Shakedown
I liked one midway ride I saw. It was like a giant ice-cube tray, but carrying people instead of ice cubes. Supports carried the tray from its ends. Gears within the supports allowed the tray to be spun on its longitudinal axis.

The concept was simple. The tray was carried out over an area open only to carnival personnel, then inverted. I could hear coins, cell phones, and personal belongings falling out of people's pockets onto the pavement below (where grasping carnies lurked in the shadows). For separating cash from customer in an efficient manner, there was no better ride on the midway!
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 19:51, 1 reply)

Of Water Parks and Cruelty to Children
First Born was 8. Hot summer's day and off we go to Water World. Featuring a newly installed enormous, 3-story tall, 45-degree, drop-and-plop-into-pool, slide.

Daughter wasn't having any of it. I being a good da' cajole, Dutch Uncle, and arm twist her into trying it. She at the top displaying serious symptoms of marthambles and space rabies in hopes of not having to go down the slide.

After much public hystrionics, she climbs into the slide, screaming like a gutted rabbit all the way down, a flailing landing, ending up with a Boo-Hoo-Hoo finale of an exit, and me getting the hairy-stinkeye-YouSHITparent! treatment from the rest of the queue behind.

5 minutes later it's lipperty-lipperty-lipperty "C'nwedoitagin! C'nwedoitagin!" Sorry kid, need some meds for the daggers in my back. We both have scars of different sorts from that day.
(shamblinthru Grasshopper! Next time use the potholders!, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 19:23, 4 replies)

I think it's time you people all grew up, and stopped making cheap jokes about the sort of people who work in carnivals.
I mean, they're out there every night, working hard, making a living, entertaining the people. And, after all, we found love, so don't hide it. Life is a rollercoaster, just gotta ride it. I need you, so stop hiding, our love is a mystery. Girl, let's get beside it.
( Dr Preference AjcuiVd289, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 18:53, 2 replies)

I went on the log flume at Alton Towers with Captain Sensible.
He wasn't particularly zany during the ride but he did somehow manage to keep his stupid fucking hat on his head no matter how hard we tried to dislodge his stupid fucking hat.

"This is for fucking off and letting Vanian turn The Damned into Goth Sloths you stupid fucking hat fuck."

Is what we should have said while we were trying to dislodge his stupid fucking hat.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 18:27, 6 replies)

Fair food.
The annual fair here lasts for a month. As well as having great bands 5 nights a week (old skool - Blondie and Pat Benatar, Journey, Sammy Hagar play almost every year) the food is to die for. Literally.
There's one stall calling itself the Heart Attack Cafe and last year I indulged in deep fried avocado nachos, deep fried butter, deep fried chocolate covered bacon and a whole host of other stuff.

Then across the concourse you can get huge turkey legs or footlong hotdogs dripping with greasy onions and bell peppers.
It's the only time of the year that I pig out a lot and I can't wait for the fair this year.

www.ocfair.org
(nolongernuts, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 18:24, 4 replies)

Fairground Goldfish life expectancy?
It's apparant that most prized goldfish from the fairground are dead by the time you get them home. So I was wondering how long yours lasted for? And whether I hold the world record!

Length? 8 years! Then i emmigrated, and the fish was finally set free in a pond and was found dead the next day .
(Boom- Clicks on NSFW links at work., Fri 10 Jun 2011, 18:15, 7 replies)

Tiswas was coming to the fair!
Tiswas was massive in the those days. I thought the Phantom Flan Flinger would show up and paste us all with pies! But he didn't. Or that local boy Lenny Henry would be there handing out condensed milk sandwiches! Or at least reading out made-up news in his hilarious Trevor McDoughnut guise! Did he bollocks. Instead we stood waiting for two hours (the equivalent of six days in infant years), until Tarrant – and Tarrant alone – finally appeared, spraying the crowd with a can of silly string. Ha ha. Well anarchic. Then he said some stuff which didn't seem very funny*.

Anyway. It wasn't all doom and gloom. My beloved brother happened to be Walsall's David Bird of hook-a-duck. Returning victorious from the stall he presented me with his prize to cheer me up. A FUCKING GOLDFISH! I had never experienced petdom before in my life, so this blew my tiny mind out of my cartoonish jug ears. I named him Speedy Gonzalez. We had to leave the fair early, as Speedy's bag was leaking, but I didn't care. I had a fish, and the fair could just suck my bald acorn.

