But the Ambulance ran like a beauty, the only real fear coming when as we scaled the mountain routes as wheels slid precariously hither and thither over six inches of fresh snow Jeff Carter, sitting in the passenger seat was heard to cry, "Mitch, can you PLEASE STOP SHITTING THE LIFE OUT OF ME!" Still there we were safe and sound. Driven by the philosophy of ‘everything will be alright’ and after some ringing around by some of Mitch’s English working Courchevel friends we found all seven of us, plus Dave, a Courchevel bar man, plus two husky dogs, ‘sleeping’ head to toe in a four man apartment for six nights.
This was the Clap’s freeloading heaven. As it happens all of Mitch’s free holiday promises came to fruition - and then some. For this writer had some even more good fortune. I found a seven day three valley ski-pass on day one worth over £120! Yes, it contained a photo of the unlucky person who lost it originally, but with ski hat pulled down as far as possible, goggles tightly fixed, white lip and a carefully placed thumb over the face I had seven days free ski-ing too. If I ever meet the guy, I’d like to shake his hand, although I’m pretty sure he’d like to shake my neck. I did apparently bare an uncanny resemblance to him, which I find fairly hard to come to terms with, although given the circumstances of my good fortune I’m prepared to live with it.

The aim of the holiday was to bring Cambridge Clubbing to the Alps holiday makers. This took the shape of Mitch and Jeff (GBH) and Paul Darking, Vigi and Hoppo (Good Times) playing House tunes over three nights. Mitch had previously spent four seasons DJ-ing here at The Kalico so had the contacts and the reputation to bring it all together. TOTAL RESPECT. Free holidays to his friends which also included Marcus and Gary from Homebass in January, aswell as the Chas and Dave of House, Grant Plant and Geff Barrow (More Tea Vicar) going in March and finally the huge Grand Central Garage and Soul Crew in April. This is something which is going to cause an avalanche….

The Kalico was the setting for these nights. Pretty much how you’d expect an Alpine on-piste Tavern it’s the focal point for all the English speaking workers, most of whom were well acquainted with The Mitch Mathews experience. This venue was bringing in 350 punters a night. Getting these punters to fork out the mighty sum of 20f (£2!) wasn’t so easy, but in Jeff and Hoppo you had doormen well up for the job, unless of course you happened to be a bird with a nice smile and this ensured ‘access all areas’. Pretty much your average ‘Good Times’ then.

But it was heaving! A downstairs dancefloor was rammed each night with punters delighting in hearing their first new tunes for a month. Although it has to be said that Camisra, you know that one that goes ‘nu-uu nununu’, proved to be the holiday anthem and Cambridge has been caning that one for months. Still, these were your holiday makers. Not here to be educated, more to dance on and fall off table tops as our DJs over looked their nights’ artistry from their balcony perch. A brilliant set up which somehow my photographs couldn’t seem to catch. Strangely blurred or mis-timed I have no idea how this could have happened, but hey, this is The Clap! after all.

To say we enjoyed ourselves would be the understatement of all time. Blessed with five days of pure blue skied sunshine we were ski-ing miles over to Meribel to visit Hoppo’s mate Woody in his bar. Cheap food and beer was the order of the day and invites back to Courchevel for the Merible workers to sample the big House night. "With a bit of luck they’ll be havin’ it," said Vigi, "and it’ll be like ‘This is how we do it back in old blighty’" added Paul Darking, the master of the quote, although as usual I’m not allowed to print most of them.

Some nights they were full of it. Getting Mitch, Paul and Vigi together over a few beers is the recipe for some ‘animated discussions’. Most of which you can’t remember at all come the next day. "I see myself as the Norman Wisdom of House", says Paul Darking one night. "I want respect for my cheese!" says Mitch another. Vigi, who seems to have perfected the art of chilling, managed to escape the rising passions when it all go too much. This man took no part in the snow sports but happily kept himself amused ‘somehow’. What did he do? He may have been burgling holiday makers rooms all day, but your guess is as good as mine. Still a benign smile was fixed to his face at all times.

Rumours of sightings of Sasquatch were greatly exagerated but my theory is it may have been Hoppo ski-ing naked up-hill for the benefit of our foreign friends. Mitch, ‘apparently’ at one time in the top twenty of English snow boarders was not seen anywhere near a snow board, but for yours truly, Andy Clap (the Paulo Wanchope of the slopes) and Ju-boy, his freeloading ‘assistant’ this was a TOTALLY WICKED EXPERIENCE. Thankfully the only injury was a fat lip on Jeff, which could just have easily have been caused by a slap round the face as from a snow-boarding blow-out. To be part of the GBH experience in the Alps we at The Clap! can a only say the HUGEST THANK YOU.