Toms View of the World

This weekend saw the European Coaster Club's return to Alton Towers and Drayton Manor Park for "Airpocalypse 4"… I'm not going to give a blow by blow account of the trip, just pick up some key points really.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is not as bad as everyone is saying - It's certainly not as good as it could have been, but it's not anywhere near as awful as, oh, let's say the rethemed Bubbleworks at Chessington.

Rita was down for the day, so our evening dark ERS was moved to Nemesis which was absolutely superb.

The weather on the Drayton day deteriorated rapidly after the (as usual) superb lunch that the park provided - it's not often a club trip features a 3 course, table service meal, but Drayton's is always first class. I personally didn't hang around for the final ERS on G-Force. A truely awful drive home through torrential rain on a packed M42 called the end to the weekend.

Now for the "thank-yous" - to John and the rest of the ECC Trips Team, to the staff at Alton Towers and Drayton Manor Park, well done!

Thanks to James for booking the hotels and being willing to be my travelling companion for this trip, especially the drive down the M42 - I was not at all happy during a very tricky drive, and I'm glad I had someone sitting alongside me.

Final words then, this trip, like the many UK trips the club does are (at least for me) far more about meeting up with friends than the actual rides - it's always a pleasure to meet up with folks I don't see that often, especially when I'm already into the "winter blues" and may not be the most fun person to be around.

So thanks must go to James S, Richard, James L, John, Jonathan, Margaret, Robert, Chris and the others who spent two days wandering around the parks in my company. Here's to doing it all over again next year.

Finally it’s arrived, the Doctor Who spin-off show “Torchwood” - and it’s no kiddie show, with CSI style aerial photography over the city (which is subtley referenced by one of the cast who mentions that they’d love to see a “CSI: Cardiff“) much nastier and darker plots and much more adult themes intertwined.

As yet we don’t know the significance of the severed hand in a jar that Jack keeps in the Torchwood Hub.

I kinda liked it, but I think it’s gonna take a few episodes to “get going”. However the production is very slick and very “American” looking.

As for the set design, keeping the Millennium Plaza fountain under which the hub is located running on downwards through the Torchwood complex was a stroke of genius, and locks the location of the Torchwood Hub very precisely.