Ian-S

I don't think either main candidate has any redeeming qualities, Hillary lies, Trump !ies, Hillary is corrupt, so is Trump, both are terrible people, out of 200 million people these were the best they could come up with? Utterly embarrassing. If I were to vote it would be to spoil the ballot (can we have that as an option?) as a spoilt ballot means more than not voting at all. Sadly Bernie never stood a chance, he should have run as an independent, Hillary's nomination was decided in 2008.

Yeah sorry, well hopefully now you realise that isn't what I meant, I agree teach it all, but do it when the kids are at an age that's it appropriate for, not while some are still in nappies.

2015 don't you mean?

Ah now I get you, although I still don't get why you would find that condescending, to me it's just a statement of fact, no different from telling someone that doesn't drive who cannot comprehend the freedom it affords, that when they pass the test, they'll understand better why people like driving. It's quiet literally meant as it sounds, when you have kids that age yourself it may be easier for you to understand why a lot of people disagree that lowering the age of sex education is a good thing, it's not meaning "nah nah I have kids you don't so keep you opinions to yourself".

There is no need for a child of six or eight to be educated in the ins and outs of lgbt before they even know the basics, start with the basics and move on after they understand that. Having a different opinion is not being condesending, perhaps if people were less inclined to get offended at every little comment before understandinh, there may not be so many problems.

I said sex education as a whole shouldn't be taught to 6-8 year olds (the present proposals), not that LGBT stuff shoukdn't. When/if you have kids that age, you'll understand

Think yourselves lucky, back in the day sex education amounted to a 5 minute video of a birth and one go at putting a condom on a cucumber and any mention of gay got the **** beaten out of you or your fingers smacked by the cain. I don't agree with 8 year olds being given sex education, especially lbgt stuff, they should wait until the kids are old enough to say the word without dissolving into fits of giggles first, but schools should do more since most of my generation can't even acknowledge sexuality let alone talk about it.

They probably have to let the ground dry out, or maybe they're just tight fisted and originally intended to start the work next year and the announcement was just so they could shut the flume 18 months early and save some wonga.

Fixing everything that's broke would be a good start.

I agree with both of you I just find the whole issue smacks of hypocrisy.

I wonder how long it will be before someone complains to the Mail that they were offended by the till because "Christmas" is offensive to them as it conflicts with their religion.

What clown purge? The only thing we saw related to them was one house that had a sign "No trick or treaters please, baby sleeping. P.S. clowns will be introduced to Lucille, trick or treaters put in a lineup, your choice." Very few got it.

We got the same with Swarm.

LOL loggers is supposed to be closed for refurbishments too but nobody believes that. All I'm saying is yes they are not coasters, but both Loggers and The Flumes were extremely popular family rides, I would expect them to do a big goodbye event for Colossus if it ever closed, but considering the way the other rides have been treated, coupled with the fact that the last big 'goodbye' event was eight years ago, I wouldn't be assuming Merlin have any thought for fans desires to say goodbye. Their focus has changed over the years. Edit: I didn't include Bubbleworks because we all know that 'event' was just a cynical money grab and they never had any intention of tearing the ride down.

Hex, The Flumes, Charlie, Driving School all wave hi!

It's a bit different to Paultons though, they went down the "better to ask forgiveness" route and just built their rides without planning permission at all, this lot have, it appears, gone to the effort of complying with the regulations, applied for permission, had it granted etc. then built the ride. Only now to have the local authority flip flop their decision and reverse it which is something you cannot do outside of the appeals time limit, if I were the park I'd tell the LA to go do something physically impossible to do but if they did that, they'd never get permission for a rubbish bin again let alone more rides. Local Authorities can be incredibly spiteful, and stupid, a fine example here. This is the kind of situation where local authority does something dumb, makes owner tear down ride, park suffers, closes, then local authority complains the park closure has hurt the local economy, dumber than a box of frogs.

Wasn't that hard to follow.

That was my point, the younger generation are less likely to complain through fear of loosing their job, whereas old angry farts like me wouldn't think twice about saying "I'm going for my break" and going, then if someone threatened me with the sack saying "see you at the tribunal then". I may be wrong on this but I also think people under a certain age have less job rights than older people which is another reason why a lot of ride ops look, to me, barely old enough to give birth let alone stand up for themselves against manipulative bosses. ...and of course as you say, shareholders and profits come first.

Young people tend not to question instructions, they're easier to exploit.

Doesn't DB have a bit of an interest in trains? Or is that another magician/performer?

Shareholder profits come first before staff moral. I'm constantly amazed at how happy some of them seem to be, yeah there are some arseholes but the majority are good fun, I know I wouldn't put up with some of the crap I've seen them given by Joe M Public or even other staff members. I've noticed some of the more miserable ones seem to be on concession stands rather than rides, but hey don't worry they got the biggest pay rise in a generation yesterday and will get another one next year /s They deserve £20 a hour sometimes.

I thought Trump liked to grab them not complain about them?

My friends son regularly has to use crutches/walking sticks or a wheelchair due to a medical condition and they never have any issues, some rides have stairs access only (Inferno) and others have wheelchair lifts you can use if walking upstairs is a problem, assuming they work (Saw's wasn't last time so we gave him a piggyback much to the dismay of the ride ops), but other than that they may just politely point out access might be a problem but they won't turn you away. They take more interest in amputees than they do anything else.

Another thing I saw was the station was a rotating one like Thorpe/Alton/Lego but they stopped using it and used a different stop/start procedure to load and offload because of "safety concerns" over it's movement, ironic if that was a contributing factor. I have to say though whoever thought having an unprotected open mechanical conveyor that easily accessible was a good idea needs to find a new career, we stopped doing that in factories 30 years ago because the risk was too high.

Sorry to double post but got sent this by a friend out there, bit of a ****storm going on because Joe Public thinks general medical terms are heartless, but it also gives more info about the accident: http://www.news.com.au/national/ambulance-officer-slammed-for-saying-four-dreamworld-dead-suffered-injuries-incompatible-with-life/news-story/8d090b77b4f942237839b488b6567637