In those days, there wasn't such a thing as cruelty to fish. We made Speedy what we thought was a very nice home in a big round glass bowl. It had gravel in the bottom, and water above that. Just what fish like. We put it on top of the telly. I very much enjoyed watching Speedy go round his bowl, and eating/ignoring the flakes of food I delivered by regular airdrop.

The next morning, I ran downstairs to spend more time with my new aquatic pal. My brother greeted me with a grim face. As he'd gone to open the curtains this morning, he'd trodden on Speedy, who had jumped out of his bowl because our house was somehow worse than living in a bag in a fucking fairground. I'd like to say this was a significant moment, but in emotional terms it was more like my balloon had burst than my beloved pet had died. My brother was probably more upset at having to scrape goldfish guts off his bare foot before breakfast.

Exactly – I mean exactly – the same fate befell Speedy Gonzalez 2, who came along a couple of months later following a school fête. From this we can draw one of two conclusions. 1) Fish don't like being kept in small bowls on top of hot televisions in 1970s Walsall. 2) Fairground folk get their prizes by preying on vulnerable goldfish, smooth-talking depressed fish with talk of a better life as a hook-a-duck prize. Once the unhappy fish realise they've been conned, it's too late, and suicide is their only way out. I won't patronise you by pointing which option is clearly the truth.


*I thought maybe there was something wrong with me but twenty years later he compered an awards cereony I was at, turned up late and was booed off-stage as his act consisted soley of reading aloud from a postcard listing 'Ten reasons why a cucumber is better than a man'. So I'm pretty sure he's the cunt.
(electricteeth, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 17:44, 3 replies)

I
also went on a waltzer at the notorious "Thame Fair" in south Oxfordshire many moons back.

Imagine my surprise, after handing over a steep £3 each, Mrs AeroClub and I were instructed to perform a ballroom/folk dance in triple time, performed primarily in closed position...
(SonoraAeroClub "OH SWEET HELEN OF BALLS!", Fri 10 Jun 2011, 16:52, Reply)

I
went on the waltzer at the local fairground last year, but trapped my leg as it was spinning round. I was screaming in agony, but the bastards just increased the velocity of the ride.
(Monkey the Chicken Twitter: death_stairs, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 16:16, 1 reply)

Granada Studios
While its not the best theme park ever, i went there about 10 years ago and went on the best ride of my life* (steady...).

It was one of those thats like a big cinema screen with banks of seats that you have to get strapped into and they move in time with whats happening on the screen.

The video was Aliens! We took off from the Nostromo and landed on LV-426 via dropship, encountering plenty turbuance along the way. We drove out of the dropship on one of those armoured APC's and headed into the compound, looking for signs of life. Heading down these tunnels at speed the Queen Alien jumped us and started beating shit out of the APC. We beat a hasty retreat, with her ripping half the armour off and a few marines shot her/got eaten along the path back. We thundered back onto the ship, blasted up and nuked her from orbit....all while being shook to fuck in those seats

awesome!

*please tell me if this still exists somewhere?
(Monkeystrumpet monkey. Monkey, MONKEY!!!, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 16:14, 5 replies)

Something.
We heard some mad noises overnight and the next morning there was, like magic ,a fairground. Everyone from the town turned up but all i can remember is the ringmasters tattoos, the hall of mirrors and some crazy old lady with a balloon.

They arrived and left on the scariest train you ever did see. Wicked!


bindun?
(DreddPirateBob has watched every scifi film ever on, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 16:14, 1 reply)

I keep getting asked by this short bugger
and his big-haired companion whether I'm going.

Then they start banging on about herbs for some reason....
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 16:12, 1 reply)

Fair
I went to the fair in the early evening and managed to fall over the coconut shy. I couldn't see the attraction.
(deffuse, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 15:56, 2 replies)

A barrel of laughs
So its 1998 – for some reason the people in charge of flamingoland think it a good idea that I be in charge of the shops.

I walk into the Plaza Gift shop and get accosted by the supervisor as her bulbs have blown!

“Not to worry” says I “I’ll turn that barrel you’re using to stuff teddies in, which make this shop look like a pirates cave, upside-down and stand on it and change the bulb” simple – the barrel is about 4 and a half foot high and 2 foot across

So I climb on the barrel and notice the future Mrs Ninja is working on the till. I’ve still not seen her boobies yet so I must make a good impression! I’m trying to impress her with my Yo Yo skills whilst standing on the barrel waiting for the replacement bulb. Obviously its working (as it would on any warm blooded woman) when suddenly…

Bang!

