Wednesday Waffle

 

with apologies to XC-Mag

(original)

Pie in the Sky

So funny you'll forget your legstraps

Tuesday Twaddle

with apologies to XC-Mag

(original)

Pie in the Sky

So funny you'll forget your legstraps

Dr Johnson Paragliding

AS KEEN observers of our beloved sport, and as pilots, Team Pie have noticed changes in paragliding over the past 10 years or so. Significant changes. Ten years ago there were 2 main free-flying disciplines involving aircraft that could be supported by a family car, and with pricetags that could be supported by a family income. Hangliding or paragliding, no more, no less. It really was that simple in the old days, you were either a HG pilot with a rusty old white van, a pair of ripped jeans and a baggy jumper or a PG pilot with a 3 year old red BMW, a shiny flightsuit and a filofax. You either preferred taking your wing out the boot of your car, up a hill and flying away, or you liked fixing an old ladder to your van, strapping your wing to it, unloading it at the drive-up launch site, rigging it up for an hour, de-rigging it, moving it to the westerly launch, rigging it up again and err... flying away. HG or PG, even the initials were short and sweet, how simple it was in the good old days.

These days, however, even if you've chosen to fly a floppie you still have a lot of options to choose from, there's SPG, PPG, ACRO, SPR, D-BAG, or any of the other hybrid sports. As Cowper said, "Variety is the very spice of life", and here at Pie in the Sky we couldn't agree more. As journalists, we were clearly going to be writing about these new and hybrid sports, and after an hour poring over the dictionary it quickly became obvious we would need help, so we decided we'd better get out there and talk to some of the people doing them. Or better still, listen. After many weeks travelling the globe and watching, interviewing and even trying these new sports we decided it would be a good idea to publish a summary of our findings.

So here it is folks, the Pie Mini-Guide to free-flight related sports that are like paragliding, but aren't quite paragliding, but they are almost, but they're slightly different, if you know what we mean. No? Well, read it anyway, maybe you'll understand when you have.

SPR, also known as Suicidal Para Riding, is generally considered a winter sport where a "skier" guides a wing the size of a large hankerchief down a mountainside at speeds approaching freefall terminal velocity. The L/D of these wings is such that they scream down a mountain, blasting over & through pine trees, with the occasional, and sometimes controlled, bounce off the planets surface. If the pilot survives the four minute "flight", they then use their ski-pass to get back up and have another go. Pie strongly recommends the purchase of daily ski-passes, as they often do not require photos and as such are transferrable, allowing your friends to use your pass once they have scraped you off the rocks. Ski-resorts have become popular locations for SPR as surviving pilots seem to have recognised the unique landing properties of snow. For some reason, it would seems that SPR hasn't, as yet, taken off at the warmer and more rocky flying sites. Team Pie recommends SPR if you have experienced the beauty of living, are bored with it, and would like to move on.

PPG, also known as Painful Paragliding, involves strapping a lawnmower, a fireguard & 10L of moped fuel to your back and taking-off from a flat field somewhere not too far from your house. PPG pilots are usually back where they started within 45 minutes when the fuel runs out and they generally don't stray too far, for fear of not being able to glide back with the 20Kg of wing and 25Kg of lawnmower on their back, therfore saving themselves from a bloody long walk. The "Pain" can usually be moderated well through the use of specially designed ear-defenders. Specially designed for the pilot only sadly, as they do very little to reduce the pain of the 300 people and animals they fly over during their 45 minute spin from the same bloody place three times a week. Consequently, this branch of our sport is generally considered more annoying then your neighbour cutting his grass when your having your afternoon snooze. Team Pie recommends PPG if you find driving up to launch too tiresome or if you live in Holland.

HGB, also known as Hang Bored'ing, involves waiting all winter until you are so bored that you have the choice of either jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge or stapping yourself into a HG like position suspended by wires below some steel poles, which in turn are bolted to the top of a snowboard. Think about it for a second. Hanging like a HG pilot from wires, 50cm above the ground, on a snowboard, while facing, err, the snow. Why? Stearing, apparently, is through the use of weightshift and a rudder controlled by your feet so further adding to the pleasure of watching white stuff fly past 30cm from your nose. We never could fully understand this one although once strapped into this device it might be mildly entertaining to throw yourself down a ski slope once or twice, but we imagined the fun might wear off after a few head first collisions with large conifers. Pie recommends HGB if you live in California.

SPG, also known as Suicidal Paragliding, involves strapping yourself into a paraglider that under normal conditions would be referred to as a kite and going flying in conditions only suitable for lifeboats and other emergency vehicles. The name of this sport is often confused with SPR, due to them sharing the word suicidal, but after extensive research we have concluded that, although confusing, these names are as accurate as any other. The SPG pilot can usually be seen setting up in the middle of a raging storm while wrapped in 5 layers of windproof clothing. At the very same time all other PG pilots can be seen entering the bar having given up on the entire day. The sport is very similar in concept to what, for 20 years, has been called gale hanging, only this time they really mean it. The well clothed pilot can usually be seen hanging under his kite in a storm, then hanging in the trees behind takeoff and, finally, hanging around hospitals and insurance offices in the vague hope that someone else will pay to fix both their broken leg and their wing. Pie recommends SPG if you read about the Eva Withoutskis fiasco, felt somewhat envious and wished there was a video.

D-BAG'ing, also known as Debagging, involves jumping off something with a paraglider instead of a parachute, often bridges or helicopters. Why anyone would choose a paraglider when jumping off a bridge is a mystery to the Pie reporters, but the advantages of jumping from a helicopter are clear. The paraglider pilot finds himself with plenty of altitude, and lots of time to "do things", such as consider how he's going to pay the helicopter bill when he gets back down. The helicopter pilot, on the other hand, finds himself back in the bar 20 minutes later with a load more cash and a promising little sideline. At launch the glider is held within a deployment bag which at first glance would seem to be designed to allow the wing to open smoothly, safely and well below the platform being leapt off. On further examination it becomes clear it is actually designed to allow the pilot to be both recognisable and to look cool in the video being filmed from the platform. Team Pie can't recommend D-BAG'ing, as we simply don't have the balls for it and we don't know anyone who has. We do, however, think you must need very large ones and also a disproportionate level of trust in that guy holding the bag.

