Ben Clatworthy's Blog

Its back for another year. Ben Clatworthy’s Ski Blog from Saas Fee is making a comeback for another year after its success last year. Ben will be Ski Race Training with the Kandhar Ski Club in Saas Fee next week.

My Saas Fee ski blog will start again for another year tomorrow evening with the first instalment coming from somewhere slightly closer to home. I always start a day early to help set the scene of what’s to come. It also gives me a slight head start on whats to come.

I will do my best to keep this blog updated with the latest, but make sure you keep an eye on my website for the most recent instalment.

www.benclatworthy.com/ski-blog

CONFIRMED: Its back for another year. Ben Clatworthy’s Ski Blog from Saas Fee is making a comeback for another year after its success last year. Ben will be Ski Race Training with the Kandhar Ski Club in Saas Fee next week.

Yes thats right I can now confirm that my blog will be back again, starting this Saturday. Am I crazy? Well I hope not. Some of you may remember I wrote one last year (Read it here) on my own Wordpress blog and much to my surprise it went down quite well and the statistics were good. I won’t go into much detail but it got over 1,500 views in just one week. I was very happy to say the least.

Earlier this year I was appointed as the PlanetSKI.eu Racing and Sports Correspondent and instead of writing it for my own blog this year it will be covered on PlanetSKI.eu daily. I will still do all the writing, take the photos and  compile it all each evening. Its quite a tiring job and despite getting up at 7am I am normally just rapping it up at 21.30 in the evening.

I am also taking my LIVE tweeting to a new level. I have always believed that Twitter is a brilliant news service and with my Swiss and English phone I will be able to twitter live at 3,800 metres above sea level in temperatures that are commonly -17 degrees C. I will be sending live Tweets all week to PlanetSKI and also WeLove2Ski. WeLove2Ski’s twitter was voted one of the top 20 ski twitter accounts by ‘The Times’ in September.

I’m excited its back, but I know its never an easy job to write a daily blog. Lets hope you will join me as you all so kindly did last year…

by Ben Clatworthy, blog content editor

First Eleven Magazine

Theres always something exciting about opening a magazine and seeing an article that you have written, often months in advance, printed on that thin glossy paper.

However, theres something even more exciting about walking into your local WHSmith and seeing your article on sale in a real shop…

When I sat down to write my ‘Becoming a boarder’ article for the magazine in late June to be honest I must admit I did think to myself what exactly is the point – it wasn’t the pay (thats a lovely bonus though), it was not in the least bit exciting and too be totally honest it was the last thing I wanted to be doing just after my GCSE exams had finished (and by the way I mean literally that afternoon).

So what exactly is the plus side? Well, now in Mid-October as I finally pick up a copy of the magazine, flick to page 11 and see 3 photos of me and see that article (not just a long word document) I now most certainly do understand the appeal.

It must be strange being a freelance writer with varying length lead times and a new twist always coming just moments after you finish the article… I know the death of Michael Jackson caused me to re-write the section on the latest music trends.

17 years old!

Another year, another year older, I’m 17! Unlike turning 16 when apart from the obvious, really the only main difference is that one is entitled to buy a lottery ticket, or what most people want to do – buy scrap metal. I was joking by the way!

So what is the best thing? Its got to be the thought that I can drive. Obviously I am still to take lessons, or pass the test for that matter but still its an exciting thought. I have my previsional licence too.

I’ve eaten cake in Politics, about to in School Play and lets be honest, again in my boarding house before bed. Thats quite a lot of cake! But lets face it – thats what birthdays are for!

AT LAST I’M 17! (Now all I need to do is find all the various places it says I’m 16 and change them!)

by Ben Clatworthy, PlanetSKI.eu Racing and Sports Correspondent

More and more people seem to be heading indoors to ski and snowboard in the UK. Why and what’s it like?

Long gone are the days when the only option to get in some pre-holiday practice was the local dry slope on a bit of rather odd white plastic.

Across the UK there is a growing number of ’snow-domes’. They are, in all essence, giant fridges filled with real snow.

There are now five of these slopes in England and one in Scotland.

I’ve come to ‘The Snow Centre’ in Hemel Hempstead, which is the newest one in England. The ex-British ski racer, Alain Baxter, opened the centre in May this year and what followed has been pretty successfull.

Baxter opens the slope

PlanetSKI was there for the cutting of the ribbon, or rather the skiing through it, by Baxter.

It’s a Thursday afternoon at the end of the summer holidays, +22c outside, but in here it’s -2c.

The air smells fresh and the slope is filled with skiers criss-crossing one another as they fly down the slopes.

It was an exciting sight and I felt as if I was in a real ski resort. Well, almost.

I popped into my skis and headed for the poma lift. There may be no chairlift or gondola but the whole lift operation was very impressive.