Yes – the top of the barrel had fallen in with me following it – so I’m stood inside a barrel trapped and I can’t get out – all the staff in the shop set about calling me a cunt and laughing!

Luckily the CCTV was bollocksed so there’s no tape! – it could be lies! Ha ha
(Clit Ninja is having a white space party!, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 15:45, Reply)

Balls
A couple of years ago, a circus came to the village where I live. A massive big-top appeared in the field, posters went up and a sense of excitement was - Well, nobody was that arsed to be honest. My daughter, however, was desperate to go. And so off we trotted.

You know how people say "The circus is in town"? And how they never say "The circus is in village"? Turns out there's a reason for that. When I saw the posters, I wondered whether a four-night residency was maybe a tad optimistic for a village with a population that would struggle against the Polyphonic Spree in a tug-of-war. And I was right; We took our seats in the cavernous big-top alongside* approximately three other families. My immediate concern was that, if the clown** tried any of his zany hi-jinks with me, it'd be a lot more difficult to tell him to stick it up his arse and fuck off.

Anyhow, the circus acts did their best, faced with rows of empty benches. Tumblers tumbled, acrobats acrobatted, bendy women in lycra provided a little something for the dads, and the whole thing was presided over by the traditional ringmaster. Hurrah!

One act sticks in my mind, however; The juggler. A young chap strutted into the ring (fnarr fnarr, etc) and, to great dramatic music, displayed his awesome ability to throw things and then catch them a few seconds later. Bravo. This was all a build-up to his grand finale though. The lights went down, plunging the ring into darkness. And then, in the middle of the ring, three glowing white balls appeared. He was going to JUGGLE IN THE DARK!

Suffice to say, after a couple of minutes of watching some white circles going up in the air, plummeting down to the ground, rolling along the floor a few feet, getting picked up, then going back up in the air, then plummeting down to the ground again, then rolling off in a different direction this time, then getting picked up, etc, we decided to leave the other three-quarters of the audience to it.

* Several yards away from
** Yes, 'clown' singular. Which meant that his wacky capering looked less like madcap antics and more like harrowing mental illness.
(costas, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 14:44, 2 replies)

the day the fair came to town.
the low rumble of distant mechanically propelled transportation devices alerted us to the arrival of the travelling folk. A quivering haze along the road was broken by the rainbow coloured aforementioned mechanically propelled transportation devices as they came into view. The first mechanically propelled transportation device was red.
The second mechanically propelled transportation device was blue.
The third mechanically propelled transportation device was yellow.
The fourth mechanically propelled transportation device was red.
There were no green mechanically propelled transportation devices.
A hushed whisper travelled through the crowd as the convoy rumbled along the road before turning off into a small playing field.

Soon small leaflets measuring 210mm by 297mm were applied to traffic regulating and communication distributing standards through the town and the small playing field took the appearance of a small town of tents and rides. The fair had arrived.

I went to the fair and it was ace. I was sick in a hedge after fingering the sturdy hairy man who was in command of the wurlitzer. His puckered starfish had pushed open to accept my forefinger and in a moment of haste i had impaled my oral sphincter around the purple swollen glans of his reproductive organ behind the yellow mechanically propelled transportation device. Within a few minutes I had worked three fingers inside of his anal cavities and was gently stroking his prostate as my other hand worked the base of his organ and my mouth plunged up and down his swollen cock. 'Eat my cock boy' he grunted as he thrust his member to the back of my mouth and popped his glans into my throat. 'You like that dont you you little cocksucker' he said. Soon enough he was reaching his nicotine stained fingers down my back and gently prised apart my buttocks. He rubbed his finger over my starfish before quickly withdrawing and gobbing all down his digit to provide a modicum of lubrication. Straight back he was and without a moments hesitation he thrust his thick hairy finger straight up me. I winced with pain as his comrade who drove the blue mechanically propelled transportation device came up behind me and, withdrawing his swollen pimpled puss drenched cock from his overalls, he pulled the man i was suckings hand away and plunged himself deep inside of me.
Here I was being spit roasted by the carnies.

Anyway, getting back to the point, after being raped by the travelling folk I ate a dodgy hot dog and was sick in the hedge.

I didnt even get to go on any rides as it was dark when they finally finished and erupted inside of me. slowly withdrawing their members from me I could feel the mixture of puss and man milk dribble down my leg. It was only when the guy in front pulled his cock from my mouth could i see the warts and scabs all over it.

