death slide disasters
does anyone remember the old death slide in blackpool funhouse? i loved that slide, i'd go on it every time we went there, which we did twice every summer as kids.
one year, we had picked a swelteringly hot day for our blackpool trip, so we had all decided to take swimming costumes to have a dip in the sea. now, as any parent knows, it's far easier to let your children wear their swimming costumes all day when the weather is hot than to persuade them to put their clothes back on. as a result of this, i was still in mine when i went into the funhouse. it was one of those deeply unflattering pink ones with the tiny little skirt arrangement on the bottom. as usual, once inside the funhouse, i made a beeline for the death slide. for anyone that doesn't know, it was about 30 feet high and mostly vertical. i sat at the top, then pushed off gleefully.
very quickly, i realised that this had been a bad idea. the speed i was moving had wedged my swimsuit up my backside, which brought my bare buttocks into very painful contact with the wooden slide. it burned.
without thinking it through, i leapt up and attempted to run down the vertical slide. now, milla jovovich may be able to pull this off, but i couldn't. i tripped almost immediately and fell, head over heels, tumbling straight to the bottom of the slide. fortunately, there was a barrier at the side to break my fall. unfortunately, it also broke my toe.
i left blackpool that day with massive friction burns on my buttocks, a broken toe and 3 siblings who couldn't stop laughing at me.
needless to say, the coach journey home was very uncomfortable on my backside.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 17:41, 11 replies)

I, too, loved the death slide.
Though it was the spinning-floor thingy (the name escapes me after all these years) on which I lost a small patch of skin on my hand due to and older girl sitting on it as she slid off, her jeans and my hand unable to provide the centripetal force necessary to keep us on until the end so one of us could "win".
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 18:05, closed)

oh, i loved that thing!
saw a lad lose a tooth on that, him and another lad went off at the same time and the other lad's foot got him right in the mouth! i won a few times, but not if my brother or little sister were on there with me, they're a pair of cunts
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 18:13, closed)

I managed to win a few times also.
Blackpool funhouse sticks in my mind as a great childhood memory.
You have to wonder who came up with that stuff though -- that rotating tube thingy made of wooden floorboards was just silly...
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 18:39, closed)

nothing could be worse
than that fucking laughing clown outside
*shudders*
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 18:57, closed)

hmmm
A quick google (with the safety off) shows the rides in the blackpool funhouse seem to have changed a lot.
('tin'tintin, Mon 25 Jan 2010, 20:06, closed)

indeed
it's not been the same since it burned down :(
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Tue 26 Jan 2010, 20:21, closed)

No supervisor, I take it?
(Who would have said it's not a good idea to go down in a swimming cozzie)

My local indoor playground thing has a smaller version of one of those, about 10 feet high. It always has a supervisor on top of it to stop this kind of thing happening and to tell you how to tuck in your arms, etc.
( Bob Todd whee, Tue 26 Jan 2010, 9:50, closed)

"Supervisor"?
I recall some lads, who must have been in their late teens, standing around laughing at us all -- I think they were employed by the Pleasure Beach.
This was the 80's -- there was no supervision. It wasn't like today where every bit of excitement has to be removed before things are legal.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Tue 26 Jan 2010, 18:41, closed)

this was about '83
there were no supervisors back then, they trusted parents to do the supervising, the fools.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Tue 26 Jan 2010, 20:23, closed)

I have
A similarly bad history with death slides. There’s an outdoor adventure park in Devon somewhere called Woodlands, where they’ve got a number of these ‘death slides’. They’re pretty typical next to the one you described.

My bad memories are from one that was actually set outside, under a canopy of sorts. It was reasonably small but waved – so there was a level piece halfway down, before going ‘vertical’ again. The intended use being your child slid gracefully down the slide, lost some momentum on the level, and continued a safe journey down the next drop.

What happened to me is: I decided to get up at silly-o-clock to see what was open, as we were staying in a caravan onsite. I got there to find nothing open, so used this slide. Now it was a beautiful morning but not particularly warm, and the dew was fresh and, more importantly, present. So I went down this slide and on the first drop accelerated to roughly 400mph. I rocketed across the flat surface, my bumcheeks absorbing several pints of dew in a couple of seconds, and proceeded to leave the surface of the slide at the next drop, where I flew through the air to land my back perfectly on the wooden log at the bottom. Completely winded, I took a few seconds for the humiliation to set in (there was a rubbish picker nearby who had doubtless seen the whole thing) and ran back to the caravan for toast.
( Rookie You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel, Tue 26 Jan 2010, 15:43, closed)

arf!
i feel we may be at cross purposes, due to my description. "death slide" was simply a nickname for the slide i went on, which was basically a normal metal slide, except for the height and verticality. what is these days called a death slide and, i believe, what you're referring to, is a zip-line affair with a button seat. i did go arse-over off one of those last year, whilst camping and pissed at 1 a.m. it was most amusing :)
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Tue 26 Jan 2010, 20:26, closed)