Alton Towers!
What does a little touring family do when given a day off between Nottingham and Manchester? What else. That’s me on the far left, in my lame disguise: Coops’ hoodie. The park has come a long way since the Corkscrew was the main attraction: other high octane excitements such as Rita, Nemesis, Air and Oblivion (4 times) gave us just about all the fun we could take. The weather was terrible, so we ate burgers in the rain and wore regulation plastic ponchi.
On several occasions, a ride was delayed with people onboard for maintenance or to remove an individual too fat or inattentive to the arms-inside rule for it to proceed safely, which I found quite fascinating. Here, at the peak of child-like nervous anticipation, were dozens of us, strapped, clunked and clicked into place, bodies and minds prepared for the commencement of our chosen thrill; when that take-off was unexpectedly postponed, we were utterly unprepared, unsure how to respond other than to stare dumbly at the student ride operators, bewildered, as if in a trance, restrained in a kind of chav limbo.
I took the liberty of securing a couple of prizes for a blog competition: some ‘Mindbender’ sweets from the gift shop, and the real treasure: an official fridge magnet showing myself and Mr. Coops aboard the ‘Air’ ride, where I can be seen to be amusingly pretending to smoke a cigarette as we glide pass the camera. Also noticeable in the image, as well in those below, is the make-up work done by our own Jennie before we commenced the rides: she blacked out several of the crew’s teeth so that we’d look injured in our ride photographs. How exciting! I shall post pictures of these superlative prizes when I have photographed them, and suggest a suitable activity for you to attempt, should you so desire, in order to win these rare objects for your good selves.
Right, I’m off to have a hotel massage and do an FHM interview. Please continue to enjoy yourselves.
x
wow u look happy! (ur always so intense its kind of scary!) haha. No it looks like u had a great time! and btw the disguise works, u uk like a young rufian! haha.
OMG – How did you get to go on so many rides? I’ve been to Alton Towers and the ratio is about 1 hour 15 minutes of queuing to 4 minutes of ride. You weren’t using mind control to jump the queue now were you?
Air is the best… you can pretend to be Superman on the air ride as you whoosh past in horizontal seats with your arm outstretched!
Like the photo of the gang on “Submission”. There’s a name for your next tour right there!
OMFG I wanna go 🙁
Wait.. I have a fear of those crazy rides. NVM! I’ll just watch 🙂
Cool! Air is my Favourite ride.. I went a few years back and we went on it 3 times in a row. Just before the park closed and it was pouring with rain! Super Super fun!!! At least you didnt get spotted and could enjoy the day! Nice wig and teeth too, thats a good look! xx
They’ve got a ride called Rita? That sounds terribly rude. Raining hard is best time to go to theme parks, as no-one sensible goes in the rain and you get on quick. Which Rita loves, apparently.
That looks like so much fun. Haven’t been to Alton Towers for a year or so. I did wonder about the teeth until I read they’d been blacked out. Can’t wait for the Manchester show on Friday, yay!
@ stephanie murry – i think the trick is to go in the middle of the school term on a week day when it’s raining – it’s never going to get much quieter than that…
Hey, he stole that guy’s hoody! Hoodies are amazing – you can hide under them in the rain, they are warm, you can store your toque in the hood, they usually have pockets, you can hide your head in them and be completely anonymous… the list goes on. I hope he gave it back.
JamesHogg – I know what you mean, I can’t bring myself to do the vomit comets like Oblivion and Nemesis, but Air is surprisingly easy on the gag reflex… if you’re building up your stamina in stages, I’d go on Air first.
Lovely piccies!…specially love the yellow wigged soul sister hehee…and derren you look like a sexy new age witch with that hoodie, why were your teeth not black? ;-)…
Anyways, tata for the pic updates, though i have no clue what an ‘air’ is (somehow link it to a pepperoni-tale
)…am curious about the new competition!
sings like a soulsister: *bring it on, ba-bey* 🙂
xx
OK folks have decided to bite the bullet and go for a name change as according to Phillis there are 4 Katherine’s lurking in and around this blog and poor old Phillis is starting to get confused. Haven’t noticed any of the others commenting or posting except for Catherine (hello) but if a name change is good enough for a certain Mr Brown then hey it must be alright for me. KatM from now on. (Thanks Phillis)
In that yellow wig Coops looks like a member of the Torquay United fan club judging by the crowd at the match last Saturday. Derren, make sure he wears it next Friday and Monday in support of Torquay in the play-offs to escape from the Blue Square Premier League.
