Chips

Chips were two road cops in the USA on bikes that solved crimes and all that in the 80's and they had names like Ponch and Jon and they were fairly craptastic. Even worse chips have been appearing at a bouldering venue near you and its getting worse when existing chips are not enough for folks and they have to add their own.

So who is doing this? Well judging by the additional Chipping at Cratcliffe - its not climbers - well one would hope not. In 1997 John Bradbury - a local to Cratcliffe - admitted he thought that chipping holds in gritstone was "how you climbed". He whacked a few jugs into an unclimbed slab at Robin Hoods Stride and went on his merry way, until Shawn Dance told him the big no no.

Meanwhile Big Al Williams was hard at work filling them in with his patented gloop and today - I still can't see where he did it - such is the genuis of the man.

That genius is needed again to help restore the poorly looking RHS & Cratcliffe - I would hope that the climbing community would be supportive of this - but you always get the nannies of the world that dissagree.

Its a debate that we are always happy to engage in, but the end of the day - Chips like that biker cop gun toating Poncherella, should be history.