Anyway, i had a glass of lemonade and the ill fated hot dog before i was sick in a hedge. I went home and told daddy what a bad boy i had been eating a naughty hot dog and he put me over his knee and licked my bum clean.
(little lord muthafuckin fauntleroy, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 14:28, 5 replies)

My first post had bindun
so I went to a carnival once. A clown killed someone's dad.

I thought it was funny.
(CactusZack Shaved his coin purse on, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 13:43, Reply)

My friend's dad told me that he
went to Hull Fair one year when he was a kid in the late 1930s, he was probably about 8 at the time. At the entrance to one of the sideshows was a bloke, in his best suit and bowler hat, using the old fairground cat-call of "Roll up, roll up!" and demanded that folk "Come see the man-eating fish, only thruppence a ticket". My mate's dad thought "ok, I'm up for that." and paid the entrance fee. Him and his best mate went in, expecting to see a big tank with some sort of shark in it, or at least a big fish of some kind. But no, it was a dimly lit room which contained a table and a chair. And at that table sat a man, eating fish.

He went back outside and him and his mate voiced their disagreement. The stall holder told them that they got what they paid for. So they began shouting over him, telling people it was a "right swizz" and not to waste their money.

The stall holder took umbrage to this and clipped them both around the ears and followed this with a good firm, almost comical kick in the pants. They ran off, but came back with some old fruit* and managed to knock the blokes hat off before scarpering, much to the amusement of onlookers.



*The sort you eat, not some aged camp gentleman
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 12:39, 3 replies)

I might have loads of these if I collate them. (Get ready to be bored senseless!)
Best parties I ever attended were at a rather famous Surrey theme park after hours. Ever been down a log flume? How about with no log? That's a good way to ruin a nice pair of jeans!
How's about getting the timing right on the flying blood sucking mammal ride? All the staff were on there continuously for a good hour I guess.
We had a young lad start on the ride, sadly he lacked a bit in the brain department, so rather than finding the staff entrance to the ride, to get behind the scenes so to speak, he jumped over the tracks. Just as the ride was coming into the stop! Some serious reprimanding there.
Debauched parties meant being sick was commonplace. At one, some of the lads I worked with were getting fed up with a young rock star type stealing sweets. They left out a paper bag full of laxatives and let nature take its course. The party later that day was mostly devoted to watching this poor guy too-ing and fro-ing, and taking a while about it too. He wore those lace up leather jeans that took half an hour to get in or out of! I'm quite glad to be able to say I wasn't involved with that particular one. He was a nice guy.

But the parties! Oh the parties. Never have I had such an awesome time, before or since. Sex on a plate.

Met loads of celebs too. Terry Gilliam's autograph was the best by a long way.
( Blind Meach Cautiously optimistic, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 12:26, 12 replies)

Clowns.
Always been terrified of them red nosed bastards, I didn't realise this is actually a proven phobia, and more common than I thought. They just creep me out so much.
(Bear Pookie The Frankly Challenged. Halloween is coming to town., Fri 10 Jun 2011, 12:24, 3 replies)

If you want to be centrifugally forced
It's the Waltzers that should be your ride of choice. It will whiplash at the dip in the track and then again at the peak of the humps. That combined with the rather Romany bloke who somehow stands unnervingly calm in the middle bit giving our carriage a strategically timed push meant that the one me and the missus were on was going implausably fast.

I'd never been on the waltzers before and I was not expecting the speed, I hadn't sat back in the seat and was happily holding on to the handrail. However, once it was going full tilt, I was hanging on for dear life, much like a rotary Harold Lloyd stunt.

Mrs Sandettie was most amused at my struggle, a struggle which was weakening my grip and I finally let go, flying back into my seat, my left hand catching the side of my face with substantial force, dealing me a proper shiner. Not like I could do anything as I was hopelessly pinned in my seat for what seemed like forever, unable to move, barely able to move my arms and being subject to cheek-flattening forces.

Mrs Sandettie was thoroughly enjoying herself making all the usual fairground shrieks and 'wheeeee' noises. I wasn't enjoying myself and all I could think of was the centrifuge scene from Moonraker, and the thought of some evil ride operator steadily turning a dial to increase the speed.

Eventually, it began slowing down and came to a halt. I got out, barely able to walk and white as a sheet except for the nascent black eye I was developing.

I fucking hate the waltzers.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 12:17, 1 reply)

French water park
Me and my school class were sent off to a French water park as some form of Holiday. All was fine until one of our class members realised that one of the water slides was unmanned with no supervisor or staff member in charge.