I went to Alton Towers years ago and most of my time was spent waiting in very slow moving queues. Never been a fan of these rides, especially now I’m older. Riding the London Underground is about the limit of my risk taking!
Love the photos, though.
LOVE Alton Towers… especially good on a cold Monday in October… you can run round and round without ever queuing for more than ten mins. Also loving the fact that Derren felt the need to don his jacket over the hoodie… there just has to be some tailoring somewhere 😉
I saw you there!! My friends and I were staring at you for ages in the queue for Air trying to decide whether it was actually you or not! – Turns out it was! Which was nice. I was going to ask for a photo for my Facebook profile, but I had guessed the hoodie hood was an attemp at a disguise, as I later also found out to be correct – so I chose not to bother you! =) Hope you had a great day, we all did. Remember; Rain = No queueing at Alton Towers, it was a good choice of day to go I feel!
Regards
Erik
I know there’s at least one other person with my real name posting in comments and it’s similar to Katherine, too. Madness, I tell you.
God I love those pictures! I can’t believe how lovely person Derren has to be for taking the time to write this blog in such an amusing way.
I was already wondering about that hoodie. Surely it couldn’t be Derren’s…although it suits him very well and makes him look 20 years younger!
Oh look a monkey in a yellow wig…
@SGC
I have a toaster called Screaming, maybe it is (p) toasting on this blog usurping your good name….?
SGC: I notice the handsome male who looks like your roomie is in the pictures again, too! Maybe Derren did steal your roommate after all… 😛
Awh, I love Alton towers.
*adds: “Go to Alton Towers with Derren” to things to do before I die list*
Whos the girl very nice 😉
Awesome! Looks like you had a great day despite the weather. “…restrained in a kind of chav limbo…” brilliant description – most fitting hehe. If you like theme parks, Drayton Manor isn’t that far from Alton Towers and has some interesting rides that Alton doesn’t.
@Flapjack – go on a weekday in school term time and you barely have to queue at all!
@ Amanda: if only I had a good name to usurp.
@ Berber Anna, he doesn’t look so much like my roommate in these pictures. There’s still a resemblance, but I think it’s mainly the beard. Can we get a height estimate on the guy? My roommate is over 6 feet.
I love Alton Towers 🙂
Derren can so totally pull off the chav look, it’s a little scary.
Glad to see everyone’s enjoying themselves.
x
Aha, I love Alton Towers. Although it does worry me that when someone pukes on the ride they just hose it down and then send the seats round once to dry off. Think of all the nasty puke germs. D:
@ Emily and everyone else who suggested it – I should have guessed that termtime weekdays and rainy days are good Alton towers days but thanks for the feedback. My mate has some half-price tickets and I’m thinking of going again before the hoardes decend for their summer holidays.
Just one problem… rollercoasters and driving rain hitting you in the face at 80mph… isn’t that just slightly painful. (The rain I mean, obviously a rollercaster hitting you in the face at 80mph is going to smart a bit!)
On a related topic I always feel sorry for the guy who has to mop up the vomit, there’s always one on every rollercoaster.
‘Derren Brown once hypnotised a guy to shave his beard into a perfect replica of his goatee. On an Alton Towers ride.’
The guy in the yellow wig looks so much naboo from the mighty boosh!! Even better that he plays a shaman in the show haha
Alton Towers would be so much fun to visit with Derren et al! At least I was no where near Alton Towers yesterday unlike Monkey World on Saturday!
*wonders if Derren would be brave enough to go on the rides at the top of the Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas….*
Brilliant! Good to see your all getting chance to have some fun inbetween the shows.
Love Alton Towers….. you should check out Flamingoland when you are oop North — the Velocity ride is outta this world (rollercoaster on a motorbike 0-60 in 2.8 seconds!!!). I imagine you’ll be spending your free time at the lovely Parrot Sanctuary though.
