Sidders

It was never so much an attraction, nor has any attraction been based solely in the Sunken Gardens but it's just a sort of... 'peninsula' from Stealth; a grove hidden from view to most guests too enamoured by Stealth's height to bother looking much further.

Very good choice, Jack! The Lumix series is a very good investment - I hear they're very reliable too.In other news, I live near a corn field and so:RANDOM CORN IMAGE ALERT.Edit: I have since been told that is maize. Oh wells.And Adam, I love the third one! It's my desktop background; makes my screen look all big and spacious.

It's the same story for Neptune's Kingdom at Thorpe; will no doubt be the same for X:\No Way Out as well. You could understand it when it was Corkscrew - the park's first inverting rollercoaster and a piece of what made Alton Alton back in it's glory days. Lord, I can't ever imagine the day Colossus is removed (thankfully it won't be for a good long time yet).

Fear doesn't have to be rational. I'm pretty sure Mr.man meant to say that he would've been unable to move due to fear, not that Detonator could completely destroy his nervous system.

Unheard?http://www.theofficialcharts.com/archive-chart/_/3/2011-08-27/Indeed. It seems like anyone thinks they can spin that practically age-old argument about "Good Stuff Going Unheard" when really, the Album Charts have never been as tainted as the Single Charts in terms of flash-in-the-pan pop pap. How else did Foo Fighters, Arcade Fire, Iron Maiden, Phil Collins, and Arctic Monkeys reach the Album Charts summit in the past twelve months?

That's quite some edit there, Jamal, and I apologise if you felt I was stereotyping carelessly, as it was merely for the sake of the argument. Besides, generalisations like this are made when constructing an arguments as you must understand it would be virtually impossible to include every kind of variety of GaGa fan/music fan/chart fan/people who show vague interest in pop music into a concise point.But I must agree, 'Heavy Metal Lover' does have quite an ear-worm hook. I don't see it being the next single (will most probably be 'Marry The Night'), but I wouldn't say it was completely improbable as maybe the final single from the era, as a sort of fan gift because from what I see and hear, it's the fans' favourite.

Excuse me while I dig up the past and kill some speculation, which I do feel was never really settled:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5hTc-yd9UYTank: real.Turret: fake.Let us never speak of it again. In other news, The Swarm's track has temporarily disappeared, probably covered up to stop is rusting at the pedestrian rate this project is trundling along. And some funky lookin' metal girders/cages are on-site. Source: some guy with photos from Theme UK. I send love and thanks. You can see some of the footer's cylindrical concrete casings in picture one.Station skeleton?More here. Majority of the rest are a right bore though. It seems little's been done since the start of the month what with the rather unpredictable weather and such.BUT YAY PROGRESS. GLORIOUS MUDDY PROGRESS.

I already know all of this, and don't get me wrong I'm a huge fan of the music and I always keep track of goings-on in GaGaland and whilst 'You & I' isn't my ideal single choice (the single procession is/has been really rather crap this time around; 'Marry The Night' and 'Hair' should never be official singles, just throwin' that in their, too) I can appreciate it's musicianship. But I'm not one of her "little monsters" by any stretch - I'm not just going to sit around and be fed patronising drivel like 'Born This Way' (single) and lap it up as the defining equality anthem to end all equality anthems, and I'm not going to be any more impressed by the number of wigs she puts on than I would be were she sat at a piano. I would've loved this video to be what most of her little monsters would slam as "boring", but sometimes, and most definitely in GaGa's case, less is more. An ideal inspiration for this video would be Alicia Keys' video for 'Empire State Of Mind, Pt. II (Broken Down)': simplistic and stripped back; no other-worldly nonsense.I just feel the themes in this video were poorly orchestrated and would alienate potential casual viewers who don't 'get' GaGa or give her time to be fully understood and appraised. Let's face it, she's ruined the chances of appealing to a different demographic with this video; the song has massive cross-over appeal and is typical Radio 2 material, potentially widening her audience by a country mile and showing off to nay-sayers how she can properly sing with that belting voice of hers, as well as proving her musicianship and versatility as a song-writer, but when these listeners hear about the hype and scandal of mermaid sex they'll be completely alienated by it all.And I'm sorry but the dance scene is awful, and orchestrated by a woman so vile she would have you believe every bit of success GaGa achieves is down to her "magnificent", "next level" choreography. Laurieann Gibson cannot choreograph. GaGa is not a natural dancer. The dance in 'You & I' means nothing. It is not representative of any externally visible emotion nor an interpretation of emotion; a lot of it is just sleaze (3:10) and some of the moves we've seen dozens of times before (3:32). Dancing has never really worked with a ballad unless it was ABBA doing that soft-shoe sway they were always so fond of.

