An enraged steamagineer gives the business to a robot president. Public domain, as has been most of my work for more that twenty years. The difference between this idea / image and most of my work is that the option exists to purchase it on a mug or t-shirt.

The Climatron by Walt Lockley reads more like an essay from the Journal of Ride Theory than any outside text I've ever encountered. Some excerpts...


"I don't remember being impressed with its futuriosity. I was a kid, accepting every rainforest-in-a-geodesic-dome experience as normal. [...] It's the Climatron because it's a climate-controlled... a-tron, 175 feet in diameter and 70 feet high, construction cost of $700,000."

... and oh my, do read the rest for yourself.

Via the ever-delightful Modern Mechanix: "September 1930. Children will get endless hours of fun out of this airplane swing, run by pedal-driven propellers. Any handy man can build one out of inexpensive junked auto parts and a few lengths of pipe."

Oh, how I've been neglecting this blog. Part of the reason is that nothing has come along in the outdoor entertainment world that is weird enough for my jaded palate. Well, whenever an oddball musician gushes about an oddball amusement park, I sit up and take notice. Remember back when Laurie Anderson confessed that her favorite amusement park was Dollywood? Now Thomas Dolby says he wishes he could throw everything else aside and work at Diggerland.

Anyone that knows me knows I have a fetish for bulldozers. Don’t ask me what it is about them, I just see a bulldozer and I come over all funny. Big yellow ones are quite sexy, but it’s the smallish black and white ones with metal grilles over the driver that really get me going. Imagine my delight when I came across a theme park where you get to drive them yourself! At Diggerland you can race the small ones round a track, dig holes and fill them in again in a medium-sized one, or even go for a whirry ride in the spade part of a giant one. Ooh, I was in heaven!

And now it appears that Diggerland is hiring! I am awfully tempted to sell everything and head down to Cullompton for a spell. I quote: “You will need to like working with the general public, be energetic, have an outgoing personality and enjoy the thrill of showing others how to use the diggers and other activities in Diggerland.” Isn’t that me down to a tee?

Thanks and a tip of the hard hat to Trevor for the link.

Like other great discoveries in human history, a simple idea that changes everything.

I have no further information regarding this image. Do you? Or can you make up a story worth telling about it?

Have you heard about that wonderful new live-action Race Speedster film, based on the 1960s television show?

Here's some footage of the Margate Scenic Railway fire.



And here's an on-ride video shot before it closed.

I've been trying to get some information on the recent roller coaster fire at Margate's Dreamland amusement park which consumed about 1/4 of the 7th oldest roller coaster in the world. Most of my connections with the world of British showpeople were unwilling to go on the record (quite wisely, I'd say, given the characters involved) but good old Private Eye is on the case.

From the Rotten Boroughs column:

UNLUCKY JIM

There was an air of inevitability about the fire which last week destroyed much of Margate's Scenic Railway, a grade II-listed wooden rollercoaster, once the centrepiece of Dreamland, a classic seaside amusement park which closed after 80 years in 2003.

The closure left 20 acres of seafront real estate practically deserted and ripe for development by its owner, Jimmy Godden. But the listed rollercoaster was in the middle of the site, and an independent government inspector's report in 2005 went against the supine local council and reiterated protection for it and the amusement park.

That year Godden formed the Margate Town Centre Regeneration Company with Reading-based developers Waterbridge, retaining a major stake in Dreamland.

A public "consultation" by Thanet council two years later tried yet again to float the idea of a development, coming up with an unhappy 50-50 compromise of "heritage amusement park" and the usual flats and shops.

This is not the first time Godden has experienced misfortune with his seafront developments. In 1998 his Pleasurama fun park in Ramsgate burned down in the midst of a campaign to save it from redevelopment. Fortunately on that occasion Godden had the comfort of a substantial insurance payout to soften the blow. In 2003 his Mr G arcade on Margate seafront went up in flames, but again there was consolation in that the hole it left, nicknamed "Godden's Gap" by locals, provided the perfect access road from the seafront into the Dreamland site.

When English Heritage listed the rollercoaster in 2002 Godden described it as "great news" and told the BBC it was "safe in his hands". A year later he closed Dreamland, and now more than a quarter of this historic ride lies in ashes.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, one amusement park fire may be regarded as a misfortune; three looks like carelessness.