Harry's Blog

Now I'm no fan of extreme sports, if you want to jump off a bridge attached to elastic, then good on you, but it's not my cup of tea.

But I do have a liking for those folks who manage to amaze in their invention of sport, not just in the extreme way it's carried out. So sports such as Extreme Ironing seem a great and noble pursuit to me.

Take for example the sport of Yak Skiing. It's absolutely mad yet at the same time sounds utterly thrilling.

Here's how it works. There's a pulley and a bloody great Yak. You are tied to the Yak. The Yak is upslope, you wait downslope on your skies. You then excite the Yak by shaking a bucket of nuts, the creature then lunges down the hill at full chat. And you? Well you rocket up the hill at a scary pace.

The sport isn't without its risks.

If you forget yourself in the excitement and shake the bucket too soon, you'll be flattened by two hairy tons of behemoth.

said Time Magazine, which then offers the most sagely advice ever uttered in a magazine.

Never shake the bucket of nuts before you're tied to the yak rope.

How true, how very true. I'm sure we've all told ourselves that before.