pluk

Vying for number one place in my most hated advert list comes Haribo, which is number 1 after only a couple of views. Shocking.Seriously, it's Wilkinson Sword and Natural Juice Co things from now on.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-14755678Good news, considering.

Not been tagged in any more since we did this in chat. So it's the same one.

Full opening....http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-14743747Calling everything that is a little bit high an 'eye' really gets on my tits. Otherwise, it's got to be good. Was a run down mess when I visited a few years back, I look forward to seeing the improvements for myself.

New series of Celebrity Juice starts tomorrow night. Shaa-ting!!

Just daydreaming about how a beautiful wooden monster would really suit this rustic sort of area, sharing a lifthill with a redesigned flume perhaps. Mmmmmm.

Went for the first time (that I remember, think I went years ago) last week. Overall quite impressed, but then I was very very drunk at the time. Musings:Was a lot longer than I expected, a good couple of hours, which with bogof vouchers I'd call good value.A rat ran across my hand at the till - nice touch!The actors throughout were quite spectacularly good, made it really atmospheric, involving and entertaining. They stayed 100% in character even while dealing with stupid wandering guests.The batching system didn't quite work out. We ended up being part of three groups in the end, you'd think they'd know exactly how many to batch together to fit in each section.Loved the boat ride, quite unexpected and fun.Vengeance was better than I expected, I agree with the pointless gun grumblings but can see why they've done it like that. It's obviously a tight fit time wise and if everyone was messing about comparing scores there'd be a big back up. But the disorienting spinning with the 3d works quite well, feels like it could do with a bit more theming around the room though to link between the screens.Extremis was brilliant, was expecting so much less from it as it looks quite small, but is very forceful and the loose fitting lap bar means some major out of seat time was had.Some of the scenes were seemed a bit pointless and didn't really go anywhere, but they were in the minority.It's all quite tongue in cheek and deliberately funny in many places (especially the court room), I know it's a family attraction but I think it could be a little bit out and out scary at times, maybe some more things to make you jump. Some of the models and props looked a little tired/amateurish, think it would be a fairly small spend to tart them up a bit.Both entrance and extremis photos were very well done, so we bought them both. Shame there was no email/digital copy option.Lots of stuff I can't remember, mainly due to the drinking. Overall we had a great time and I'll be going back sober to see if is actually that good.

More a mishap than accident, but I can think of better ways to spend a couple of hours than hanging sideways for a couple of hours in Skegness.....http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-14723194Updated, turns out there were injuries, one serious.

As a museum type of place it looks like it is a good day out, but I don't understand the short-sightedness of their money grabbing tactics. If they said it cost £x to enter and this was enough for them to cover their costs and make their profit guest would know where they stood, relax and enjoy themselves. Instead they trick you there with a low headline price and slowly fleece you throughout the day stressing you out. No matter how good the attraction is it's going to leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth and strongly dissuade you from returning.

It openly was fixed for 13 not to lose, they gave away extra tickets to people who voted for 13 at 13.13hrs on the 13th. Basically buying 13 votes to save face.

Result.....http://www.altontowers.com/all-time-greats/Surprise winner? No.Oblivion/Air virtually a tie 2nd/3rd, seems about right to me.Still think Rita should have beaten 13.

These don't seem to live anywhere specific, a place for ride accident reports.So here's a report of a ride accident.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-14702497Got to presume it's a belt snap roll back or one boat going into the back of a somehow stalled boat on a drop.

