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Am I right in thinking it is this one? I remember he used to have some sort of fan inside him which would blow warm air as you put your hand in his mouth, or something like that. Never knew he used to talk. I also remember another bin like this, except the soldier was taller and thinner. I think they got rid of it when Land of the Dragons replaced Action Man, but it could be my memory playing tricks on me.And here is good old Peeking Tom, who is badly in need of replacing. His chest has fallen off and his eyes appear to have been gauged out! However it is good that he is working again.

Ah, the bin! I thought that was removed when Land of the Dragons was built, or maybe there were two talking bins.My favourite bin after Peeking Tom.

Ooh, I feel quite excitid now. If it is better than the first it will be spectacular. Thanks, Nick and the rest of Season Pass.I love hearing what he has to say. He is an amazing role model.

Soldier guy? I have missed something here. Anyway, hooray for improvments.

The splash zone was fenced off on my visit about fortnight ago. I assume it has been fixed now, whatever the problem was. Obviously something to do with the Dr Pepper paint... Still, it was a freezing cold day, so nobody missed it too much!

Not me, but I used to have various bumps and bruises after riding, but that stopped quite a while ago. Since it is pretty elderly now, the train does get jolty quite often, but once you have riden a few times you get used to it. It was awful when I was shorter, though, because the rests are pretty hard!

Yes, but, most people would probably be happy to queue for that amount of time if they got a better ride. Even if it was only by about three swings longer. It would make an impact, but not a huge difference to the throughput. It would change the experience for the best. However they drastically extended the ride time, that really would make queueing awful. Rush is a great ride, it feel like it should never stop swinging. When I went on it the other day, I was enjoying it thoughourly (I was on the arm that goes higher), but in about 15 seconds after it got going properly, I was off again. If it can't be done without making the queues unbearable, I guess it is not that important.

I love the way a lot of effort was put into Quantum's appearance even though, compared to the park's major rides, it is fairly small and less thrilling. I think it is the fact that it is so much more intense than it looks is why it is so popular. It is a good ride to stumble across while in the Lost City.It does have the weird problem of all those holes in the theming. They seem to have been cut out to get at mechanical parts but never replaced. It just looks dodgy having a wonky shape sliced into one of the pillars, revealing the support underneath. Also, does anybody know why the original themed ends were removed? I can only guess it was something to do with weight.

I still find Rush a good ride, but my opinion has fallen over the years. A shame really about the swings not performing well this year, which is very noticable. I also think that after queuing for so long, riders should be given a much longer ride cycle. As soon as you feel like you have reached the highest swing, the ride slows down and you are left with a 'is that it?' sense.Apart from that, the non-existant theming and the constantly altering music, Rush is still a good ride. Improvments can be made, but I think what matters most is getting all of its mechanical problems fixed.

Nick, did you get all my questions that I sent you a few weeks ago? I hope you did. Here they are again, for the sake of this topic, even though he has already been interviewed:1. What is your view on the current state of Bubbleworks, Duel and Tomb Blaster? The Haunted House sounds like a fantastic ride, but many of the old effects (such as the Skeleton Corridor scene and the original finale) were replaced by unatmospheric effects or left missing. There is certainly a lot of mystery surrounding Duel. I agree that the laser guns make what is a brilliant dark ride some sort of target practice. This really does not work as well as it does on Tomb Blaster, a ride which also had many effects removed when the original Terror Tomb was refurbished. Whilst still a great ride, I think the Bubbleworks retheme in 2006 was awfully planned out and the result took away the magic and memorable fun of the original ride that you worked on.2. Will there be any plans to reinstate the wonderful atmosphere of some of Chessington's old rides in any way that you know of? It will be spectacular if you worked with Chessington again, as they have recently rebranded and it seems they are heading in the direction that you sent them back in the late 80s.3. One last thing, the somewhat now famous skeleton animatronic in the Haunted House that turns off the lights at the start of the Skeleton Corridor, is his name really 'Electric Bill'?I am really looking forward to hearing the interview, when it comes out. Time to refresh my podcasts, I think.

Destroy it? SIMPLES?? I hope you were just joking!:PBlow up a million pound investment just because a contract has expired? How can you predict the future and know it will be too rough by then anyway? It is one of the park's most popular ride if not the most popular. You cannot just 'simply' destroy it like that. It cost so much to build and blowing it up when you have all these other solutions would be utterly pointless.Imagine if Thirteen at Alton Towers was just blown up in five years because a contract with "Bob's Vine Theming & Co." ran out.:D

Erm, did you read the last sentence in that quote?!?!!?

No, I think Saw needs a heavy, all-round, total retheme when the contract ends in around 2016. The exterior can have parts changed/added to because it would be difficult to replace the facade and unneccesary anyway. However, it is easy if you have the right plans to completely change the indoor queueline, station and inside section. If it was to end up unrecognisable as a Saw-themed ride, that would be great. 'Saw World' should become part of Canada Creek/Lost City at either end to bring back some quality theming and consistency.That way the money will all go into theming and effects. It would be better than before because the budget will not be cut down after paying for a million-pound rollercoaster since it is already there. With a ride as big as 'Saw: The Ride', I hope Thorpe Park don't think they can get away with a cheap-o retheme. Not like when they de-associated Rumba Rapids from Ribena by taking away the berry props and placing some fairy lights on some boxes. With Merlin able to get loads of money if they want it, we should see a brand new ride experience after the Lionsgate contract runs out. Advertising it as a new ride will make lots of money, as well. Or they could simply renew the contract in the years when the time comes.

