JoshC.

Zaturn isn't technically an exact clone; it's a tiny bit taller and longer. [/nitpick] I like Stealth's colour scheme. It's simple and works well. I did prefer the original colour scheme, where they had the dark blue, followed by a slightly light blue on some of the supports and track, then the white - came across like there were varying water levels. Photos to show what I mean... From Stealth's minisite. From TTP. Only a really small point I know; shame that they decided to repaint it though!

Happy birthday Ruby!

10 minutes early actually - you've skipped Thursday! (Unless I've horrifically gotten my days wrong )

A minimalistic one from me... Film of the year: Don't think I've seen any 2014-released films this year... And if I have, they clearly weren't great if I can't remember them! TV show of the year: Doctor Who. Been good this year and I don't watch much TV. Song of the year: Tune into 'TPM's resident DJ' next week, and you might find out... Sporting moment of the year: Being able to do proper runs again after breaking my ankle last year. (Technically personal as well, but meh) Personal moment of the year: There's been a fair few! I'll go with sorting out my future (as in, knowing quite positively what I want to do with my life); that seems quite good.

Everything has been kicking off at my university the past couple of days... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-30325135 http://www.channel4.com/news/cs-spray-taser-police-warwick-university-student-protest http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/dec/03/warwick-university-students-police-tuition-fee-protest Long story short - a peaceful protest was organised at one of the university's main buildings for yesterday. About 25 attended. There was an incident whereby someone assaulted a security guard and the police were called. Things seemed to snowball, the protesters seemingly thought the police were there to break up the peaceful protest and things escalated (so much for being peaceful). Fast forward to today, the university's official position and the SU's official position differ. The Vice Chancellor feels that it's a shame that what happened happened, and that things escalated to the point that they did. The SU feel that the amount of police force was unnecessary and disproportionate. Another protest occurred today to focus on 'Cops off Campus' and to stand up against what happened yesterday. Somewhere in the region of 1000 people apparently turned up, 'occupied' one of the main buildings (a different, larger one to yesterday), which also resulted in the evacuation of a learning space on campus. Seems to have ended up being peaceful this time, with nowhere near the escalating that occurred yesterday. Hard to say where I side with all of this. There doesn't seem to be a clear story on what happened yesterday.. I can completely understand why the police were called yesterday, and it seems that a misunderstanding / miscommunication led to protesters thinking their peaceful protest was being interrupted, so the amount of force used sounds excessive. But when you watch the videos, it doesn't exactly seem like those who were there helped themselves. I'll probably end up doing what I always do with these sorts of situations - keep my head down and carrying on working. The Maths department here generally seem quite blasé about these sorts of things, with few staff and students having strong political leanings. With the actual building being away from the core of the campus too, it makes it quite easy to forget that all this is going on and just carry on with day-to-day uni life...

As someone who visited the park as a young child, I can tell you that going on Tiny Truckers was much more interesting and exciting than going on Toadies. Just bear that in mind!

When I did my backstage tour of Saw a few months back, the engineers said the ride cannot operate below 5 degrees; can't remember the exact reason why, but I think it was to do with some of the fluids used would just too cold and begin to freeze up. So I would almost certainly discount it. Why Rage can operate in the snow and cold temperatures I don't know though! Given how well the park coped with the extremely cold temperatures and snow near the beginning of the 2013 season, I remain hopeful that we won't see any repeats from 2007/08/09. Line up will of course depend on the park's maintenance schedule (which we know from this season needs improving), but I don't see why opening two of Swarm/Inferno/Stealth plus a mixture of flats and family rides sounds so unrealistic to some?

From the park's Facebook: "*Beep beep* Big Trucker coming through, to work on Tiny Truckers!" Is this just standard closed season work or could they be giving the ride some TLC or something?

The Swarm. Just everything about it.

Good to hear. Hopefully with more able to cope with cold conditions, the event can be a success. I'd guess a line up of Swarm, Stealth or Inferno, X, Fish, ABL, Banana Boat and a flat or two is quite possible. Fingers crossed ey!

More details of this 'Cracked' event, if anyone's curious: Electrical effects and extreme eating do sound off-putting. Hope the event is successful for the creators; nice to see boundaries being pushed and such. But for me, a step too far.

Ouch. Chief Rangers Carousel (6) Colossus (5) Depth Charge (6) Detonator (4) Flying Fish (2) Loggers Leap (5) King Pig's Wild Hog Dodgems (4) Mr. Monkey's Banana Ride (3) Nemesis Inferno (5) Quantum (5) Rocky Express (4) Rumba Rapids (5) Rush (5) Samurai (5) Saw: The Ride (5) Slammer (9) Stealth (5) Storm In A Teacup (5) The Swarm (5) Tidal Wave (5) Vortex (5) X (7) Rocky Express + Fish -

Link doesn't seem to be working for me? (Unless I've missed something?)