A bit of info on the reasons behind the sad demise:Dan Longley was a Tussauds Studios AV technician when The 5th Dimension was built, and played a major role in the 1988 revamp. Here, he tells us about the ride:I worked on the original Tussauds in-house team that designed and built the 5th Dimension. As an AV technician, I was responsible for many of the special effects on the ride.The ride had great aspirations and design ideas but the storyline was a bit too wordy and the sets were not convincing - you didn't feel as if you were going into another world, it just felt like a load of sets in a metal shed built by humans!Some of the effects were good, though I say it myself! I designed a laser/strobe tunnel (travel through galaxies) which you ascended up through after entering through the computer screen. Steve from the Planetarium designed and built the laser unit which consisted of 20 x 100mW lasers (if my memory serves right) and a massive array of mirrors and servos. These lasers were chosen because they were the only low-powered lasers that you could legally and safely point directly at the public at the time. They also didn't require a massive cooling system which I seem to remember lasers used in those days!Unfortunately, we were installing everything into a cold, dirty industrial environment - not suitable for such delicate equipment! These were pioneering days for us! Needless to say, the laser unit needed nursing and it wasn't clear (certainly to me) how or who had the expertise to undertake the maintenance. This was the same for all the animations, light focussing, etc.A month or so later, a memo went around the studio heads mentioning me in all but name for the ride's failure to meet expectations. It was true that many of the effects needed maintenance (which wasn't happening) but it showed how essential the effects had been.So, I trotted off to see Ray Barrett, who was director responsible for new projects at the time, and said that I would like to go down and sort things out. John Wardley agreed to supervise me, Tussauds put in a further sum of money, and I was very much left to my own devices!I worked very closely with Chessington's resident scenic theming team (who hadn't been involved in the original work). They 'filled' up the scenes to make the sets more encompassing and atmospheric, which I think was successful. We also re-thought through the whole ride, including the script.I cannot stress to you how appalling conditions were working in the cold winter months in a blacked-out unheated barn. It doesn't matter how many floodlights you use in a black box - it's still dark and dangerous!The refurbishments had to be ready for the new season (88?) and we just about completed on time. I kept a small team on to fine-tune the show with the public on the ride, checking timings of all the trains, etc.So. after all the work, was it worth it? The answer, I'm afraid, is probably not really. It was a good ride but in the wrong place at the wrong time and operated by the wrong team! I'll explain:I think we as the designers took short-cuts in creating solutions; unfortunately, we didn't have the resources that Disney would have available for such a dark ride. When you design something new it is always a prototype; ideally the prototype is tested and then re-designed and re-engineered into a final product solution. Unfortunately, we never have that luxury! The problem with the operation of the Fifth Dimension was to do with the fact that it was not really a 'suitable' theme park ride. It was a 'show' and should have been presented as such. As a 'performance artist' I understood this. When I supervised the operation of the re-vamped ride, I would ensure that all visitors were held back and I made sure they listened to the video introduction in the queue area.To assist the operator, the loading bay entrance door, video sequence, trains, special effects were all synchronised to ensure that the visitor's 'experience' was maximised, and a similar experience for each visitor. Under my control, I would insist that every train went into the ride full (try performing to an empty auditorium - it's not fun!). When the trains came out of the ride the visitors would often burst into spontaneous applause!I would train up the operators and explain to them that they were managing a show, a performance, and how important timing and hype was to the 'adventure'. I'd leave them to it and all running to perfection!The next day I would come in and the staff would have changed! Chessington employs 10s of low-paid casual (student) labour over the season, so I realised I had no hope of training them all. Anyway, they didn't work for me and they had other priorities!So, I would come in the next morning and take a test ride. My first observation was that only a few people would be put on the train. The passengers hadn't seen the introduction properly so they had no idea what the ride was about - many thought they were going on a roller coaster (and you couldn't convince them otherwise!). Worse still, the park's ride engineers had been in that morning to inspect the trains, etc, and they would leave a door open somewhere, which would flood a scene with daylight and completely ruin the dramatic effect. [Actually, as a point of interest, it only takes a single LED to ruin the effect of a black-out. Try standing in darkness in a room that has an infrared sensor for the home burglar alarm].And that basically was the problem. It was a theatrical show and should have been conceived and operated as such. And like all shows the balance between brilliance and appallingness is a fine line. The ride part is an irrelevance - it perhaps would have helped to have advertised the 'ride' along the lines of the 'travelling laser theatre show'! Well, the psychology is the hardest part to get right, or perhaps I should say 'communication' is...Dan Longley MBA BA (Hons) MAPMVisiting lecturer in Tourism StudiesBirmingham, UKFrom the depths of archived reride.net. - bring back reride.net !!

Not a program, but if I ever meet that bloke off the Gillette ads that jogs into the locker room, whoops and calls everyone buddy I am going to hurt him. Worst advert ever.

An amazing amount of info you've got on there, gonna take me while to work my way through it all!Already bought back some fantastic memories, had forgotten how the funky old space station zero trains looked, great to see them again. Can't believe how short a period it was there under that guise - seemed to be there forever when I was a kid.Hope the site is the success it deserves to be. Well done!!!

Received my sun tickets today - 04/11/11.Woop!!!Am I right in thinking this date is event no mans land? Fright ends 31st, and I thought blast is 5th & 6th only? Blast dates are not confirmed on the website yet, but the park is open until 20.00hrs on the 4th (same as 5th & 6th) which seems a bit odd for a standard weekday in the off season with nothing going on. Do we 100% know blast dates?

The dates allocated are evenly spread from now till the end of the season, so shouldn't be especially busy.Not recieved mine yet.

.....yetthere's savings to be made in bulk buy - it's only a matter of time!!

Wow, broken kneecaps anyone? You'd think the arms would have something built in to stop collisions between carriages being possible?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-14639954Oh dear.

If it didn't stop at the bottom, which I guess is what generates the fear on here, I'd think you'd have a fairly destroyed nervous system.

Maybe they are talking about...

I obviously don't know but still think a new flume could pay for itself fairly quickly through lower running costs and maintenance with modern technology and new equipment, so there is one big business decision to replace it regardless of how much of an an extra draw it is. I don't think a new flume is SW material, but if SW7 is going in that area it might be a two birds with one stone plan, sort out the whole area out at once.I've never ridden one, but I don't get the aquatrax thing. Looks to me like a fairly crappy coaster built over water, but not interacting with the water in any way. What's the point?

Love the restraints on this, can always have them nice and loose so real floaty time out of seat on the way down. (Don't moan, it's not dangerous. There is no way someone my size is falling out the side!)

A summery tune for a summery day