ACRO, also known as Airborne Chronically Repetitive Overdosing, is a type of flying where a pilot puts his wing into strange, often repetitive, cool-looking and pointless configurations in the simple hope of getting laid later that night. Unknown to many European ACRO addicts, although pretty obvious to all non-ACRO pilots, you must hold a South American passport if you wish to fully succeed in ACRO. Many non-latinos try and fail at ACRO, while possessing the required top-notch flying skills, they almost all fail miserably in the post-flight phase. They can usually be seen talking about flying and gesturing wildly with their hands in a male-only crowd at the back of a bar, whereas the latino guys can generally be found relaxing on the terrace with a cuba-libre in one hand, a girl or two in the other, and are most likely talking about football and what to have for dinner. Good ACRO pilots are usually members of a "team", as they do not normally just show up at 3000ft above a beach and pull some strange stunts without an audience, where's the fun in that? The normal practice is to ensure at least two friends are watching before starting and then to land on the beach at the bottom of a spiral and proceed to do a high-five with another "team" member while shouting the "team" mantra. The mantra will usually conform to the standard of "Go Team Gonads" or some other "team" name that implies lots of adrenalin & above average sized testicles while clearly demonstrating a lack of team sports participation at a younger age. Team Pie recommends ACRO if you are Venezuelan.

TBTTGFPG, also known as Too Busy Talking To Go Flying Paragliding, is a popular sport and can be seen at sites worldwide. In colder countries the TBTTGFPG pilots can often be seen huddling together behind huts, cars and ridges while animatedly talking about a whole range of subjects including cars, football, women and occasionally the flying they did last year. In warmer countries, the very same pilots can be seen having the very same conversations, but usually in the shade of a large tree. The top TBTTGFPG pilot will often use special equipment for his sport including frisbees, baseballs and footballs, but the true professional can occasionally be seen with a large dog, thus giving a clear sign of having no intention to fly whatsoever. If at all possible the groups of TBTTGFPG pilots should be avoided, as this sport can be very addictive once you've got the hang of it. Team Pie recommends TBTTGFPG if you only started flying paragliders to get a break from the wife & kids, or as short term therapy after an accident.

TSTLRPG, also known as Too Scared to Leave the Ridge Paragliding, is a more traditional form of paragliding, in which a pilot always flies within 1.2Km of his car. The TSTLRPG pilot is usually a very accomplished ridge soarer but, surprisingly, really shows his top wing handling skills when thermals start cycling through. The pilot will allow himself to thermal up and back, although never to cloudbase, and usually no further than 0.8Km behind the ridge, where upon he will apply big-ears & bar in order to get himself back within his safety margin, approximately 250m from his car. They constantly fight the natural, instinctive impulse of simply "turning and going with it", an impulse which has left many a pilot with a long walkout and a missed supper. TSTLRPG is quite popular in colder countries where the inbred instinct to keep out of the rain is so deeply ingrained that the pilot finds himself unwilling to start an adventure for fear of getting stuck 2 hours away from his umbrella. Team Pie recommends TSTLRPG if you have to get home for dinner at 7 o'clock.

TWEYTGLWPG, also known as Thermalling While Enjoying Yourself and Trying To Go a Long Way Paragliding, or occasionally XC, is another traditional form of paragliding. In this branch of the sport a pilot who loves the mountains and wants to spend his spare time up a hill enjoying the scenery, eventually taking off and flying as far as he can, actually does so. Although quite an elusive breed, the TWEVTTGLWPG pilot is often "out on the hills flying", rather than at home fighting with technology, cables, video formats and web pages in an vain attempt to publish some shit no-one will read, to people they've never met. They can be difficult to contact as they are also known to turn their mobile phones off, as they somehow seem to know that the caller can simply wait, which was news to us at Pie, as we were unaware mobile phones could actually be turned off. The TWEYTGLWPG pilot actually enjoys the flying, enjoys the adventure and enjoys the hitch back later in the afternoon. This may seem strange to many regular pilots, but these pilots seem to talk less about flying, they hang around less on launch, and they can often be seen steadfastly walking along the side of a road with an uncomfortably heavy rucksack on their back, their thumb sticking out and a large smile on their face. Team Pie recommends TWEVTTGLWPG if you are well balanced, own more than one fleece jacket and have never read Pie in the Sky.

Take your pick.

Pie would just like to add one little snippet and quote Cowper again, "No wild enthusiast could rest, till half the world like him was possessed", so whatever it is from this list of crazy sports that gets you out of bed in the morning, please remember, you can't spread the word so widely from a hospital bed.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1494 "Leonardo da Vinci Training Hill" videos

The new Q

Top harness manufacturer Qortel have released their new 2007 models and keen to get our bums wrapped in silky smooth neoprene we headed out to the land of the croissant to get our rear-ends pampered with the latest technology, and a good breakfast or two.

Now it's clear that France is the country to be in if you want comfort in your nether regions, as it would seem they specialise in knocking up arse holders and to be honest, after driving the rental car for an hour on their roads from Geneva airport, it soon became pretty clear why. When we arrived in SlowLaunches (Haute-Savoie) we were greated like royalty, we were given a great tour of the Qortel facilities and invited to a stunning lunch at the local Brassierie. But afterwards it was time for business, time to get our hands on these new models.

The first model we tried to test was the new Qortel "Cuddle". We'd seen it in the brochure and knew that it was designed for the flying parent, but we weren't quite expecting to be able to fly with newborn babies only 2 months old. This thing came with gadgets we couldn't even guess at. The fold-away nappy changing bench that slipped under the seat board fooled us for a while, and it had a special deodorizing sausage maker thingy that was designed to hold "soiled" nappies buried in the back where the rucksack should be. We're serious, it's no joke, it created sausages from shit-filled nappies. "It keeps the smell down", they informed us. "Yeah, right", we replied. We had calmed down a bit when they showed us the electric bottle warmer built into the side pockets, as we could understand that one, but none of us had the nuts to even touch the tit-shaped plastic pump thing hanging from the left riser. How had they tested this thing? Again we'd settled down a bit when they attached a brightly coloured chain of distracting plastic tinkling teddy-bears across the chest harness, as we'd seen these things before too. But to finish us off they then strapped the papoose thing diagonally across the chest area and told us this was where the baby goes. The bloody thing looked specifically designed to strangle you if you slipped on takeoff, as far as we could tell. To conclude then, none of us even had the balls to go closer than a metre to it as it was practically dripping hormones.

