Alton Towers' Nemesis #5: Jaw-Jaw Better than War-War?

I am pulling out all the stops to ensure a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Staffs and reach out to writer and actor David Walliams through his talent agency. I point out that in the event of conflict I view 'The World of David Walliams' as a legitimate target. I would provide the text here, except I cleared the cache... a court-marshal offence.

Alton Towers' Nemesis #4: Shock and Awe

Take a leaf out of Arthur Harris's playbook and carpet-bomb the platforms, following up the Google review with scathing feedback on both Trustpilot and TripAdvisor.

'We shall fight them on the Congo River Rapids, we shall fight them in the Katanga Canyons and in the Forbidden Valleys, in the Guest Services and the gents toilets... we shall never surrender.'

Alton Towers' Nemesis #3: Global Reach

In a scene that really may have been taken anywhere in the Donbas I set up Apple's fearsome 12-inch artillery piece for the opening salvo. With unlimited range and a muzzle velocity of some 186,000 miles-per-second, it is capable of firing Trustpilot, TripAdvisor or Google Reviews at a rate of ten an hour.

In this instance ~ which in time will be compared to the Nazi shelling of Gydnia in Poland ~ I authorised a high-impact review in the shape of an A4-printable Google, with the setting at 'one star' and screen pitched to 75° following the 'one-third' rule applied to mortars.

Subsequent, I wait anxiously in the situation room whilst trying to look as much like President Obama as is possible.

Alton Towers' Nemesis #2: Declaration of War

The cabinet office anxiously checks upcoming transactions

A nation of blog-readers holds its collective breath as transactions are reviewed by the Cabinet Office, or breakfast bar, and at 11:45 a.m. precisely I rise to speak to the house:

This morning my ambassador in Staffordshire handed Herr Sam a final WhatsApp stating that, unless we heard from them by 12 o'clock that they were prepared to pay reparations amounting to two hundred and ninety-nine pounds, a state of war would exist between us.

I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this blog is at war with Alton Towers.

Alton Towers' Nemesis #1: Peace In Our Time

Colin brandishes feedback reference no. 1337 4406

(The author returns from the Midlands, where he was promised a refund for a family visit to Alton Towers subsequent to a power-cut from the get-go that meant none of the rides for which it is infamous ~ mainly for people losing limbs ~ were operating.)

Sam (full name follows) in 'Guest Services' did promise a full refund of the £299 involved, raising the issue on his tablet and ensuring its content was communicated through the usual channels during a time of heightened tensions.

Accordingly I am able to reassure the readership with a message of optimism for a beleaguered nation:

My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from the Midlands... peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.

There are only two things I want to say. Firstly I have received an immense number of emails ~ most of them spam ~ and wish to thank the people of Britain for what they have done.

And next I want to say that the settlement I have received from Herr Sam is only part of a wider settlement in which all Staffordshire can find peace.

The full text of the agreement issued 24th May 2026 at 11:42

50k

Already in May of this year we together ~ but mainly me ~ have achieved in excess of fifty thousand views, and it makes an old man very happy (though I don't know which one exactly).

As we move into an AI-powered world this blog is an anchor for the sane, although I suspect at least half of those views were undertaken by bots designed to skim my art and regurgitate it in an effort to bring people into conflict. In all of this though I hope that it's my hatred of humanity in general which comes shining through.

Though I am asked ~ mainly by myself ~ whether I will ever monetise the 'people's platform' as Lady Diana Spencer used to call it during phone calls in my head?*

And the answer is not so much never, as possibly, if it means 'Only Fans' gets me to an annual jamboree where I'm a dirty old man amongst a sea of porn stars.

I thank you all, from the bottom of my toilet-bowl.

Ed. He deleted 'and with my penis in hand' here.

Big Day Out: Derbyshire

We're back in the East Midlands of England, and in fact we never really left as it sits adjacent to Notts (as the abbreviation goes). Derbyshire is famous for a landscape called 'Karst' by geologists after the first person to be bothered to write about it viz. a spectacular assemblage of limestone valleys ~ called Dales ~ cut beneath the ice of the last glacier to cover Britain before drying out once they receded.

If it sounds confusing, bear in mind limestone is broadly porous, but not so when water within is frozen. If you want a modern equivalent, one way of 3-D scanning a human body is to freeze it solid and then slice it with a circular saw... although it's not something you'd want to try on a friend. Don't know though, maybe you would?

Our adventure begins at 'The Great British Car Journey' in the village of Ambergate where a collection of iconic British marques have been assembled by people like me whose gaze is fondly focused upon a past of pedal-cars, ice-creams and Boy Scout leaders now in prison. But look at this for the pedal-car of your dreams, alongside a full-sized Morris Minor in a shade of grey that is back in fashion after a period of 50 years... does that beat a blow-moulded body from China, or what?

We saw yesterday though, didn't we, how practically all of the superstructure of a 1940s model might be coach-built in wood but moving on to the 1950s and 1960s there was still a hangover in the form of cars with wooden doors; aping the trend in a newly-enriched America for 'shooting-brakes' to use for picnics:

And as someone whose body of work is something of a crapola of failed efforts, this one caught my eye. The Peel P50 was produced on the Isle of Man between England and Ireland for a few years in the 1960s (why?), holding the record for the smallest production car ever. What was best about it was the fact you could save on a coffin in the event of the inevitable collision and it is at least the same colour as a Lambo:

On the day in question, your honour, we are lucky to find ourselves amidst a 'meet' of car enthusiasts and my favourite amongst must be a first-generation Ford Capri. This baby was an effort once more to ape the trend in North America with flourishes of streamlining inspired by the Jet Age and colours more suited to sunny California than soggy days in the Midlands:

Let's leave this festival of personal means of transport however to explore the public of yesteryear in the shape of the National Tramway Museum in the Peak District of the same county; where exists as fine a collection as you could hope for in a setting restored to suit. Look at this drophead from Blackpool for example made specifically to enjoy days like these!

And do you ever see an image as iconic as this one (Ed. Yes)? For trams at Sheffield were among the last to be decommissioned, only to be replaced by dirty, noisy and less efficient buses in dirty, noisy cities were we mistakenly figured they'd have all the romance of Greyhounds. They've been re-introduced at great expense in cities like Manchester, because that's how we do things in great Britain:

And I said we'd return to Brush, didn't I, and do I break my promises (Ed. Yes)? For here is the legendary masthead from the Loughborough Works where some of the most iconic locos were built, besides the electrical bogeys powering such trams:

Moving however deeper into the dales, before we depart let us each hire a bicycle to ride along a line replete with cuttings and embankments that passes through some of the most imposing scenery anywhere, albeit smaller in scale than the Himalayas. The cycles are hired from Parsley Hay and the line formed a junction between local services and those between London and Scotland. Join Gromit and I now as we all ring the bells on our handlebars and shout "Express train coming throooooough!" as Gordon did in those books by that vicar with nothing better to do! Before we go too there's chance of an ice-cream at a recently-restored signal-box at Hartington just a mile along the track:

Well I hope you've enjoyed our days out this recent Bank Holiday in the UK as much as I have and if so, why not moan about how things were better back then like I do?