Thanks for that Neil. :blush:I came across some concept artwork for The Swarm on Coaster Force not too long ago and if the area turns out anything like them then it'll be a very heavily themed area with some brilliant attention to detail... I'll see if I can dig them up.EDIT: Found them:Courtesy of Coaster Force. Mere food for thought really, I like the smaller details such as the twisted lamp post in picture one and the barrel or toxic waste (or whatever?) in picture three.

I'd imagine it were a bit of both really. But on a loosely related note, I came across a video of Sky Hawk and by God it isn't half impressive! It doesn't appear to have any of the struggles that Rush has, despite dwarfing Rush by standing at 103ft. Mind you, that doesn't stop it from being an absolutely hideous ride.

I live in Somerset and travel to Dorset everyday to attend Sixth Form and Throop Village is what? A mile off? I'm very saddened by this news, but is there anything reported on the pilot's health? I haven't much time to read the article in full as I have to dash out now.

Funnily enough, the concept of the 'You & I' video was one that showed the most promise out of all her videos. Alas, it turned out, like the majority of her videos to be a disjointed affair with far too many themes and ideas squeezed into one video. Mind you, it was to be expected whatever she said about the video before it's début - "I feel kind of sorry for the 'Bad Romance' video because the 'Telephone' video is so much better" she said, days before the début of 'Telephone's 9-minute epic. That was a similarly hectic amalgamation of ideas crammed into too little time to fully explore any of them to respectable depths, and only made worse by the head-scratching Tarantino-esque dialogue in a supposed bid to merit the use of the Pussy Wagon in the video. Not to mention, 'Bad Romance', video and song, absolutely floored anything 'Telephone' tried to accomplish (which included: lesbianism, the illogicality of mass consumerism; capitalism, loyalty, sexy times, just how lovely Diet Coke is, and a Michael Jackson tribute).But in 'You & I' there's real emotion behind the song; this isn't some Britney Spears reject like 'Telephone', this is a song close to her heart, something that rises from deeper realms than her typical dance-pop extravaganzas do, but something about the video pushes out any of that emotion and leaves in it's place a dozen questionable plot holes (Why is Walking GaGa half a robot?; Why is she being "tortured"?; Wtf is with the crazy Ice Cream man?; What indeed, is the point of GaGa being a transvestite in one of the storylines and yet she has a topless male model play Luc in another?; Why do they have sex?; Why is she floating in a tub of placenta?); a typical GaGa affair with little connection between it's plethora of 'deep' themes. But there's only so much effort she can put into each of them, meaning said effort is dispersed between them all.Another thing that irks me about this video is that it's implicitly quite a cheap one. The concept of "Yuyi" - the mermaid, was originally meant for 'The Edge Of Glory's video but due to "creative differences" (hur hurr) the director walked and left GaGa to come up with a video of her, Clarence Clemons and a bit of green-screen (she still managed to stuff that up though). So why bother just dragging Yuyi up and plonking her into the next available video, especially in the sense that she's done? The "metaphor" (so many aspects of her career are deemed metaphorical that the practically Age-Old argument of "Is she for real?" could be jump-started and solved by this video alone) for "impossible love between man and mermaid" (the sex scene) supposedly links to the distance between her and Luc Carl, and yet, it's a very clumsy metaphor that would be better illustrated had she concentrated on the simpler aspect of the walking from New York to Nebraska and made a video out of her journey to play the piano in the cornfield.The scenes where she looks like she's practically being tortured may speak of Luc's defiant claims that she'd never be famous (also illustrated 'Born This Way' album track 'Heavy Metal Lover' - "I could be your girl, girl, girl but would you love me if I ruled the world?" speaks of Luc's jealousy of dating a global superstar, but that theme is also poorly orchestrated, with not enough of a link to reality that casual listeners - and even some fans - can grasp as a hope of understanding it all.And don't get me started on Laurieann Gibson. Who does she think she is putting choreography to a song like this? It's robotic and mechanical and the connotations of that suggest little or no emotion and a lovelorn existence (she contradicts herself by dressing as half a machine whilst walking down the country road). And the stint in the cornfield amounts to nothing because the dancers maker no sense of being there and GaGa as a man isn't entirely convincing (far too fidgety I feel).

Linear Induction Motors (LIM)/Linear Synchronous Motors (LSM) are practically the same launch design, except LSM has one set of launch fins. Intamin AG use Linear Induction Motors to provide electrical energy to power the electromagnetic fins on their Impulse coaster so I generalised. But yes it is indeed a Linear Synchronous Motor that propels their Blitz design; I stand corrected. :blush:But I'm still very uncertain about the footprint of this new coaster. Obviously I'd love it to be a large-scale coaster (Intamin Blitz or B&M Sit-Down would be ideal), but I still want Alton to retain their reputation for building heavily themed, fantastical rides that work within the setting they're located in.

