There’s trouble brewing in the Alps. Skiers arriving in the mountains over Christmas were greeted, not by snow-clad chalets and oodles of fresh powder, but by thin ribbons of artificial snow snaking down green mountainsides.

For the fourth time in as many years, the ‘white gold’ had failed to materialise. Whether climate change is to blame is anyone’s guess (I’m no scientist), but it’s certainly a worrying pattern.