Ian-S

You are the only person I know who has that view, a few people I know who live in Brighton think the Greens are the best thing since sliced bread (yes they are stupid). Unicorns sounds fun, I'm not sure if we have a MRLP candidate round here though. Here's my prediction: Nobody will win a majority, Dave will form a minority government and continue screwing us all over, and because Labour picked the wrong brother, they'll be so interested in kicking each other in the teeth that they'll miss every opportunity to win a no confidence vote and kick Dave out of office for the next 5 years, and if by some miracle they do manage to form a Government, they'll continue Gideon's plan to sleepwalk us into bankruptcy. Under the legislation, Dave can form a minority Government if nobody else get's a majority, so even if Labour win the most votes, unless it's a majority they cannot form a Government until Dave relinquishes his claim (of which I have more chance of winning a Merlin VIP Pass in a lucky dip than that happening).

Brand is an hypocritical attention seeking whore that changes his mind more often that I have hot dinners, why anybody gives him any time is beyond me, 5% of what he says is interesting, the rest is horse ****. Farage is a terrible public speaker and so that is a good thing overall, not that "Dave" or "Ed" are any better for us in the long term. If you are serious about voting, don't believe a word that comes out of any politicians mouth, go do the research yourself. Some midnight research for you if you want: research what the GPD deficit was when Labour came to power in 1997, then to 2008, obviously this sky-rocketed thereafter thanks to the gambling bankers, but do the same for when "Dave" came to power and gave Gideon the calculator, then lookup what the deficit is now in terms of GDP. Frankly, as Josh has said, a bigger change is needed, as my old Grandad used to say (he served in both wars btw) - it doesn't matter who you vote for, the Government always get in (think about that for a few minutes). We have no Government atm..... Discuss... If you can't be bothered to vote, then don't complain when things get worse, get to the polling station and if you genuinely don't want to vote for any party, you do have that option, put a line through your ballot paper and write NONE OF THE ABOVE across it, that is then counted as a "spoilt ballot paper" and listed alongside all the other votes, if all the people that couldn't be bothered to vote "cos they're all crooks" did this, it would send a massive message to TPTB.

Every three trains it must have been then, to be honest I was so dizzy from continuous re-rides my son was insisting on it could have been alight continuously and it probably wouldn't have registered with me. We never did see it go off while on the ride though, I must inform Jr of that, he will insist we return immediately and ride until we do see it *evilgrin*

https://www.facebook.com/hayley.marie.33865/activity/10155415693140313

Yeah we got splashed by it yesterday lol. The fire engine was sporadically spiting out flames too, but it only seem to be every second train and only when the train was at the top of the drop, timing wasn't quiet right on it.

Don't take my reply seriously, I have no idea. Knowing the local inbreds round here they probably think it's a real penguin show and get all Nancy when they find it's a stage show with actors....

Humans dressed as penguins?

Now that's a decent explanation.

Or maybe there's no plausable reason and someone is just on a power trip. Similar thing happened to us a couple of weeks back. At Thorpe if a priority rider is waiting they'll block off the particular cattle pen temporarily that they want to use, but they'll use common sense about it, the last two times we've been to Chessie then vamp ride operators have been more interested in chatting to each other than they have doing their jobs.

Went this afternoon, arrived at 2.30-3pm ish. There seemed quiet a lot of people there but every ride we went on was walk on: Swarm: 6 (each corner + 2 in middle) Inferno: 6 (4x front row) Colossus: 3 (all front car) Rumba: 2 Stealth: 1 Vortex: 1 Zodiac: 1 After that my back said enough is enough and we left, credit where it's due, of the rides we went on, they were running flawlessly, all but two of the staff were happy and looking like they were having a bundle of fun.

Didn't one of the staff tell a member here the third train had been robbed for parts?

It was running two trains today (everything was), which meant it was walk on all afternoon (everything was).

Queue times, we can complain about those too.....

Yippee!

Dam Merlin and their budget cuts....

Brings a whole new meaning to dark ride....

They also said something about the wheel will only turn while a car is being pulled up the lift hill, and it'll stop again once the car is released, or something like that.

Pink text always used to indicate sarcasm back in the 'good old days of dialup' LOL I hope dispatch is a bit faster when it's running on two trains permanently, what said 10 mins on the screen was in actual fact a 30 min wait this afternoon, they were not dispatching each train until the other had returned to the station entry, which meant that because the second train was full of dummies, throughput was very low. Presumably on a normal day dispatch of each train is completed once the other train has cleared the second lift hill?

What do your parents think? You might not have considered it, but you'd be surprised how much those further up the food chain take notice when parents get involved in **** like this, you are entitled to your own opinion, as laid down by the European Convention on Human Rights Article 9, the teacher has no right to punish you (in this case kicking you off the course) for simply having a differing opinion to her own. Even if you don't intend going back to the course, stand your ground. Some people may find this an extreme view, but the modern day education is not there to educate you, it's there to train you to follow rules and do as others say (evident here by your tutor throwing you off the course for disagreeing with her view), my old English teacher (back in the 80's) would have loved you, she'd have said screw the written stuff, let's have a discussion about this for the next hour if you'd have disagreed with her, which we did often.

Don't get me started on NIMBY's

They have amazingly co-operative licensing. For comparison Brands Hatch is limited to six, yes SIX high noise days a year (a concert for example), and normal operational hours of 9am to 6pm at weekends, and iirc very limited hours during the week. I know it's not a perfect comparison, but a lot of racing cars are the same noise level now as a road car, and the nearest houses are a similar distance to the car park from The Swarm away, but Thorpe's local council is really generous with those planning restrictions.

LOL have they said anything more about a 'Summer Night' ride only ticket? I guess those may only go on sale if they don't sell out of the concert tickets.

I forgot to say my point wasn't to argue about the policy or it's origins, just we only got half of one side of the story, anybody that has been to a park and used the ride access pass knows the pass user has to be accompanied onto the ride by an able bodied 'adult' (well someone over 14 as you say) there's no mention of that in the article and it does clearly say on the back of the ride access pass that ride operators can refuse entry if they feel there is a danger, I'd say sending the kid on with his similar age sister instead of an adult falls into the category. But we don't know whether that happened or whether they even went to client services to obtain the pass, because the article doesn't clarify this. I know, me defending Merlin, what a strange concept.

Yes, the info is different between the two booklet I have for Thorpe, one says 18 (the photocopied version) and the pre-printed version says 14. The website was also saying something completely different earlier in the year too, but it's now been updated to 14. Ride Access Passes and Carer Passes are not the same thing, they have different requirements and conditions, and when I say it's Merlin policy, I don't know how hard is it for people to understand, Merlin operate the parks, so it is their policy. Individual parks have their own management teams who make decisions on a day to day basis yes, but those decisions are based on policy handed down to them by Merlin, the parks themselves are merely subsidiaries of the larger company.

Hahaha epic photoshop that first one, I was wondering where the Thames was.