I think that idea would be welcomed, Adam. Especially at a park like Alton. Plus, you could imagine the first drop being the Captain's "descent" on The Flume (if it remains in tact by the end of 2013).EDIT: Technically... *technically* speaking... Maverick isn't a launched coaster of the same ilk as Rita. Maverick uses LIM electromagnets (amazing stuff, honest) as opposed to a hydraulic launch/launch-dog coaster and so not only has a much smoother launch, but a more reliable one as well. See: Blue Fire :)/coasternerd

Adam's right, B&M and Merlin have a good relationship and will most likely work around trying to fit the train through with ease and room to spare. I'm pretty sure though, as long as nothing is drastically changed to the point where the construction looks visually dissimilar to the plans, that they can change a few measurements if it means guests aren't going to lose an arm, so nothing to worry about.

I'm sure the world's tallest is Perilous Plunge at Knott's Berry Farm at 121ft isn't it?But anyway that's side-tracking. You're probably right about that pluk, I think we're getting a wee bit carried away here - there's no guarantee that's the footprint of the coaster, it's just the land available. But as you say, it's most likely protected and I don't see the council letting Merlin just tear the whole forest down to make way for a coaster. I'd imagine as you say, a few of the trees to the south of The Flume and the area of land nearer Kantanga Canyon will be used, plus maybe a small protrusion into the forest if it means only a few trees will go, but I doubt we'll see much of that guessed footprint being used. I am willing to be proven wrong though.

Hipster alert... I joke, I joke, but I do know the feeling, just got to find a new song that nobody'll know about and move on from it. God I remember how 'Someone Like You' went from meaning so much to meaning absolutely nothing once a million other people were crying themselves to sleep with it. For some unknown reason, I'm more protective of my ballads; I like them to be personal on more than just an empathetic level, so if I ever share a ballad here peoples, FEEL PRIVILEGED. But for now here's a random song I like listening to lotsies because it's by a rather lovely lady:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wJxAuduE_E&ob=av2nBecause I feel all summery.Interestingly, I also get annoyed when I hear great music come out of a bad sound system, so for me, I listen to my music with either my phone (Dolby Mobile and SRS Enhancement, baby!), iPod or my CD player when I can be bothered to buy an album/burn off a CD. Laptop's speakers just aren't good enough for my musaaac.

Well, until you'd mentioned it it was only background music when I visited a friend earlier in the week and I made a note to listen later because I liked the sound of it. But yes I must say... tis vair good.

LOL at a Facebook group... In your best Geordie accent now: "Day 2 in the Celebrity Big Brother House and Paddy is stripping the lead from the roof."

Quality read on Nemesis Mark, as always.

It'd certainly be nice, wouldn't it? That they'd actually still think about creating that extra bit of thrilling danger in what is after all, meant to be a "thrill ride", however Nemesis was built in 1994 and was one of the first times a rollercoaster differed from the standard train and coaster design. Whilst The Swarm's wing-rider design is still in it's early stages, H&S would have a field-day if anything like that was tried in this day and age. In that sense, it's always struck me peculiar when park's market rides as "the most dangerous" or "the most scary" when in comparison to their more feral, wooden cousins from 50 odd years back, they're tamer than ever.BUT YEAH GO SWARM.

I for one hope it isn't some ostentatious monster of a B&M to be honest. No matter what the design, manufacturer, scale, etc., Alton have always prided themselves in trying to create a mysterious, other-worldly theme and fantasy about their coasters, even before Nemesis. I know there are exceptions but a coaster in the scale of a B&M hyper-coaster would look awkwardly out of place at Alton because of the lack of theme. The most they could do with it is a themed station and a few themed tunnels.But other than that, this subliminal promotion of a new ride is far more effective with the rollercoaster community than another end of the world theme.

Yay! I'm not the only one who takes random photos of plant life! Some vair nice shots their, Adam. Obviously, yours are made better by the Theme Park locations but alas, I live near no theme parks (nearest is Thorpe, 2 hours away) and so I'll just post a few pictures of my walkabouts... (a lot of these can also be found on my Facebook)Some funky lookin' sun glare...Now I just need someone to sit on the bench...My favourite, purely because it was a fluke shot after many failed attempts at getting a good photo of the sunset.A bee.A weird ivy conglomeration.Vintage apple!My garden's only form of colour other than green: a rather strikingly purple artichoke.

I had no idea this thread even existed!? I can't say much about a camera or camcorder myself Jack as I use my phone camera (8.0MP with 720p recording) and that does me fine. Ermm... you'd definitely be well-advised to shop around but recently my sister bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS3 and it's quality is astounding. The link will take you to Amazon where you can get them for about £120ish.