Hope all goes well tonight, I was meant to be there, but couldn’t due to other commitments. :o(
btw – we all know Coops in the pics, but who are the other guys (n gal)??
xx
I once smuggled a beer in a plastic pint ‘glass’ onto a ride in Belgium… so I got a wonderful picture at the scary bit of the ride of me delicately sipping from the pint whilst all around me screamed. Was strangely very satisfying to do.
And, yeah, got covered in beer immediately afterwards.
Derren, you ought to get a close protection officer! Princess Diana went shopping on Oxford street every day and never got noticed once because of her bodyguard!
The intro video for Oblivion that plays as you wait would be way better if it was Derren that did it!
i like the bit were derren brown pretends to smoke a cigarette on the ride.
Looks like you had an amazing time.
Always good to have a day off and relax! At the moment I tend to lean more towards resting and less towards working… Maybe one day I’ll do MASSES of work to compensate for it. Then again just thinking that is making me feel the need to lie down for a little while!
Chrisx
What a fantatsic way to take the day off 🙂
I’m glad you had fun. I’m surprised no one recognised you, perhaps that disguise was’nt as lame as you thought..
Good luck with the rest of the tour Derren
xx
looks fun. 🙂 🙂
The thing is, I was quite happy reading about your day at Alton Towers and the pictures were making me smile but its all been spoilt with talk of vomit and how they deal with it when it ‘appears’ yuk….I don’t do vomit….. Its kind of my ‘thing’ lol
Glad you all enjoyed your day out even though it was raining.
Watch out Manchester Derren is around for ‘four’ days…life as you know it will never be quite the same again.
They could knock down the whole theme park and just have Oblivion in my opinion. The little git of an intentional pause at the top, just long enough for your buttocks to clench and you to lose your breath, and then 12 seconds of absolute joy. If I remember rightly it cost 1 million pounds per second of ride to build. A bargain!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-EA0l9JUsc
oh wow looks such fun I wish I could go somewhere like that I can’t afford it at the moment as I’m coming to see you in a couple of weeks & hotels & traveling don’t come cheap!!!
Must go over summertime though or maybe not as it may be too crowded maybe my birthday would be a better time to go!
do they even open in October though? that’s one thing I honestly don’t know!
glad you enjoyed yourself the photo’s look great 😀
lmao at coops in that curly yellow wig teeheeheeee 😀
so bummed I can’t see you while your in Manchester *sobs* I like the Lowry it’s a very nice theater & the 1st place I ever met you *ahh such lovely memories* thanks for those 🙂
see you soon hon 🙂
safe travels & enjoy yourself love 🙂
Wonderful post. A great way for me to start my day. 😀
Love the photos, we see what you mean about them Coops. It looks like you all had a fun day out.
Love the tour, look forward to the other little post you have coming from the tour.
NOTHING compared to the thrills at Six Flags in the states!
http://www.sixflags.com/greatEscape/rides/Sasquatch.aspx
SGC: If you look at his legs in the1st pic, they seem to be about as long as Derren’s, which would make him about the same height. So, he’s a bit shorter than your roomie.
He also kind of reminds me of a guy I know from LARPs, who, incidentally, IS really tall. Heh.
I need to go ride some rollercoasters too — it’s been far too long. Can’t stand overly crowded amusement parks, though… maybe rainy weekdays really are a good idea for that 😉
Am really glad you guys all had a good day Derren and were able to do it in disguise – hope Coops didn’t get too drenched with you wearing his hoodie though 😛
Good luck with the rest of the tour – I can’t wait for your next one!
xx
That’s it, swine flu be damned. I’m riding a roller coaster!
Berber Anna: Huh, good point. Okay, he hasn’t stolen my roommate. The fact that I could see him downstairs with the other roommate, who is married to him and would kick up a fuss if he vanished, should have clued me in.
OMG, I nearly died on air, well it felt like it! I couldn’t breath and was shaking real bad! Never again!!! Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is more my style these days x
Is anyone else taken back that Derren actually went on rides?
I assume this was a “Coops trip”, as took him more for a day with the animals or arty type one.
gone up in my estimation again Mr Brown.
Cheers
Rob
Air is great. It as near as you can get to fulfilling my childhood fantasy of flying. And isn’t Oblivion the most terrifying but somehow fun experience ever?! Glad you all had a nice day.
The Katherine at comment 49 is not me! Confusing. Advice to Katherine @49 – change your name!