I think the real question is who's Mark9?

Just realised Slammer is still in this. Time to try and get ride... Chief Rangers Carousel (5) Colossus (5) Depth Charge (6) Detonator (5) Flying Fish (4) Loggers Leap (5) King Pig's Wild Hog Dodgems (5) Mr. Monkey's Banana Ride (5) Nemesis Inferno (5) Quantum (5) Rocky Express (5) Rumba Rapids (5) Rush (5) Samurai (5) Saw: The Ride (5) Slammer (4) Stealth (5) Storm In A Teacup (5) The Swarm (5) Tidal Wave (5) Vortex (5) X (6) SiaT + Slammer -

Nice photo and all, but the lights aren't all that fancy! 6/10

Thanks to Marc and all the TPM Team for the opportunity to help out! Sad to see Dara leave the Team; he was certainly a great part of it and irreplaceable. I'll mainly be helping write up articles for the main site, and ensuring TPM has the most up to date news about the park. Do feel free to PM me if you have any questions or worries about stuff on the site, or indeed on the forums! Josh

"Do you have time to talk about Pizza Hut menus?"

I think that the park's investments the past two year, relative to their position have been good: 2013: -Make their big new investment more thrilling and better received. -Create an unpopular thrill ride into a well-received family ride which helped with their shift in target market. 2014: -An IP-themed land to further bring in more people from the new target market, to show that Thorpe Park can indeed accommodate for families with slightly older children. If you say it as 'Turning some cars around, sticking in some dodgems and a 4D film', it's gonna sound awful. But in Thorpe's position over the past couple of years, those investments have been necessary to help the park. Totally agree they could have done more, but as Marc's pointed out, constant high-level investment won't last forever. And those investments haven't made the park worse, which is always good.

As some may be aware, I'm still living in the huge 23 person uni house. One of the great things of this is that the basement of the house is basically our kitchen, so there's 3 different kitchen areas. I walked into one of them to make a smoothie and noticed none of the plugs were working in that room; dunno how long they had been off. Normally I'd check the fuse box, but a few weeks ago, someone did that and completely mucked up the electrics (and led to everyone in the house being fined...), so thought I'd leave. I let our handyman know via text so that they can sort it out. There was a fridge-freezer in that part of the kitchen, so obviously my next thought is to try and make sure none of the stuff in there spoils / defrosts. The nearest, and most convenient, place to put it was next to some of the other fridges, just in front of the fuse box. So I've moved it there and plugged it in, but still left enough room in front of the fuse box for it to be accessed. After posting in our house's Facebook group explaining everything, the two people who use the fridge-freezer come down, moan at me for moving their fridge and moan at me because it's in front of the fuse box. I move it further out the way so they can get all the access they want, and they just randomly (and I do mean randomly, they freely admitted they had no idea what they were doing) flick a couple of switches and press a couple of buttons, and the plugs work again. They then say I shouldn't have let our handyman know because "It's just a fuse and we can sort it out ourselves". After what happened last time, I don't think so! And after all that, they then talk to each other complaining about how they've now got to walk further to get to their fridge (a whole five steps!!), and how their fridge has been "moved from its home". Seemingly trying to suggest that I should move it back. It's annoying that there was absolutely no acknowledgement that I moved the fridge to make sure the stuff in there didn't spoil and that my intentions were good. I wasn't looking for thanks or anything (and, based on the people, wasn't expecting thanks either), but it's just frustrating...

Nothing wrong with posting on an online forum and having negative opinions about the subject of said forum. So long as the negative opinions made are justifiable...

>Doesn't like Thorpe Park. >Goes to Thorpe Park, increasing attendance figures, to show that the public don't think Thorpe odd an amazing place. Perfect sense. If you truly didn't like the place, show them by voting with your feet and don't go. Otherwise it makes your argument seen rather pointless and unnecessary.

Probably just means Jungle Bouncers will get a retheme. The area will still be the same most likely, just either called Madagascar or simply kept as Africa with a larger focus on the IP.

An extreme-sounding, a perhaps somewhat similar, event is coming to the UK: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cracked-Survival-Experience/420966354723423?fref=ts The creators say they're not inspired by McKamey Manor really, but want to create an extreme event in the UK. Sounds...interesting; look forward to reading any reviews come April...

http://www.chessington.com/2015/penguins.aspx Some penguin-themed rooms in the hotel are coming too. Also looks like the penguin enclosure will contain a "walk through experience". No doubt families with young-ish children will lap this up, as Madagascar is still a huge thing really. So good at least that they're getting a new show. However, this just doesn't entice me at all. I'd be surprised if I end up visiting Chessington next year to be honest...