Getting chummy with Chemmy

Chemmy Alcott, Britain's highest-ranked female skier, is backed by Witan Investment Trust. She once finished ninth in a World Cup downhill race and maybe that's why she's attracting further sponsorship offers.

An e-mail sent to her website from a business called Country Cheeses starts: "We are very keen on skiing and have watched you in races, including the one where you crashed and injured your knee.

"At the time we were developing a soft-rinded goat's cheese. Seeing how bravely you took that setback it seemed a nice gesture to name our cheese Chemmy. When talking to the chap who we get our goat's milk from, he also said that his goat is called Chemmy."

It sounds like a wind-up to me, so I give Country Cheeses a call.

"No, it's true. We did send that," says cheese seller Elaine Boyle. "We have won awards for our cheese shops, but not our skiing."


Penned by Simon Goodley for the City Diary of the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday 7th September 2004.

Original at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2004/09/07/ccdiary07.xml#5