Next up, they presented us with something we could actually get our heads around. Something designed more for our mindset. The Qortel "Quicky". Now here was a tandem harness truly designed for some cross country action. Suffice it to say, just about every connection on the thing was designed to rotate 180 degrees vertically and the full 360 in the horizontal. It looked cool. Really cool. Everything on it was matte black, except a single silver logo on the back of the shoulder which simply said "Quicky?" Yeah, that cool. As chief editor, I was the closest when they asked if anyone wanted to try it, and as such, managed to just squeeze my arse in before Dave our test pilot. To say it was perfect timing for their secretary, Vanessa D'en Haut, to arrive with the afternoon coffee was to understate the current atmosphere and we noticed she left quite rapidly after putting the tray on the table. We guess she'll be sending the guy from the stores to deliver it next week when XC-Rag do their reviews. There was only one gadget that took a while to figure out and it wasn't until we discovered the on-switch in the shoulder strap, and gave poor old Dave the fright of his life, that we discovered how those kinky French dudes really like it. You've never seen a grown man exit a harness so fast in your life. Incidentally, they may be missing one or two of their demo models when they do a stock take at the end of the month.

Clearly with a couple of "Quicky's" shoved up our jumpers there was no time to review their other new models, the "Quaint" for the older pilot, and the "Quackers" a new speedriding harness. If we have time, maybe we'll return next month and complete the review, but I imagine that we'll have too much tandem piloting on over the next few weeks to squeeze it into the schedule.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1494 "Leonardo da Vinci Training Hill" videos

New Wings for Old

Stand back everyone, the new NovaX DHV 1-2 is due out on the market, so brace yourselves and don't get caught in the rush. Before you run out to get your hands on this "soon to be" winner, please read on because we've uncovered a few details that may otherwise have remained, well, err, covered.

When the rumours of an imminant release started coming in to the Pie offices, we obviously needed to get an up-close-and-personal look at it so we went down to the NovaX HQ in Innsbruck. Yes, right next to Switzerland, the home of good watches, big mountains and honorable losers who never complain when they discover that their top comp pilots are indeed the best in the world, but sadly only in booming alpine conditions or scorching flatlands, where searching for thermals involves flying straight out from takeoff and circling in anything less than a 3-up is considered a waste of time. OK, so it's not Austria, but it needed to be said, and who knows anything interesting about Austria? So.... we set up a hard-to-get interview with Hands Pampas and were well chuffed.

When we arrived at the offices and warehouse, there was clearly an argument going on upstairs, and we could just hear the end of it. I definitely heard someone shout, "...not with those fucking wankers, and that's the end of it", and then what sounded like an office door slamming shut. We were all ready to be shown a blinding array of statistics to back up a presumed increase of 0.8 in glide, but would you believe it, Hands was unavailable again and they sent some marketing tosser to talk to us instead. Well, beggars can't be choosers, so we said, "Please talk to us, Mr Marketing Tosser, we're begging you". Luckily he did.

"Ve've been innovating ziss vinter", he began with a slight accent, "but first let me ask you zomezink. Put yourself in zee pozition of a potential buyer, right, you're lookink vor a good walue 1-2 vrom a top manufacturer, vizz top performance and vithout a hefty price tag. Vat do you buy?".

The embarrasing silence continued as he simply stared at us. He obviously really wanted us to answer and before we could stop ourselves we just blurted out the truth. "Err, a two year old Mamboo?", we said. And then he hit us with it.

"Exactly, meine Freunde's", he said, "A 2 year old Mamboo, and zat's vot ve've been vorking on. Ve have developed special manufacturing techniques to give zee vings a 2 year old look, but still using brand new materials. Zey really look like vings viz 50-100 hours on zem and yet have have zat "well cared for & not left out in the sun" appearance. Zee hardest part haz been zee insertion of zee sand and zee dust in zee seams, but ve've cracked zat now. They're brand new and people know that, it's just like zem 501 jeans, you know?".

"What?. Nah, that's bollocks", we thought, and just as we were about to launch into a tirade of abuse based on the fact that we simply didn't believe him, he invited us to have a look around the test production-line they'd set up, and sure as eggs come from chickens, they really were making 2-year old wings. Straight off the production line. Our journalistic noses were twitching though, everything just didn't add up. Something simply didn't smell right. Now, we're not manufacturers, but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand a production line. You take lots of individual pieces, join them together in a very clever way and bingo, a product. Now there we were at at the start of the production line, but where were all the components? We could see hundreds of metres of new line, but where was the rest? Where were the rolls of material for example? All we could see were pieces of packaging material lying around on the floor, as if boxes had been opened here. There were a few remnants of DHL packing tape & parts of FedEx labels lying about. You could almost make out details on some of them, "...ttoo S, red, UK". No. Surely not. They wouldn't. Not NovaX. Mind you we thought, we've heard rumours that certain other manufacturers have been doing it for years, and it would explain the large delays between announcement and release that have been occuring here at NovaX recently.

"So", we said, adopting a casual stance, "What about the Ta-Two replacement, the Are-A, why have you only released one size?". You had to look closely, but you could actually see the sweat on his forehead freezing before your very eyes. Bingo. He smoothly replied with remarks about Monaco being shut and not enough places to test in Europe and the DHV being strict with the weather conditions and the winter being really wierd this year and global warming being an overiding factor and that there aren't enough months ending in the letter S, etc, but we knew we were onto something, we just knew it. We knew, and he knew that we knew, and we knew that he knew that we knew. Oh yes, it was staring time again, and this time we weren't going to come second.

After a few moments of silence he lead us over to a small room at the end of the offices and asked us to step inside. He closed the door behind us and dropped the blinds. He looked us all straight in the eye, one by one, and said, "None of this goes outside this room right", startling us with his perfect english.

As we nodded our heads, he began, "Well, let me tell you something about the aerofoil designs that sit on top of these new 3-riser, reduced line wings that are hitting the market these days"

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1494 "Leonardo da Vinci Training Hill" videos

The Slow Start

RUMOURS CAME into the Pie offices recently that in Britain it can take upwards of 5 years to learn to fly due to the weather conditions and other factors. Pie would like to offer an open piece of advice to the entire free-flying community to ensure this sort of thing stops immediately. Applicable to so many areas of our beloved sport, we feel this advice could be useful to instructors and schools worldwide. Feel free to use this as your school or club slogan if you wish.

"Get off your fucking lazy arse and get out there and just fucking do it, or shut up and learn knitting".