Am I right in saying the tunnel used to be different?Apparently the train would swing through long grass or something like that, or it used to have rockface theming hiding the gurders. I could be completely wrong, but it would be great if somebody could remember exactly if it used to be different. If any of it is true, it would have probably been removed when the ditch was dig under the track for the new trains.

Well, no not really. It is that they simply ran out of time.If you look on the GMTV and Central reports, you can see a lot of progress was still to be done so they probably did not have the time.

Well I had already heard that Saw Alive was average at best, so I went on not expecting much. The intense, scary atmosphere built up when I first went on Saw: The Ride was totally absent from this queueline, mostly because I had seen it all before. Barbed wire, rusty objects, warning posters... They didn't do it. Apart from that there was not any attempt to make the place frightening. So, soon we were lead in groups into the Thorpe Belle already feeling a bit let down.The entrance to the boat had the usual CCTV camera and some words written in red paint, but nothing frightening about going into the attraction. We were sent to line up against a wall where we were briefed about what to do and what not to do, before walking into a dark room to have our photo taken with a figure of Billy. In an attempt to make us jump, somebody then burst through the doorway next to us and lead us into the first room. There were many screens showing CCTV footage with night vision, which was a nice touch to set the scene. The actress shouted a few things in our faces before telling us to head off into the horror maze. After that I saw the photo booth ahead and realised it was the end. It was very anti-climatic. Throughout the maze there was not a single clever effect or scare moment. Not worth queueing too much for.

However, Oblivion has a raised back row. Therefore, "all positions offer a front seat view". The same with Duel at Alton Towers. I think if you are going to see theming around you, the back row always has to be raised otherwise some will miss out.Yesturday I saw the spikes and blades long before the drop and it gave a better effect. Last time I would either miss them completely or only see them for a split second because I was in the back row. However, the ride model that Saw has was not designed to see theming and therefore the cars would have to be especially modified. Oblivion has a raised back seat because the whole ride model was built from scratch as it was the world's first, so it was taken into account that back row riders might miss out.I am STILL yet to see Billy's speech, though!

It is also tasteless. In the queueline you have videos playing "Trashy Trev's Cheesey Chat Up Lines" and "Crazy Pete's Guide to Queueline Insanity".They are fun and light-hearted but so is everything if you look at it from a certain point of view. In my opinion Thorpe Park should go back to their old brand style introduced in 2008 before Saw came and overtook everything and now these bobbing-head chavs.:PThere was even a huge poster at the entrance showing a man with an earing and chains hanging from his trousers shouting into a microphone, among other odd characters. I can't really say I am a fan of this new image.

The flash of your camera would have blinded it because the sensors would have adjusted to compensate for the bright light by going really dark. Therefore it came out black.Naughty!

I don't think there is a particular reason why, but since it is dark in there you would not be able to signpost the camera unless you ruined the atmosphere. If it wasn't sign posted, then the photo would have riders overlapping each other and facing the wrong way because they didn't know it was there. I guess that is a problem anyway, but it would be increased if you didn't know the camera was there.The current positioning of the camera is a bit daft, though. There is a perfects spot, where it used to be, that does not have much going on right at the end. For some reason they moved it right in front of the Foamburst Falls scene which seems random and distracting. It also means you get "Aloe Vera" and "Mango" in the background of the photo.

Yes, those were all operating fine when I visited on Sunday, minus the Revitaliser and the Eggometer-thing which usually work anyway. I wonder if there are some extra bits and bobs that have not worked for years (I do like old bits and bobs on dark rides!).I remember the farting Bubbleworker to bounce quite quickly back when it was Professor Burp's Bubbleworks, but now the Beaufart Scale has been changed it seems the mechanism works at half the pace, often not at all (as what happened on that visit). Maybe the weight of the egg prop is greater than the old prop, or is it just me?

I highly doubt Mystic East will be merged completely with Wild Asia. Whilst they are similar in terms of name and location setting, they are themed very differently. I do, howeve, think that CHessinton are planning to make that huge space consisting of Wild Asia, Mystic East and the likely future development field the Asian set area of the theme park. That means the other areas will be around the Americas, Africa and Europe, which makes sense with their new branding.I hope Dragon Falls gets some attention, even though it is nice and 'Chessingtony' as it is.

It is the scene in which you stand on the steps watching the video in the window, and Jack's secret message appears on the wall. Funnily enough, I seemed to be paying more attention to the 'eerie cat sound effects' in that area than the actual scene. And now I have it on iTunes!!

What other old effects are there left to fix? Everytime I go I see something new working each time that I didn't know was meant to move, light up, etc. Last year the Tickle Test scene was improved with the tickle-monster-thing's toes wiggling and the cogs in the corner spinning wildly. The Foamer also has a lot more effects than I thought it did with the column of water bubbling and flashing different colours as well as the levers that move by themselves. A few years ago this was not happening, so it is good that they are putting in the effort to look for these lost effects and fix them. It seems a lot was turned off/broken during the retheme, such as the exterior music and various bits of lighting in what used to be the Pressure Room. Either that or they stopped working long before because of faults). Are there any more, does anybody know?

Hmm, at a pure guess, is it Jack the Ripper? :DI really liked those sound effects. It sounded like they were coming from far away where something eerie was happening. As the scene goes on, the group gets closer to that far away, eerie place...