Shockwave

There's been a bit of grief on Chessington's Facebook in the last couple of days, because they refused to take in some bunny rabbits that got dumped outside the park, and there's a load of people giving them grief for supposedly lacking any sort of animal welfare. All the usual bollocks, saying that they're horrible people and that they're never taking their kids there again. https://en-gb.facebook.com/Chessington?rf=264180333676928&filter=2 First and foremost Chessington has a duty of care to look after the animals in its enclosures, which includes making sure they are kept healthy and disease-free. These bunnies could have been carrying anything that may have endangered their animals, which would be a breach of so many animal welfare requirements that the park would have it's animal licensing revoked. They contacted an animal shelter who took the bunnies in to care, which is the right thing to do. Which is what whoever has dumped these rabbits should have done in the first place. And as a friend of mine who's doing a PR degree pointed out if they took these animals in, it would encourage other people to think that Chessington is an animal shelter. They're a zoo, not a charity.

Flying coasters are good selling points for parks, so I'm sure the marketing department will milk this for all its worth should it come to fruition. But in reality we all know this is an awful ride.

The Vekoma Tilt Coaster is completely unique, but it's signature element still makes me go WOW.

Maybe Ben 10 at Drayton Manor, seeing how I've not been on it yet, or been to the park for a few years. But who knows where I'll end up.

Real shame that this one has to go, it was a really good ride when I went on it a few years back. This is now the 8th coaster with the name Hurricane that has been removed from a park. There's also a Vekoma Hurricane model which used to be at Six Flags New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina came along. And if you add that up with all the various rides called Tornado and Cyclone, the moral here is: if you're going to name a ride after a natural disaster, avoid these three names, because it will probably end up in a scrapheap somewhere or used as firewood. Avalanche, Earthquake, Volcano, Tsunami, Blizzard and Wildfire are better choices.

^Good choice! Santigold - Disparate Youth

Given that there's no guest accomodation in the immediate surrounding area, this could be a great idea. It'll be cheap to build, cheap to run and gives people the option of staying on-site and chucking in a couple of days park entry for good measure. In a group of 4, £64 per person and a couple of days entry is pretty good value, given how much the gate price is. No doubt the price will rocket upwards during peak season, and when Ministry of Sound etc. have their events on (and rightly so), but I can see this easily getting packed out during summer weekends and over holidays and special events. It's pretty much win-win for Thorpe. If it works, they can choose to expand the Crash Pad site and/or build a purpose built hotel. If (and this is a very big IF) it doesn't work, it won't cost them the Earth to remove it.

The only ride I can think of that might fall into that category would be X/X2. If I remember correctly, the ride was what could be described as a maintenance nightmare, partly down to the sheer weight of the original trains. One the of the modifications when it was refurbed were new trains, which weighed much less than the original design so as to reduce wear and tear.

The suit is simply posturing as "likely to cause confusion" because Universal don't want a rival attraction from another powerful leisure business parking up next to a load of hotels where a lot of their clientele come from. If it were all about the name infringing, then Apple could sue them if they wanted.

Bad week for disco! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3b9gOtQoq4

The park was going to be on my summer trip to the Deep South this year. Rampage was really the only reason I put it on the schedule, but I'm not too bummed out that I'm going to be missing it, or the rest of the park from what I've heard.

Looks like a great experience! I'd pay the money just to have Christian Fittipaldi drive me around, someone of his experience going much faster than I ever could in a supercar would beat any rollercoaster for me. I've done a single seater driving experience day before, and they are a lot of fun. Blocking the speedometer out on these cars is a good idea, because it's all too easy for some people to forget that these sort of events are not a race, they are an experience, and one which regardless of how fast you go, you should get out of the car feeling great! Well done to Elissa and Adam, and well done again to Elissa for not telling Christian to watch his speed!

I wonder how much of the original track is left from when the Voyage was built? My guess would be none! I can't think of many rides built in the last six or seven years that need this much retracking. Even so, I really hope they can make the Timberliners work. It can't be cheap having to do all the work they [Holiday World] have done on it. I didn't enjoy Voyage when I rode it 5 years ago, but I'd love to give it another go sometime and really enjoy it.

Space isn't an issue, it can be made. If the park want to put a ride in, they'll make it work. And to say there's nothing else - well there clearly isn't! All those parks have a great selection of attractions apart from their GCIs. Put it this way - Mount Olympus didn't think that because Timber Falls built a wooden coaster down the road from them in 2004 that their next coaster shouldn't be wooden coaster. And Timber Falls didn't think that because they were down the road from Mount Olympus which already had a couple of wooden coasters down the road that they weren't gonna build a wooden coaster at their park. It almost goes back the "two similar coasters in the same park" malarky. Canada's Wonderland will have two enormous B&M coasters in the same park, and the public won't complain or think that they aren't being original. Six Flags Great America had two Arrow Looping coasters in the same park for over a decade and people didn't mind. And Geauga Lake had a double looping Arrow and an Arrow Corkscrew coaster within spitting distance for nealy 20 years! Bottom line is, if the park think that certain ride is right for their park, they'll build it.

The only thing I'd wait 5 hours for is to watch Arsenal bring home the Champions League Trophy on the streets of London, or to see Megan Fox and Taylor Swift mud-wrestle. Sadly I already know which one is more likely to happen.

That figure of money is relative, not only down to the exxhange rate, but that figure can be warped by the price of materials and shipping etc, promotional tie-ins, planning costs. even the cost of removing the old Black Hole tent. Rides do not have a constant price regardless of their location, nor do different park management have the same methods of calculating how much (they tell the press and public) how much their ride costs. I'm just disappointed it's not a looping inverting Big Apple. This is clearly what Alton is missing.

26/26. The geekiness still lives!

Kim Jong-Il. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16239693 Team America finally got their man!

Roller Coaster at New Jesolandia, Jesolo Italy. My coaster count now stands at the awesome 666!

DJing in Manchester (centre) with my boss/buddy Ben (left) with Forest from Hellogoodbye (right). Our Sheffield launch night poster!

How they've managed to shoehorn this ride into the complete lack of space is awesome. Almost as awesome as the Scandinavian twins. Can't wait to get back to Grona Lund, has a fab time on the TPR trip a couple of years ago. Great park, full of hot girls, and the most awesome poster ever.

Whilst I'm not really for or against the Royal Family, these events don't come along very often, and I had had a great time watching it in everyone in work. Didn't actually do any work because there wasn't any work to do.

US singer Loleatta Holloway, best known for her vocals which were sampled on Black Box's 1989 hit Ride On Time, has died at the age of 64. Anyone more au fait with the song should be able to say if this is actually her or the model who lip-synched in the below vid.

Wrong. None of them got ran over.

Because I'm waiting this on BBC, that's a pretty essential link!