"Always happy to help", is this months Pie motto, you know.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1494 "Leonardo da Vinci Training Hill" videos

The Silent Treatment

THE 21ST century is beginning to provide us with new technologies already, technologies that just 10 years ago we could only have dreamed of. Mobile phones that can play youTube videos, handheld PDA's that are more useful than a paper & pen and cameras with millions of pixels the size of a matchbox. Ingenious, clever, technological things. Things that are totally useless in the grand scale of things, but none the less things that look really good in matte silver. That was until we recieved an anonymous magazine article about the things that are giving new life to the old flying lawnmowers.

Powered paragliders are going electric, we're told. Well, that's not a bad thing we thought, and after a quick show of hands in the Pie offices we concluded that maybe we'd have a go on one if they actually didn't make that racket. Obviously, we all agreed that we would never buy one, but we'd have a lash at it all the same. After further thought, we also realised that here at Pie, we might have to tone down the humour with respect to PPGs too, let's face it, if the bloody things hardly make a sound we can't really see a problem with them anymore. So we set off to find out how this technology was coming along, how they worked, when might they be available and whether we would have to change our editorial slant in the future.

We spent $9000 on flight tickets to visit the worlds biggest players in the PPG market and have a chat with the designers and developers. Unfortunately, 20 minutes into the first interview and we'd lost track of the theory they were explaining to us and had inadvertantly started asking about the colour schemes they were planning. We never quite understood what a direct drive was or why you needed to brush your engine, and clearly we'd been mistaken for years in our belief that Lithium was a ladies bath soap and that Poly Mer was a Disney cartoon character. Most importantly, though, we were disappointed to discover that they aren't silent, they still weigh a ton and it was nothing like the pocket-sized gadget we had been expecting. So we left. 5 minutes later we'd cancelled our other interviews as we'd completely gone off the whole stupid idea of PPG'ing. We had simply realised that we still didn't want to fly with all that crap on our back, whether it was powered by gas, electric, coal or nuclear reactor, although we did resolve to try again in 10 years when it all folds neatly into a container the size of a reserve compartment.

All was not lost as we had two things going for us, positive attitudes and a shit load of airline tickets in our pockets, so we re-routed our flights to get a weeks free-flying in Marshall where we had a great time with the locals and had some very relax thermic flying. We then headed down to some of the valleys on the Mexico border and posted some more superb distance flights. We then started our journey home, although not directly, as we organised a 2 day stop-over in Vegas where, sadly, we lost most of our cash. We also squeezed in a long weekend in Amsterdam, where the only electric powered gadgets we saw here seemed to be specifically designed to induce noises, and vibrations were deemed a bonus. We then rapidly lost the rest of our cash during a 36 hour visit to "Hansje's Pay for what you Smoke" coffee house.

Back home again with no money, but surrounded by open spaces and big hills, we concluded the only silent thing in our PPG flying would be the first P.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1494 "Leonardo da Vinci Training Hill" videos

Manilla 2007 Mini-Special

Editorial - edited

Pie in the Sky would like to offer our heartfelt congratulations to all "Worlds" competitors for displaying great skill and determination in what turned out to be a difficult competition. We would like to specifically congratulate the winners, Bruce Goldsmith, Petra Slivova and the rest of the Czech Team in your success. Well done. We would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the competition organisers for organising what seems to have been a trouble free and generally safe competition and for keeping the rest of the world updated in a timely manner.

Well done, one and all, and thanks for showing us mortals how the top-dogs do it.

Editorial - less edited

Please note, however, that we will continue to take the piss out of any & all of you from here on in as, quite frankly, we've got nothing better to do. It is quite likely that particular attention will be paid to Bruce Goldmedal and Petra Slipup over the next few issues, so don't say we didn't warn you. After all, you're the best in the world and if you can handle those bloody prototype wings, this should be fucking childsplay.

Those shites over at XC-Rag have come in at the last minute and wrecked our book deal, by out-bidding us for Bruce's upcoming memoires, "The Fucking Long Glide to Goal". Just to set the record straight, we thought of it first and it would seem that it's only money these comp bastards are interested in, not like the good old days, eh, Bruce?

Anyway, no use crying over spilt milk, and we won't be holding a grudge, especially not against some glossy jazz mag. So, here's a couple of rib ticklers to tide you over till the end of the month.

(Chief Ed)

Doin' a Bruce

Looking for a way to accurately describe the last few days, we broke out the dictionary here in the Pie offices and dug up a few little known gems:

Bruce: noun	as in: "Hey, Bruce mate"
	(1) a popular christian name.
	(2) an anchor used by floating oil rigs.
	(3) King of Scotland from 1306 to 1329.
	(4) Australian physician and bacteriologist.
	(5) slang for "Fine German Precision", especially relating to automobiles.
	(6) the 2007 World Paragliding Champion.
Doing a Bruce:	as in: "Hey mate, look, I'm doin' a Bruce"
	(1) attaching an anchor to a floating oil rig.
	(2) kicking the crap out of the English at Bannockburn.
	(3) dreaming up some new cretinous device for lazy BMW drivers.
	(4) whippin' 150 other competitors, half of which are 20 years younger than you.
	(5) flippin' a finger at a nation through the gratuitous use of a christian name.
	(6) winning the 10th FAI Paragliding World Championships.
To Bruce up:	as in: "I'm going to Bruce up, mate"
	(1) to give the kitchen a quick tidy.
	(2) to enhance the performance of a lawnmower.
	(3) to sharpen your Swiss Army Knife.
	(4) to compete in a free-flying competition while flying a wing you designed yourself and proceed to beat the competition while flying it.
Brucin' it up:	as in: "Stand back mate, I'm Brucin' it up"
	(1) to have a good time.
	(2) an Australian outdoor party.
	(3) to go to a party wishing you were back home waiting for the cuckoo clock to wake you up.
	(4) to dance and sing the night away, when normally you would be tucked up in bed with a cup of cocoa.
To be Bruced:	as in: "Christ mate, I've been Bruced"
	(1) to slip unexpectedly.
	(2) to trip in an awkward manner.
	(3) to lose your Swiss Bank Account number.
	(4) to compete in a free-flying competition and to mess up the first task enough to allow a chick and an old guy flying a wing he knocked up himself to get ahead of you, eventually win the competition and leave you feeling like you missed your opportunity.
Brucin' on:	as in: "Yeah mate, he just Brucin' on"
	(1) to be consistant.
	(2) to soldier on relentlessly.
	(3) to not fuck it up on the first task.
	(4) to demonstrate consistantly good piloting skills while enduring difficult conditions over a period of 13 days, and having over 20 years of piloting experience to draw upon when facing those challenges.