The problem with an unmanned slide is that when you're about twelve years old, health and safety isn't really a priority. So ten minutes later that's when the injuries occured. One of the fat kids decided he'd try and 'stay inside' the tube, by clinging to the sides. Next, two or three lads decided to go down head first, then I decided to go in, followed by a girl with very sharp toe nails. And so forth.

The resulting injuries consisted of two burst noses, a clawed back, a near-drowning when everyone was spurted out and also the lad who decided to wait at the bottom of the slide (so he could slap who ever was coming out of the slide exit) - well he suffered a testicular injury as his groin was at head / foot height.

There's nothing quite like the claustrophobia of being jammed inside an orange tube, with several screaming children, mixed in with hysterical laughter and a girl with sharp toe nails.

We got banned from that particular slide.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 12:10, 2 replies)

It's hungry work at Alton Towers

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 12:04, 16 replies)

Punch
Ah good, that's two QOTWs where I actually have something to say.

People from Noocastle may be familiar with The Hoppings, a yearly fairground constructed on our town moor made up entirely of rides that can be built overnight from the back of a lorry. I don't entirely trust them but it's all good fun.

Anyway, a lass I worked with recounted a charming tale of when she visited, aged sweet sixteen. Having been chilled by the Haunted House and spilled by the tiny rollercoaster, she decided more fun could be have by bagging one of the charming carnies (I'm not sure what the correct word is, actually - but the guys who operate the rides with their webbed fingers). So, being from Kenton, it only took her ten minutes to find an appropriate fairground worker who looked decent enough and sure enough, she was being taken behind the bumper cars so that the carnie could practice his bowling grip.

Good times all round. A mere half hour later, and with a flushed face, she set off back home only to be jumped by the girlfriend of the aforementioned carnie worker. A fight ensued, upon which my mate got a nasty punch in the stomach. No matter, she still won, and the girlfriend slunk off.

It was only upon getting home and getting changed that she realised she had an awful lot of blood on the outside as opposed to the inside. She'd been stabbed. And hadn't bloody realised.

A calming Regal King Size and a quick trip to hospital later, plus plenty of stitching, and she has a lovely war wound just above her axe-wound. Now that's justice.

They breed them tough up here.
(thenumber18, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 12:01, 1 reply)

It's hungry work at Alton Towers,
so after a long day of standing in queues not having fun, you fancy something nice to eat.

Apparently all they do have though is hotdogs that are composed more of dust and old newspapers than bread and pork.

I suspect it's more healthy just to re-swallow the sick you belched up during Oblivion.
(Stiltzkin, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 11:56, Reply)

Hull Fair
I like the fact that when an earlier post inspired me to google pictures of Hull Fair, my company web security system wouldn't allow me to open the Hull county council website. I didn't realise there was a banned category called "Northern".
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 11:51, 2 replies)

Not sick in a hedge but...
I remember being taken to the circus by my dear old ma when I was about 4. I have not been since, nor will I ever go again.

I hadn't really had much experience of clowns before that time which was how it came as much as a surprise to me, and an even larger surprise to my mother, that if they came anywhere near me I would immediately scream like I was being chased by satan himself and then promptly vomit all over myself and anyone else in the neighbouring area. Thankfully I was removed from the tent before the vice like grip of terror sent me entirely over the edge and I did myself any further damage.

Even now even images, ornaments, statues or pictures of clowns or circus tents are enough to make me feel billious with fear and I worry that, if I were ever approached by someone dressed as a clown, no matter how innocent they were, I would probably end up doing life for battering them to death with their own stupid, unfunny, ridiculously oversized shoes.

Shudder....
(Senora Veranos cannot and will not so ner..., Fri 10 Jun 2011, 11:46, 3 replies)

Centrifugal Forced
Back in the day, me and my mates would troop off every christmas to the kelvin Hall Carnival in Glasgow.

Best ride there was the Centrifugal Wall where everyone stood on the inside of a giant cylindar type affair and then they would start to spin the fucker - really reaaly fast - and then the floor would drop away pinning you to the wall with the magical power of centrifugal force.

All well and good , apart from this one bloke opposite us for whom the motion was all too much and he started to chunder. Unfortunately for him, vomit is not immune to the power of centrifugal power and so as soon as it exited his mouth it proceeded to force its way all over his chin, cheeks, eyes and hair.

I'm sure his unfortunate predicament was only worsened by the sight opposite of him of half a dozen teeneagers crying with laughter.
( VicBrown I used to be narcoleptic but i'm alrig ,, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 10:54, 12 replies)