Sidders

Air (5) Battle Galleons (5) Berry Bish Bash (5) Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (5) Congo River Rapids (5) Driving School (5) Doodle Doo Derby (5) Duel - The Haunted House Strikes Back (5) Enterprise (5) Frog Hopper (5) Galloper's Carousel (5) Haunted Hollow (5) Heave Ho! (5) Hex - The Legend Of The Towers (5) Ice Age The 4D Experience (5) Marauders Mayhem (5) Nemesis (5) Nemesis Sub-Terra (6) Oblivion (6) Old Macdonalds Singing Barn (5) Ripsaw (6) Rita (4) Riverbank Eye Spy (5) Runaway Mine Train (5) Twirling Toadstool (5) There's Something In The Dungheap (4) The Blade (4) The Flume (5) The Gardens (5) The Towers (5) Th13teen (5) Sonic Spinball (5) Sharkbait Reef by SEA LIFE (5) Skyride (5) Squirrel Nutty Ride (5) Wobble World (5) Oblivion +1 The Blade -1

You sure can. Basically UK Experience is basically anything that counts as an attraction. You could vote for London Dungeons or Madame Tussauds if you like, or you can stick to a theme park (doesn't have to be Merlin). International Experience is the same thing - could be anything. Right from Wodan at Europa Park to Disney's Fireworks Displays.

Air (7) Battle Galleons (5) Berry Bish Bash (4) Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (4) Congo River Rapids (5) Driving School (5) Doodle Doo Derby (5) Duel - The Haunted House Strikes Back (6) Enterprise (5) Frog Hopper (5) Galloper's Carousel (5) Haunted Hollow (5) Heave Ho! (5) Hex - The Legend Of The Towers (5) Ice Age The 4D Experience (5) Marauders Mayhem (5) Nemesis (7) Nemesis Sub-Terra (6) Oblivion (7) Old Macdonalds Singing Barn (5) Ripsaw (6) Rita (3) Riverbank Eye Spy (5) Runaway Mine Train (5) Twirling Toadstool (5) There's Something In The Dungheap (2) The Blade (5) The Flume (5) The Gardens (6) The Towers (5) Th13teen (6) Sonic Spinball (4) Sharkbait Reef by SEA LIFE (6) Skyride (5) Squirrel Nutty Ride (5) Submission (2) Wobble World (4) Submission -1 Air +1

Great to have both pluk and Tommy on board with us. As Tommy said it's really sad to see some Moderators take their final bow, but I'm sure the newbies will follow footsteps well. Good luck to our new Moderators and to those who have left us for other duties.

Air (5) Battle Galleons (5) Berry Bish Bash (5) Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (5) Congo River Rapids (5) Driving School (5) Doodle Doo Derby (5) Duel - The Haunted House Strikes Back (5) Enterprise (5) Frog Hopper (5) Galloper's Carousel (5) Haunted Hollow (5) Heave Ho! (5) Hex - The Legend Of The Towers (5) Ice Age The 4D Experience (5) Marauders Mayhem (5) Nemesis (7) Nemesis Sub-Terra (6) Oblivion (6) Old Macdonalds Singing Barn (5) Ripsaw (5) Rita (4) Riverbank Eye Spy (5) Runaway Mine Train (5) Twirling Toadstool (5) There's Something In The Dungheap (3) The Blade (5) The Flume (5) The Gardens (6) The Towers (5) Th13teen (6) Sonic Spinball (5) Sharkbait Reef by SEA LIFE (5) Skyride (5) Squirrel Nutty Ride (5) Submission (3) Wobble World (4) --- Oblivion +1 Dungheap -1

I was going to do that Mark - have a category for Alton and Thorpe cock-ups but then decided what about Chessington. So basically, and this goes out to everyone wanting to vote, "Biggest Thorpe Cock-Up" can be anything that's annoyed you with regards to Thorpe and "Most Disappointing Merlin Moment" can concern any other Merlin attraction in the UK. Say... if the London Eye fell over, that'd probs count as a pretty big cock-up. Got three members' votes now No rush obvz, you got nearly a month to get your votes in you lovely people.