Brucin' it up

There once was a man from Greolieres,

Who went to the comp without cares,

Although getting old,

He came home with the gold,

And the rest were left looking like spares.

There once was girl call Petra,

Who didn't have that little bit extra,

All they could see was her crack,

As she was leading the pack,

So they resorted to cutting her Spectra.

There once was a man without fears,

Who was older than most in his years,

The Swiss had to ask,

About the first task,

As he left poor old Maurer in tears.

Ba-boom.

Pie in the Sky
So funny you'll forget your legstraps

Straight Up

ONE OF the more recent additions to the SkyTalk range of paragliders seems to have got the industry talking again this month. As you may, or may not, have noticed their recent addition has had its third size pass DVH certification and this seems to be causing some concern among the responsible manufacturers.

"Normally we look forward to friendly competition from WhyWalk, it's healthy and good for the customers", said arch-rival Chris Ruining, MD of Occasionally-UP International, "But its just gone too far now, somebody has to tell them to stop or someone's going to get hurt."

"Three years ago when FlyWalk introduced the "Tequilla" the industry reacted with a wry smile", he told us in perfect english, "We all related their wing to fun, let's face it, this is a drink that most people regard as something to start a party with. You know, when you're on holiday and you want a good night out, what do you order? So naturally, we all thought cool name for a DHV1-2, and harmless fun with the name. Besides, our Sometimes-UP team pilots have a tequilla or two before they set off testing the protos, it helps them relax. Well, all except Ollie obviously, he's a Margarita man".

Err...

"Then two years ago when they introduced their "Joint" it has to be said, there were a few raised eyebrows", he continued, clearly enjoying speaking openly, "It was a good joke really, although we're Germans we can enjoy a relaxing "smoke" as much as the next man. Maybe not quite as well as the Spanish, but we can enjoy ourselves too. Anyway, it was fine, no-one took it too seriously, and to be honest, I've always been of the opinion there's nothing wrong with a quick "spliff" before you take fare paying passengers to the skies".

Well...

"But they've just gone too far with this one", he continued, "It's a PPG wing for god's sake, haven't they heard about safety? I mean "Scotch" what kind of name is that for a motorised wing? It's tantamount to inviting people to drink and drive. It's got to stop, it's downright dangerous. Some innnocent bystander will get hurt soon, and 200m further down the beach they'll find a pissed pilot lying on the beach with half a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label in his hands and a 4-foot propeller up his ass. It's just gone too far, in fact, here at Fucked-UP we've been wondering if someone over there has a drugs problem, you know?"

Thanks Chris, but maybe we'll leave the investigation of this one to XC-Rag.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1947 "Chuck Yeager Speed Camera" photos

Identity Crisis

IT HAS come to the attention of the ever-so-keen ferrets at Pie that there is an apparent identity crisis looming in the antipodes. You might ask, how we found out? You might ask, where are the antipodes? You might even ask, what's an identity crisis? Well, read on.

How did we stumble on this? Obviously, as a world class free-flight magazine, Pie had a journalist down-under providing hi-tech coverage of the 2007 Worlds for our readers. We have been providing by-the-minute texts, blogged podcasts, podcasted blogs, 24x7 webcast video feeds, hourly spam-free email and GPRS video downloads for those readers on the move. During our many interviews, however, we began to detect subtle changes in some of our southern friends, things we'd never noticed before. They seemed less sure of themselves, less confident and more worried. And thinner.

Unfortunately, due to unforseen technical problems, Pie journalist Sven "Fumbler" Fredrikson was unable to continue his Worlds coverage, so we reassigned him to chasing up this, shall we say, more social story. Armed with only his broken mobile phone, a notepad and a pencil, he invited himself along to one of the weekly clinics held by the Australian Nation Association of Lazy Bastards.

After the meeting we had a quiet word with one of the participants, Josh McGoolie of Cairns, "Men are finding it difficult to be men these days", he said, "You know, it's just not like it used to be. In times gone by I used to be able to tell the cook to follow me in the Ute with a crate o' cold stubbies on the flatbed. Those were good days, let me tell you. Have you any idea how bloody marvelous it is to be dozing in the back with the dogs and a cold beer on the treck back home after a 200k epic. But these days mate, oh, sorry...". He had to stop, this was clearly an emotional moment for Josh, "Christ, I... I can't bring myself to say it. These days, I have to walk out."

He went on (and on) "It's just not right, I'm lost at sea mate. I don't know if I can carry on, I just hope these ANAL-Bastard Meetings can help me. I reckon it's all this bloody independant thinking, you know. I'm serious like, I've no bleedin idea if I can keep flyin. Have you ever been 100k into tiger country without your wife to bale you out? It's fuckin dangerous mate."

Now when you combine Oz and PG there's still only one name that springs to mind. That's right, Godless Windfree, the Ozzie cross-country hound, and rained-out competition organiser. So our intrepid reporter headed back to Vanilla, where Godless managed to spare us 10 seconds for an interview.

"Just fix the fuckin software", he shouted over our shoulder, "The Brits have got me by the nuts, the bloody Italians are all over us like flies on shit and the Swiss aren't speaking to anyone anymore. And no, do I look like I need to talk to a fuckin steward? Just tell 'em we've hardly started yet, and not to worry. If they insist, tell them that sending another one over is just going to make it worse. Oh, and tell Justin I like the Red one. Find Jeremy, and tell him Yes, but tell him not to say anything until tuesday. Oh, and if you see Peter, tell him the toilets are fine now, and send him some flowers or something".

"Sorry, old chap, where were we?", he continued, "Oh yes, equality. Good lord, I don't know what all the fuss is about, anyone with a half decent education treats a woman in a polite and respectful manner. To be honest, you know, girls take up an awful lot of time anyway and I have found they interfere with my training. Besides, old chap, I'm a comp pilot and we organise retrieves as a team before we arrive. Sorry got to dash."

Right. It looks like the whole country has gone to the dogs, even the weather.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1947 "Chuck Yeager Speed Camera" photos

Southern Dangers

AS WINTER took hold here in Europe, Team Pie bottled it and decided to go on holiday, and as the season is in full swing south of the equator what better place than South Africa. We'd heard there are records just waiting to be broken this year in the RSA, so we thought we'd go in search of some new personal bests. We booked our SAA flights to Cape Town and headed north in search of some Karoo XC's. Before we left home we had contacted some of the SA pilots and listened carefully to their solid advice & guidance, so we were ready, we were willing and, by god, we were up for it. So off we went, happy as pigs to the slaughterhouse, thinking we were off on a PG holiday to somewhere like Oz, but with maybe a bit more sand and a bit less vegetation.