A couple of minutes later I arrived at the top of the slope, skidded round and looked down towards the bottom – admittedly it wasn’t a black run, but still considering I was skiing, for real, in England I could hardly complain.

There was even a piste basher at the bottom of the slope.

“There’s been a huge increase in recreational use of indoor slopes across the UK. Since The Snow Centre launched in May this year, bookings have been fantastic,” says Pete Gillespie who is the director of Snowsports at the Snow Centre. “This increase in participation is largely due to the superb facilities, snow conditions and teaching now on offer in the UK.”

It’s easy to forget but these slopes are also a brilliant resource to train for racing or to become an instructor.

The Hemel Hempstead piste basher

The Hemel Hempstead piste basherThe Snow Centre is already home to the UK branch of the Kandahar Ski Club Junior Training, the ski team that I race for, and they train 8 – 18 year olds most weeks on the real snow giving them the absolute best possible UK based training on a regular basis.

The Snow Centre is also the only BASI Centre of Excellence in the South of the country, it’s a good location and a much cheaper place to train as a ski instructor than out in The Alps.

I had a wonderful afternoon on the snow with some friends and the excitement of skiing on real snow in England didn’t really wear off, but I’ll be totally honest; it wasn’t quite The Alps.

Despite the images of the mountains on the wall, having only one piste did get slightly monotonous, but I really can’t complain – it’s an impressive facility with a massive potential, be it for someone learning to ski or an Olympic hopefull.

The Snow Centre offers it all.

Don’t foreget to check out the video and story of a fund raising event for Britain’s No 1 male ski racer, Ed Drake, at The Snow Centre last week.

Recreational skiing starts from £22 for one hour at weekends and ski and snowboarding taster classes start from £24.

For more information on prices, instruction, school holiday activities and special offers visit www.thesnowcentre.com

I’ve waited until mid-(ish) October before talking about it, but the urge has well and truly taken over – this entry is all about…skiing.

Most of you will all most certainly think I am 2 months early with the ski related chat and that I should really wait until December. To be honest you are probably right, but in the ski world things are really getting underway now.

Most people who go skiing seldom think about it (apart from booking accommodation) until a couple of weeks before they are due to head to the slopes. This isn’t the case for me; not only have I been writing about it during the summer for PlanetSKI.eu which is ski news website edited by James Cove, the BBC’s Winter Sports Correspondent. That is hard enough, snow thoughts on a weekly, if not daily thought, but also being a ski racer during the summer I have to plan my season, buy new kit (this year a ski suit) and also get new skis for the winter season. Picking up skis when there is no snow and not being able to ski is quite an anti-climax (but always very exciting anyway).

October is Ski Show month too. I’ll be totally honest with you now – I’ve never been to a ski show before, but this year it’s all change. I’ve been invited by James Cove to go to the Press Day the Metro Ski and Snowboard Show in Olympia, London, next Wednesday (21 October) which I am sure will be great fun and a chance to meet lots of familiar faces and no doubt get me dreaming of the snow.

I also tend to do most of my writing during the winter too. Once again this season I will be contributing to PlanetSKI.eu, but this year as their ‘Racing and Sports Correspondent’. PlanetSKI, (as I mentioned above) is a mountain based Ski Website run by James Cove. I will also be writing for InTheSnow magazine as their “Race Correspondent”. InTheSnow is the UK’s most read ski magazine and is avalible nationwide in Snow+Rock stores, Ellis Brigham and the 3 main London airports. It is also available to download online.

The Kandahar Ski Club team

But still, its only October?! So why can’t I write all this in a couple of weeks? Well, I’m off to Saas Fee, Switzerland race training on the glacier with my ski team, the Kandahar Ski Club. Its a strange time to ski, but a very important time and brilliant ‘pre-season’ training.

Once again this year I will be writing a daily blog entry (following the success of last years) from the resort. Instead of writing it on its own site as I did lat year, this time it will be covered by PlanetSKI. I’ll post the link here when I know more.

So it may only be the October 11, but the snow is coming – temperatures are falling across the Alps and the though of fresh snow an exciting one. At least the glacier snow is certain – Just 2 weeks and I’ll be in Saas Fee – exciting!

The summer sun goes down, back to school.

It’s not a lie to admit that we have been here before; the launch of my blog that is. So why are we on attempt 3 (is it?). Well the honest answer is that all the others have come across some problem or other, normally to as a result of something technical.

Anyway, third time lucky, “This is it”, maybe its best I don’t use that phrase, after the death of Michael Jackson over the summer I think its safe to say I might just jinx myself if I say that. He hadn’t even died when I last wrote a blog entry and we’re in October now. So what on earth has been going on since June? Well GCSE results came out in August and much to my relief I passed everything so that one stress gone and then in September it was back to Clifton for another year and 6th Form, or AS Levels. My subject choices are very journalistically focused and picked for that very reason; English Literature, Economics, Geography and Politics.