Good gravy! Has it been a year already!? Only seems yesterday we saw Alton walk the UK Awards, Katun get voted the Best International Coaster and we had our very own Mr JoshC. crowned the biggest fanboy over Marc. SO. Without further adieu, we will commence with the crownings for the next year of glorious TPMing and Thorpe-whoring/hating. Alas, here comes the boring formality (in a bizzle) Avert ye eyes, fair innocent ones: The Park Awards: (text iz big enuff rite? lol xoxo) The first round 'comprises' of the Park Awards. The park with the most votes in each category wins. Below are the 'selected' categories for 2012: Best UK Park Best(-Looking) International Park* Best UK Coaster Best(-Looking) International Coaster* Best UK Flat Ride Best UK Water Ride Best UK Dark Ride Best New Attraction for 2012^ Best Themed UK Experience Best Themed International Experience Worst UK Ride" Most Uncomfortable Ride" Most Disappointing Merlin Moment in 2012+ Biggest Thorpe Cock-Up+ Best-Looking New Attraction for 2013 Best Manufacturer (*) These categories are still very much open to everyone but we realise that some members may not have ridden many international coasters or been to many international parks. If this is the case for you, feel free to vote for a park you would love to visit or a coaster you would love to ride, even if you haven't been to/ridden them. (^) This attraction will have to have opened at an established park (I.e. not a travelling fair, LUKE AYERS) for the start of the 2012 theme park season. It does not have to be UK-exclusive; any new addition for the 2012 season in any country can be nominated. (") These nominees can be pretty much any attraction you might find a queue for in a theme park (insert joke about Air's queue), in the respective countries of the category titles. (+) These categories are open. Basically that means you can vote for pretty much anything that has pissed you off about Merlin and/or Thorpe. Merlin and Thorpe do make mistakes. Vote for one that has particularly grated your cheese this year. You could also vote for something Thorpe have done for the Merlin Moment category, if you feel it wasn't simply a decision by Thorpe themselves (I.e. Crash Pad). Okay, so with that out of the way, look on to see the Forum Awards! These are often a lot more fun, generally because you get to vote for people you want be banned/secretly want to bang and NO-ONE CAN STOP YOU. But don't feel you have to vote for every category is you don't want to. The Forum Awards: OKAY. So here are the categories for this year. I'm liking it better than last year already: Best Member* Best Administrator Best Moderator Most Knowledgeable Member Campest Member Funniest Male Funniest Female Biggest Fanboy Biggest Fangirl Sexiest Male Sexiest Female Best New Member^ Best Quality Posts Most Sarcastic Member Best TPM Meet" Storm Surge Award+ Most Likely To Be Banned In 2013 (*) I am aware that TPM will be recruiting two new Moderators within the next week. These members, regardless of whether their applications to become moderators are successful or not, should be voted for in this category, as quite frankly I'm afraid of the competition it's only fair that way; they'd only have been a mod for three week or less and they'll have had much more time as a Member. Likewise, any member who is currently a moderator but isn't by the time to results are announced should be voted for in their current category, I.e. Best Moderator. (^) This nominee needs to have signed up after January 1st, 2012. Obviously, but you'd be surprised how many people forgot this last year... (") Sadly the Guildford trip won't count here, as it's not happened yet. Seems logic. However this category includes all official meets that were advertised on the site. If you need a refresher here they are: Maxy's Premier Screaming Weekend; THE SWARM ERT Meet; Open Day Meet; Colossus Birthday ERT + Exclusives Tour; or Fright Nights + Experiment 10 Exclusives Tour. (+) This one is simple. Vote for the member who you think reminds you of Storm Surge or should be awarded a Storm Surge for their efforts in constantly dripping water all over on strangers TPM/in life. So there we have it, all you buttery nipples. These are the categories for this year's TPM Awards. Feel free to vote for as many or as few of the awards as you like, here are the rules and regulations about voting: Important: Should you wish to vote, copy and paste the above lists and clearly denote which park/member etc. you nominate for each category. Once I have your votes, I will PM you confirmation of receiving them. If there is a problem in understanding your votes, I'll PM you back saying so. You can then sort any problems and re-send them back to me, with any other changes in votes you wish to make. Please make sure your votes are final, as once they are received and there is no issue with them, I will only allow you to change your votes once. If you decide to change your votes then you must PM me saying so, along with your new votes for the categories you wish to change. Once your votes have been change, I will send you another confirmation PM. You will not be allowed to change your votes after this point because I'm only human and it's hard to keep track o' y'all. You do not need to vote for every category. Should you wish to withdraw yourself from voting in a certain category, simply leave it blank and don't be confusing. This topic will close at 20:00 (8pm) on December 18, 2012. This gives you 30 days to vote, which is more than last time because I'm feeling generous. Any votes received after this time on December 18, 2012 will not be counted, so be speedy, ite?! The details set out at the bottom of each category list is final. All your votes must adhere to these rules, you silly sausages. The categories listed above are not for further negotiation. Dun dun dun. Further Information:All votes will be kept confidential. You are not allowed to vote for yourself in any of the Forum Awards categories. Each vote will count for one point for each nominee for each category and ill be 'totted up' 'cumulatively'. 3... 2... 1... OKAY GO. Send your PMs at your will to me and remember - have fun y'all! Here's a picture of a lamb to get you started:

Josh, this really is such a wonderful post. I really, really commend you for not giving up even when faced with prejudice, and after so many years as well! It's great that you've finally found an constructive fitness outlet that you've come to enjoy, and are already seeing and feeling the physical and emotional benefits of. We all have problems with how we look and such - very few people ever say they're satisfied with everything, but the difference with your (past!) problem and similar problems with so many people I've met even at my Uni is that you took the incentive to get fitter and made it work for yourself, and now that's something you can truly be proud of. Lovely to hear you've set yourself goals as well. Wishing you the best of luck and perseverance.

Going through a really rough time of late. Been feeling up and then down and each time an up comes round its like I have so much else going on that I barely have time to appreciate why I came to Winchester in the first place. But to cut an essay short: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm4MyPIj46s Beautiful song, and worth every second of it's 7:53 length (lyrics don't come in till about 2 minutes in). It just works. It works as a personal song and song that speaks of a wider, further-reaching stuff about human nature. The finale though

Lap-bars on Outlaw Run? That'll be insane!

Completely agree with these, pluk. I do genuinely feel pity for these sorts of people, adopting the ideologies and philosophies of others and being ignorant to form their own - whilst I understand it is good to have faith, it's not so desirable to live under the ideologies of others and compromise your own freedom as a result.

Sheila Dik**** is real?!

Clicking the logo works for me. I have no idea how you end up at the Hub Bot posts though!

That was the joke... Bitchy forum rivalry is an easy target...

Can I just say: I've wanted the colour scheme of the Ocean Park Wing Coaster at Thorpe/heck, any Merlin park for a long time. Lovely combo. As you were.

TST CHOPPER WOO.

I imagine Marc will know, as he was the one who set up the live feed page during the last TPM meet (for Fright Nights). But then again, it wasn't very successful...