Things went really well for our first week, great weather, great flying and stunning scenery. We really couldn't have asked for more. Pie's Icelandic reporter H.Jálmar Sveinsson upped his personal best in the first 3 days, and was clearly chuffed, "Getting to base was easy", he said with an ear to ear smile, "Nothing like back home, you know, and once I was there all I had to do was straight-line it. I chose West. 12K, I still can't believe it. It looks like I'm playing with the big boys now."

All went well and we were having the time of our lives, that is, until the start of the fateful 3rd week. Perhaps we had become a bit too cavalier or perhaps we had become less aware of our surroundings, and as most pilots will tell you, that's when mistakes happen. Pie's Amsterdam based journalist Tina McVee was the first to run into trouble, and we were keen to get her initial reactions on tape. "I'm not coming here again, it's fucking dangerous", she said, and with that, she left. That was the last we heard from Tina until we got back home and found her letter of resignation. What had happened to Tina? We didn't know it but slowly, one by one, we were about to find out.

The very next day "Dinger" Bell, our print editor, ran into a few problems. "They nearly got me, you know. Even now I don't know how it started", he said, "One minute I'm cruising the flatlands at 5000ft AGL and simply marvelling at the view, and the next minute I'm coming down at -15m/s straight towards them. I'm still shaking, look." He then proceeded to lock himself in his hotel room and from there on in, he watched satellite TV with the blinds down.

The following day myself & our tea girl Sheena decided to fly the tandem as strong conditions had been forecast and with those long waits for the retrieves, the tandem seemed like the ideal vehicle. After a couple of hours we were passing the 70k mark but the day was overdeveloping and it really was time to get our feet on the ground and put that waiting to good use. Down to 2,000ft and we began to realise this might be an eventful landing.

Sheena went on record later that day and summed it up well, "I don't know how we found it, I mean, it's not instinctive to want to land in one. Normally it's my worst nightmare, but to tell you the truth I've never been so pleased to see an Acacia Tree in my life. What's more, we were bloody lucky to find it, it was the only tree in the whole bloody savannah. Once we hit it, we simply hung on for our lives. After a few minutes we both unclipped and sat on one of the big branches and smoked a cigarette or two while desperately shouting over the radio. Throughout all of this those big yellow bastards were jumping halfway up the tree trying to get us, the wing was pretty much eaten, you know. Shit, if I want to see wildlife like that again, I'm going to the zoo."

When all the dust had settled, we finally understood the advice "avoid the big five", we had all wondered why 5-up was considered a bad thing in Africa.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1947 "Chuck Yeager Speed Camera" photos

Advertising Scruples

WE RECEIVED an anonymous advertisement, apparently clipped from the pages of last weeks Flying Times and it clearly shows there are some pretty low-minded pilots out there. We've scanned the ad and included it here, so you can fully appreciate the depths to which some will stoop to gain even a fraction of a point in L/D. Please take a couple of seconds to read it, if you haven't already seen it.

"Ah would do it wizout hesitation, englishman", said Patrick "DeHair" Berow, French superstar & Ginger Team member in slightly accented english, "I would 'ave no problems sellin any of my relatives for an improved glyde to gol, wouldn't you do zee zame? Have you no idea how early you could leave zee thermals you fool? Just imagine bein able to go 50m before zee rest of zee peloton. Zeriously, englishman, what can you do wizz your aging granny anyway? It's not like she can drive zee retrieve anymore, grandparents are well past all zat sort of thing. Putain de merde! What iz all zee fuss is about?"

This brief interview with a top pilot shocked us quite frankly, we thought we had stumbled upon something in very bad taste, something immoral, but clearly others were thinking this was the norm. We started wondering if maybe we were being a little over-sensative, maybe we were too conservative, maybe we needed another interview.

Who better to talk to than the guys accepting these ads, the other publishing pro's, people who handle ads every day. The pimps. So we got Joe Slowfield, editor of "SkyDings" the BHAP monthly magazine, on the horn and asked him a few direct questions. He told us, "The bit I don't really get, is who wants an old grandmother? I'm missing the scam on this one". He continued, "Read it back to me again, will you. Mmmm, it does seem a little bit direct, but hell if their paying cash who cares?"

"This ain't scuba diving we're playing with here, son", he continued, "It's not like we've got half a million punters in every country round the world just waiting to sign up, try the sport and then buy the magazines for the next 10 years, you know. This is paragliding, me old mucker, and there aren't many of us about. If someone mails in an ad with a cheque, phones in with their credit card number or even drops in the office with some hard cash, we'll print it. Don't you boys at Pie do the same? How do you cover your costs? How do you pay your staff?

Back at the office feeling alone in a world of commercialism, surrounded by sharks and profiteers, we opened the dictionary at a random page looking for hope in a grey world...

Scruples (noun): a unit of weight equal to about 1.3 grams

We guessed that anything weighing less than 2 grams must be pretty small and easy to lose. That won't happen to us, we said confidently. Here at Pie our readers are safe, we keep ours safe in our trouser pockets. Errrr....

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1947 "Chuck Yeager Speed Camera" photos

Dear Ewa

Dear Ewa,

It was with great surprise that we, the worlds paraglider pilots, opened our bedroom curtains on Wednesday morning and discovered paragliding on our TV News and in our morning newspapers. We would like to take this opportunity to say thank you as we feel there is no such thing as bad publicity. Bad piloting exists for sure, but bad publicity definitely not. Consequently, we would like to congratulate you on raising our worldwide profile.

As paraglider pilots, we all have to answer unusual questions from friends, family, co-workers and the public in general, it goes with the territory. Invariably, it is the same questions we are answering time and time again and although most of us find it repetative, we are all happy to do so in order that we may spread the popularity of our beloved sport.

It is with this in mind that we, the Global Association of Free Flight (Europe), would like to ask you to reply to this letter and enclose full and complete replies to the following questions.

Does it get cold in thunderstorms?

How do you get down from 30,000ft to go to the toilet?

How do you avoid the 747's at 50,000ft?

Can you see God from up there?

How do you fly a para-hang-chute while unconscious?

Is the sky really blue?