The first few weeks of term are always a whirlwind of activity as the new 3rd form find their feet whilst others settle into a new timetable and dust off books which haven’t even seen the light of day during the summer. My school life has changed too; I’ve started boarding… The best decision of my school life to date. Its brilliant. It meant moving into a new school House but even that was change for the better and I am yet to find fault in my new surroundings.

Thats all for this first instalment of the new blog. I’ll be back next week for more, and with Autumn approaching thoughts are increasingly turning to winter, I might just need to write some ski related ’stuff’ next time…

Ben and his Facebook

In the past few years social networking websites have become so popular that most teenagers use them at least once a day, but will the demand keep rising or like most crazes will they become a thing of the past? Young journalist Ben Clatworthy (www.benclatworthy.com) has been taking a look.

Being a teenager it quickly becomes very apparent that social networking websites are changing the way that people interact and go about daily life. I am a great user of one of these in particular, Facebook, however I am most certainly not addicted to it, or any other website for that matter.

At the end of last year Facebook launched a new chat service that automatically appeared on everybody’s account. It was this service that made me realise just how many of my friends spend a very large amount of time on the website as more often than not their name appears on the ‘available to chat list’. But is this addiction or just people taking a linking to such a service.

Everyone who uses Facebook has some critique of it and its usability. Every time it launches a new design within hours I get invited to join some group or other named ‘Bring back the old Facebook’ or ‘We hate the new look’, you get the picture, but what is it that makes people care so much about how a website looks? I know people hate change, but is there any point kicking up a fuss about a change of design!

Then there are the clever things that many people ignore or just don’t think about which crop up all over these kinds of websites. Any ideas? If you look at the adverts down the side of your Facebook page they tend to be interesting to you. Being a ski racer I love skiing, thus write a lot about it on my page and often communicate with my friends over the website making reference to skiing. Facebook knows I do this and the adverts that are placed on my page often involve skiing, be it offering me accommodation or cheap equipment. Google Mail does the same using the content in ones emails. I seldom click on these adverts but do notice how relevant they are to the individual. I wouldn’t like to comment but can’t think that such advertising generates that much profit.

How long do you spend on one of these daily?

It’s very easy to forget that before the Facebook obsession became of presence that many teenagers were already using very similar sites. Bebo was very popular for a couple of years but its rather wired and quirky features soon became a thing of the past with people dumping it as ‘their other half’ and looking for something new. I deleted my account sometime last year after getting sick and tired of its rather repetitive emails.

Before that, Myspace could be potentially classed as popular, however, I for one never used it as it simply looked confusing.  However as with anything there are pros; Myspace is brilliant for young emerging bands that want to publicize their music and make it freely available for download.

Times are changing though, Facebook may have the current monopoly for social networking but there is a new kid on the block! Used by celebs and everyday people Twitter is fast becoming a very fashionable way to broadcast your own news to ones ‘Followers’. Sounds strange, well that’s because it is. Some people say Twitter is not real social networking but more news broadcasting from an individual level. Others have said it is simplified social networking tool which is great for older less tech-savvy people. Either way it is fast becoming very popular. These days’ news channels are often beaten to ‘Breaking News’ stories by people using sites such as Twitter; an American man announced on his account that he had just seen the plane crash-land in the Hudson river earlier this year before any television channel had received the news.

I have a twitter account, but these days rarely use it. I was concerned when my ‘updates’ started showing up in Google so made it a ‘protected account’ where only my followers could see my updates; then I was told that defeated the object of the service.

Many young users of Twitter love it because they are able to follow their icons and idols from the music and film world who often produce first hand updates from whatever they are doing. The queen is now on Twitter too for any royalists.

All social network sites have one thing in common, the ability to have friends, communicate between one another and share interests with the world. Facebook exceeds these main points with applications, games and much, much more to the extent that people are starting to question whether in the next few years Facebook will become so big, with so much to do that people will become all and more addicted to its services. Just a few weeks ago the world was told of the first person to die social networking; the girl died whilst Twittering on her laptop in the bath. Will these websites soon need to carry a warning message as well, ‘Do not Twitter in the bath, whilst driving a car, swimming etc…’

Social networking websites are paving the way for the future, communication is becoming so easy and friends rarely loose contact once gone their separate ways now.  However with anything such a tool should never be ones life, just a useful addition it.

Ben is a pupil at Clifton College and a young journalist who writes articles for a range of publications. He has also been seen on the BBC reporting for both local news and also on News 24. For more information you can visit his website at www.benclatworthy.com or contact him via email at info@benclatworthy.com

This article was first produced in July 2009 – copyright Ben Clatworthy.