Welcome to the first semi-serious blog post from me. As the title suggests, I've subsided the music talk for a brief moment to consider a more emotive reflection about why I have the religious beliefs I do. I consider myself atheist, though on paper I am a Roman Catholic and was raised a devout Christian, at least until my father was ex-communicated for a reason none of the members of our family are completely clued-in about. I believe it had something to do with the Parish priest wanting to bless my parents' marriage, despite them having married in a church and in the eyes of God fourteen years previously, so upon denying to sanctify their marriage he ex-communicated them in front of the assembly of Sunday Mass. Pleasant fellow. I went to a Catholic Primary school in which our R.E. classes taught us only what Catholics believed; attended a secondary school with no religious denomination; a 6th Form which was staunchly Protestant and had close ties with the town Abbey; and I'm now attending a University with one of the strongest Anglican support systems in the UK in the Ancient Capital of England, the City of Winchester. So I've met many different angles of belief when it comes to Christianity and yet, since that five-year period with no religious interference during secondary school, I've not been able to reignite any longing for the fear of God to rekindle itself with me. But unlike most cynics, those who've never had a religious upbringing and Richard Dawkins, I didn't jump to the conclusion of atheism first and then accumulate the knowledge to bring me right back to where I started. I believed in God, Jesus and Satan (sort of) from the start. And also unlike the far more fervent Dawkins, I'm not here to persuade you to believe what I believe, but since you've been so kind as to click in to my Blog I'd have hoped the unwritten comprehension that you're about to read my opinions is clearly understood, but please be sure to utilise the wonderfully-presented comment box at the bottom of the post if you have issues with my spelling. You see, where Dawkins is different not only in his methodology of belief but also his justification, is that he actively enforces an ideology of his own that stands beyond simply disposing of the belief of God, and it's fair to say he's slightly more relentless than I in trying to prove it. I continued exploring my religion. I experienced many ups and downs in that journey, and as the whispering playfulness of childhood innocence left me during secondary school and I became... an arguably less model Christian (parts of which I still struggle with today)... I came to the point where I found that it might be impossible to truly believe when so much terror was going on in the world. The London bombings brought the frailty of humanity to everyone's mind as many innocents were killed; the Kashmir 7.6 Earthquake in Pakistan killed many more; Hurricane Katrina had just destroyed the American Gulf coast in one of the most devastating natural disasters in history, and Pope John Paul II had passed away. Looking back, it was by the end of this year - my first in secondary education and the first time Mass was no longer ingrained as a necessary Sunday activity - that I really began to question my beliefs. I plateaued somewhat for a while, and then coming across a passage in the Bible which really bothered me, I sat back at thought about whether or not it was really that logical to read the Bible anymore: "Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." Matthew 10:37 I couldn't conceive any God (especially since this God seemed to me more like an ‘idea’ at the time) was more worthy of my love that my family was. It just didn't make sense. It's asking to give abstract emotional attention to an abstract form. Again, no sense was made. And then, as the real turning point for me, I watched a repeat showing of Derren Brown's 2004 TV Special Séance, which, if I recall correctly, has since become one of the most complained-about programme in TV history. In it, I watched in complete disbelief as a smug and self-important Brown caused a number of paranormal events, much to the sheer horror and fright of both those in the room and those watching. Impaired vision through hidden cameras and dim candle-light made it hard to see the workings of what was soon revealed to be a massive hoax (by Brown himself; the show was aimed to disprove the legitimacy of 17th-18th century seances). This got me me thinking about how much I could 'see' with regard to my dwindling belief in God. I no longer read the Bible, having discovered the heinous chapters under Leviticus' name. But I still sort of wanted to believe there was something out there, but like the 12 bewildered volunteers in Séance, it was fairly impossible to test for legitimacy when your own vision disallowed you from ever finding out the truth. I remember mocking those who believed in the paranormal shortly after, thinking myself numinously enlightened by Brown and his all-encompassing powers of discovering and exploiting fraudulence. It took me less than a year to realise that in fact, I was part of the same belief system as they were. I believed in God; they believed in spirits. Spot the difference. There isn't one, and there isn't one because there's just as much historical documentation about the existence of ghosts, demons, witches and the undead as there is for God, angels, apostles, Jesus and The Holy Ghost. Who was I to say spiritualists were wrong? Who was I to say that there beliefs were foolish and mine weren't? Just because my belief system was arguably more mainstream than their's didn't make mine a more factual historical entity. And sure, it's a comforting thought to be able to feed off the 'sense' of your cohort in order to validate our own beliefs, but since when did the popularity of a belief constitute it's accuracy? And right now, I'm not really belonging to any religious system. I believe you can have faith - you can have faith in anything. A god, a person, or a chair in hoping it won't fall when you lean back in it. But faith should be individual. Faith is not something that should be enforced onto others or used as a tool in validating arguments with tenuous existential links, otherwise we're stuck back in religious territory and we end up with idiots like the Scientologists. End note: Writing this blog is the first time I've really consolidated my thoughts on this matter. I suppose I thought it'd help in some way... Hmmm...

And you accuse me of having too much time on my hands?

What is this tomfoolery? These people are clearly dumb or unaware of the alternatives. And since when does people liking it have anything to do with it being a fair system? Maybe we should just abolish the abolition of Apartheid.

If this is payback for the Wikipedia comment... ... well played, fine sir. Oh yeah, and in case I haven't made it clear, "The Smiler" isn't even laughable. It's like one step below being a registered sex offender. It's atrocious.

Excellent point, Jack. The SW7 (I refuse to call it The Smiler) logo is still an IP of Merlin Entertainments. Look at Liam's photo again. One of the entries is "The Merlin Entertainm... [something]", which could just be a registered trademark of the company currently in use. It may even be the actual Merlin Entertainments logo. Point is, Intellectual Property doesn't just consistent of rides and attractions for companies like Merlin - logos, slogans, event names etc., even the actual owned property (I.e. Warwick Castle, which also appears in that list) all count as part of the Merlin Entertainments Group property. It's possible that, as Jack said, "The Smiler" is simply a name assigned to the logo so that it becomes a recognised intellectual property of Merlin Entertainments (which would make sense, as it appears to be focal to the ride promotion and possibly even the actual ride experience itself) and therefore cannot be reproduced for other purposes not involving Merlin or Alton Towers in some way.

Can someone point me in the direction of a reputable source?

Ahh, Wikipedia seems to be accurate this morning... Oh, and I love this song. It's alarmingly stupid and a bit of fun.

Well hey now, Splashdown does have that adorably pointless Jacuzzi thing at the top of the Black Baron, next to the Mississippi Drifter. Awks how only about three of the vents actually pump the pool with warm water and how the whole thing serves as the only entrance to the upper slides, meaning while you're relaxing you've got people of all ages splashing past you as they hurtle towards the Black Baron... Aww, Splashdown...