Please be as specific as you can in your reply as it will help us educate the non-flying public in a coherent & thorough manner.

Some of our membership have also pressed upon me to ensure you get a copy of our club handbook and ask that you read section 27, so please find enclosed a copy for you to read at your leasure. We are happy to waive the usual €25 fee. I have also been asked to point out to you the pictures on page 182, especially the captions under the darker images at the top of the page.

Once again we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for generating so much interest in our sport, and we eagerly await your reply.

Warmest regards,

Giles Strawberry,

GAFF(E) Chairman

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1947 "Chuck Yeager Speed Camera" photos

Shocking News Report

WE RECEIVED an anonymous newspaper clipping in the post this month from a UK newspaper regarding a PG accident. The report blatently described paragliding as, quote:

"... a group of relaxed pilots flying aerofoils that are capable of foot-launching from gently sloping hilltops and flying considerable distances using only thermic activity".

Yes, we know what you're thinking, but wait there's more. It went on:

"... entering severe turbulence his wing was pushed behind him in what is known as a full stall. While trying to recover the situation the wing entered a cascade of events none of which the pilot could recover from. As a last resort he threw his reserve parachute which only partly opened..."

Stop the presses. What the hell is going on here? None of the Pie journalists had ever seen anything like this before, at least not in the last 35 years of paragliding. To say we were shocked at this level of irrisponsible journalism was to put it mildly.

Your intrepid reporters at Pie got on the case immediately, we needed to put things right. We wrote letters of complaint, we filled up their inbox's, we called their hotline. We even threatened to send round (the original) Rod B. We wanted to make sure this never happened again.

Luckily, the hacks down at the East Wendsleydale Evening Echo printed a retraction the very next day where they re-worded the whole story.

"Apologies for yesterdays screw-up", it read, "A para-hang-wing-jumper suffered an accident over near the old quarry yesterday. The victims friend and fellow para-rider Pete Peterson said it was clear he had been hit by a freak gust of wind known as the thermal-tidal-wave-effect causing his para-hang-craft to implode and both para-hang-wing-chute and rider to fall like a stone. For those who don't know paragliding, it's a high risk sport involving adrenalin junkies jumping off cliffs after being towed into the sky behind speedboats. The victim, John Johnson, a member of the "XXX Paradrena-Deathwings Club", is now well on his way to recovery in the Princess Diana ward of the local hospital, etc, etc"

Job done.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1982 "Airplane II" sliding door scene

British Team Scandal

RUMOURS OF a new scandal have been arriving at the Pie offices over the past few days, rumours so unbelievable that we couldn't bring ourselves to, err, believe them. How could he? Why would he? Surely not one of the British, they look so honest. Which one is it?

First things first, here at Pie in the Sky we are responsible journalists and as such we're not given to exaggeration. We only deal with facts. It is a fact that Bruce Goldchain, Steve Jamon-Serrano, Rusty Ogler & Avian Tomas are members of the 2007 British Squad heading off to Vanilla and here at Pie we have every admiration for them. They try hard and fly bloody fast and what more could you want from a national team? Especially a team that doesn't have access to dedicated charity websites where starving Ethiopians can donate 14K to help pay their international flight costs, as at least one other country does.

Now at first glance you might be forgiven for thinking, "Wait a minute, Bruce, Avian, Steve & Rusty? That's not the British Team, that's the Hairwave test pilot list from 1999", but you'd be wrong, it's not. Rusty's a Blozone man.

Let's get back to the gossip then. The rumours are suggesting that one of the team has been spotted with, shall we say, complementary headgear. Now any casual observer will have noticed a distinct lack of natural head cover in use by the British Squad. Maybe, like us, you thought it was a team tactic or a sponsors request. The only thing we can be sure of is that with the universal use of helmets in our sport it's not Darwinian natural selection that's provided the Brits with such a streamlined look. But now we have the rumours too, and they do seem to suggest it's not a style these guys have chosen, because we've been told off-the-record that one of the team is now sporting a wig. That's right readers, a wig.

We all know that "Once the grass begins to go, it's time to mow", that's just common sense. Let's face it, no one can survive for long in competition flying with a comb-over. The paragliding pioneers in the early years tried it and soon learned it's simply not compatable with our sport. As always there were a few outstanding exceptions, the 1983 full frontal face-plant performed so elegantly by Dan "Tufty" Trump springs to mind, where the only reason he survived was due to the fact that they could pull him out by his memorable locks.

Likewise, 50cm of long, wavy, flowing hair can be a menace too. Many an aging ACRO star, having tasted death once too often, has turned to XC and comps to prolong his existance on this planet. Having changed disciplines, they've rapidly discovered their gorgeous flowing locks, which got them laid so often while flying ACRO, now just get in the way while checking their glide to goal on the 16 pieces of electronics they now fly with.

Trying to get to grips with these shocking rumours, we sent Pie reporter Vince "Curly" Sassoon off to get some informed comment. He found Hairwave stylist Bruce Goldilocks who was, surprisingly, not too busy to talk to us. "Don't be such a twat", he said, "We're XC comp pilots, we don't give a shit about that sort of thing. So some of us are losing our hair a little, what's the big issue? As far as I know, and these are my friends right, none of us give a toss about that sort of thing. I mean, do we look like ACRO pilots?"

"Where did you hear this?", he continued, "One of us wearing a wig? I've never heard such rubbish and quite frankly I don't believe it, it's bollocks. Wig? Wait a minute, did you say wig? WIG? You idiots. You should find something else to do, you know, you Pie people really are fucking useless. For god sake, it's Rusty. Blozone have got him testing their new near-zero-line speedwings in WIG. WIG, you know? Christ almighty! No. WIG. Ground effect. Go google it or something. Now sod off will you, I've been trying to get this paper aeroplane through my office door all morning."

Right, Wing in Ground Effect.   Oh.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1982 "Airplane II" sliding door scene

SoupAir GroundBreaker

WHAT THE hell were they thinking? That's the phrase you could hear being banded about in the Pie offices last week when we discovered that those crazy french harness designers have had their sewing machine running at full throttle again. We had heard on the grapevine that they'd been working on something new and revolutionary, but we weren't quite prepared for what we read on our press invitation. Apparently, and clearly upset with the misuse of their language in the German "RearGuard pour Femme" advertising campaigns, SoupAir were naming their new harness the "SoupAir WeichTouch GXT-120i". No messing about here.

