That headline might be unnecessarily provocative, but there is a needless breathlessness about the heedlessness of Brits over age 50 in this story in the Daily Mail, which is shocked…shocked…to discover that 13 percent of these blokes and lasses will engage in extreme sports while on vacation…and of those, fully 14 percent will throw caution to the wind and try water-skiing. While on vacation. If we read this right, that’s 14 percent of 13 percent, so basically, two guys from Dorset went to a reservoir while visiting Branson, strapped on a couple of skis, got dragged around a bit and fell over, and one of them got a snoutful of what passes for water down there. That’s what we heard, anyway.
Parasailing was about as popular as water-skiing (the same two guys, maybe, when they went on to Cancun). Next came scuba diving, windsurfing, surfing, rock climbing, bungee jumping and caving.
Really, just 14 percent? We’ve run into nice old ladies from England on Colorado chairlifts. (“Why would you go to the Alps when you can come to this,” one asked.) And we’ve been on dive boats off Belize with hale fellows from the UK. So we’re a little surprised that the numbers are that low. And there’s an odd note of astonishment that British olds aren’t purchasing travel insurance while they’re suffering from this “holiday brain” condition. We suppose they assume all their health care will be taken care of by the National Health Service. Whenever and wherever. Apparently not.
Could this be the one advantage that the American health care system has over the British? When we are hurt on vacation, it’s like when we are hurt at home. We expect to foot a large part of the bill. So no biggie…
Photo by Thibault Dauphin via Wikimedia Commons
