boots, insulated clogs made from melted bowling balls, whose main role is to stop you from realising your feet are so cold they will snap off at the ankles if you try to take your boots off before you put your legs up to your knees in a microwave oven. Finally, you should rent your skis, unless you care to sell one of your kidneys to get enough dough to buy new ones.

Now for the slopes. Experts say it's wise to join a ski class first  to postpone the inevitable injuries you'll suffer, and also so there'll be someone you know in the osseo-reconstructive ward at the hospital. Instructors are always Scandinavian teenagers named ``Sven'', who will make you walk like a crab to a steep spot on the side of the mountain. He will then ski gracefully down to the tree-line, swooshing to an elegant, arcing halt, leaving you feeling bewildered and deficient back at the summit.

Sven then turns and beckons to the first L-plater. This is the funny bit. Hibernating animals often dig their way out of snow drifts just to watch this bit because they get an endorphin rush out of watching the novices almost instantly hit Mach III as they hurtle past Sven in a blur on their way into the snowgums, flailing away like entrants in an outback fly-swatting contest.

``Mor-vellous!'' shouts Sven, clenching his fluorescent buttocks tightly together to stop himself wetting his waterproof pants. One by one, the students ski into the undergrowth, before clawing their way into a clearing, bristling with embedded twigs and swathed in paperbark, at which point Sven calls out: ``Let's try again . th. th. and bend those knees!'' He knows that this will actually make them go faster.

Sven gets such a kick out of his job.