We flew down to Annecy for the pre-launch media event two weeks ago with a view to getting all the juicy details, some nice photos and a couple of test-flights, but we came straight back after half an hour. A couple of phone calls and two weeks later and we were back on the plane again to Annecy. This time for the media launch event where at least we would be allowed to test fly the new bum-holder for ourselves.

At first glance we were quite impressed. It had all the usual hallmarks of a SoupAir Weekend Pilots' harness, well designed with functionality clearly in mind, yet still targeting those flying XC. Not too streamlined, but not too chunky, very comfortable and with the superb construction quality we've come to expect from SoupAir. For the fashion conscious and for those with an eye on matching accessories, the new harness is available in five sexy colour schemes, Graphite, Tungsten, Titanium, Iridium & Dark Grey. Even after looking closely we couldn't tell the difference between the colour schemes, they all seemed to be not-quite-black, kind of like black jeans that have been washed three times. SoupAir's Tom "Cheeks" McPain, who worked as the chief tester for the new model, went on record with, "Mmmm... what? Oh. Err, yes, I like the grey one".

When we sat in the harness in the factory simulator we felt just like we were sitting in our own regular harnesses, it didn't seem different at all. We wondered if it was all marketing hype, and we were beginning to think we'd made a mistake flying over. Everything seemed like on most harnesses, the shoulder straps, the reserve container, everything seemed regular. Maybe there were a couple of minor improvements just as you'd expect, but nothing special. Nothing outstanding. Then we strapped ourselves in, and... wait a minute... ooh, that's not bad... actually that feels pretty good... I can't tell the straps are done up... hey, did you notice....

With those initial comments behind us, we'd worked out the main benefit. We could still feel the circulation in our legs and our dangly bits were still where they should be. This harness has been designed for men. It was testicle-friendly, it was your nuts best mate. It was a true nad nuzzler. This harness was comfortable standing up, it was comfortable sitting on the floor, it was even comfortable hanging in the simulator. In fact this harness was comfortable leaning against the wall having a cigarette or propping up a bar drinking a beer. It really, really, didn't cut off the blood supply to your goolies. A world first.

Clearly choosing his moment, Pierre Bolloux (pronounced bolloooocks), SoupAir proprietor, wandered over. He handed us the glossy spec sheet for the harness and quietly strolled off again with a knowing smile on his face. Here, it seemed, was a man comfortable with his product, and no-doubt equally as comfortable in the trouser department too. Wait a minute. What's this? We had reached the "Optional Extras" section in the brochure, and what the hell were ABS, ESP, SIPS, EBD, EBA, DSTC and ROPS? What were these things? Ah, the penny was dropping, this was a harness for men. Toys for the boys, now were were getting it. This was just like reading a brochure for a new car, lots of meaningless initials, tons of sexy photos, plenty of LED's. Anti-lock Braking System, Electronic Stability Program, Roll-Over Protection System. The brochure seemed to be offering options like we've never seen before. Spoilers, fairings, furry dice and much more can be added to this harness to give it the impression of being efficient through the air, while at the same time adding to the parasitic drag and actually slowing the wing down.

Digging deeper in the side pockets we discovered plenty of knobs, dials and switches and also a USB port for direct MP3 playback, whatever that is. Most of the switches failed to work, although the left-most dial did supply us with what the scrolling LCD display described as mega-bass-boosted Dobly 5.1 surround sound, although it just sounded like a 1970's Abba track in stereo to us. Apparently, "Radio 74" is pre-tuned and ready to "rock your ride", something that might need re-tuning for those living away from Annecy. Although after 5 minutes or so, we figured it might need re-tuning even if you flew near Annecy too.

Something of a first in this industry, we feel, is the availability of various packs. The one that really caught our eye and is worth asking about next time you're in your local PG shop is the "City Wanker" add-on pack. Some of the options are clearly targeting those of the concrete persuation, for example, all stitching and piping on the harness is chromed, as are the carabiners, the side pockets stick out an extra 10cm and from the photo in the brochure it would seem there is a "GTi" and a "VTEC" badge on the back. Amazingly, the "CW" pack also contains sufficient power to light the bottom of the harness with blue neon lights, making the pilots arse stand out in a blue glow at landing and will obviously endear him to any passing 14 year old schoolgirl drop-outs.

We did get a nasty surprise when we tried to sit in the harness before deactivating the alarm, and likewise we wished we had been warned about the de-odorising spray that triggers 3 seconds after it thinks you have exited. So please readers, no lifting yourselves up off the seatboard or any other strength testing before first unplugging the fuse.

We left Annecy simply amazed at the technological advances made by SoupAir. The only thing we felt had been missing was a built in BlueTooth SatNav GPS System that would allow hands-off flying with verbal directions to the next turnpoint, however, upon arriving back at the office we got our answer. Marge "Spread" Thinly, Pie head typist, clarified it all for us. "Your bloody joking", she said, "I've never known a man who needed directions in my life. Put them in charge of anything that moves and it's more than my life's worth to suggest asking for directions or checking the map".

They're clever buggers, those French.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1982 "Airplane II" sliding door scene

PG Holiday Scam Alert

IMAGINE THE delight in the Pie office when we discovered an online offer for a weeks paragliding in the sub-tropical micro-climate near the Sierras in Southern Spain for the great price of 150 EUR per person, travel included.

We were fighting each other for the phone I can tell you, the entire team had a quick vote and we rapidly realised we all wanted to go. Luckily there was no limit on the tickets you could buy, so we booked one.

"This offer must have been buried on page 2 of the google search results", said fictional reporter Jane MeQuickly, adding "I've searched hundreds of times for cheap PG holidays, but never thought to press the button."

We awaited eagerly for our flight tickets, the schedule and the enevitable cute little hand-drawn map from the airport to the swimming pool in our newly found pilots paradise.

Imagine our shock 3 weeks later when we opened the shiny envelope and discovered the following; a return coach ticket to Victoria Bus Station in London and a one-day Super-Saver underground ticket, a voucher for a medium McDonalds meal, a reservation in the 'SeaView Suite' of a 2-star London hotel, and wait for it... a single front row ticket to see a 1970's Rock Band who we thought split up 15 years ago.

We couldn't understand what had gone wrong. Put simply, we were confused. The covering letter was talking about some Eagles soaring and a Final Sell-out "Californian hotel at the end of the road" tour. If you can shed some light on what we did wrong we'd be most grateful.

Meanwhile, we've asked for our money back and we'll let you know how we get on.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1982 "Airplane II" sliding door scene