Over the last few years, we have moved most of our business away from traditional fairgrounds and into the corporate arena. However we do take on new funfairs from time to time depending on our corporate workload. Recently we were offered the chance to form a joint venture with another operator to take on a number of new events in the Sheffield area. Although we haven't decided on a trading title yet, we have just secured the first of these events in Hillsborough park over the whitsun bank holiday.

The flyer is pictured below;



It looks a promising event and I will include a full write up here after it has taken place. One of the deciding factors in winning this was our environmental policy, and we will be placing recycling stations and waste collection services around the site.


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Arthur and I were at 3 different events last weekend. At the first of these, we supplied a number of attractions for a private party just North of Newcastle upon Tyne. The estate was absolutely stunning, and must be one of the most impressive private homes we have ever operated at. After setting everything up, the transit van and trailer we were using sank in the soft ground. After 2 hours of trying to dig it out and extricate it using skidmats we were well and truly stuck. Just then the estate owner walked up, dropped a set of keys in my hand and said "I'll leave this with you lads."

As he walked off I spotted the vehicle he had left us, an American Hummer, the smaller version of the American military Humvee off roader. When I say smaller, its all relative, the Hummer was smaller than say Mount Everest, but still larger than anything we possess other than our Heavy transport vehicles. Anyway I jumped in, we chained it to the Transit/trailer combination and I set off backwards, it pulled them with real ease, all the more impressive when you consider that I hadn't given Arthur time to jump in the tranny, and the handbrake was still on.

After our successful extraction, I jumped out to let Arthur have a turn. He moved about 3 feet backwards, stopped, jumped out and said "I don't like it, its too big. " I suppose with him being little it made it seem relatively bigger than it did to us normal people.

On the day the event went well, right upto the de rig and removal of everything. We had contracted someone in with a children's ride as ours were all booked up. Micheal has attended various events with us and helps us out on occasion. As he was exiting the site, he had trouble passing a large bush and didn't want to scratch his new pick up. So he decided to trim the bush back. He stepped on a very large branch to give himself room to cut it, his foot slipped and the aforementioned branch sprung back up, depositing Micheal on his backside and breaking his nose, not to mention knocking his glasses off and cutting his eyelids open!

I rang a few days later to check on him and he was sore but recovering.


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"The superior man seeks what is right; the inferior one, what is profitable."

— Confucius

After talking to a number of people and researching the subject as much as I can, I've decided to begin an experiment with one of our generators and biodiesel. After the upcoming Northallerton Mayfair, I have a few days breathing space. I've chosen one of our smaller Kubota engined generators to be a test bed. A local company produces biodiesel, and I am going to blend a mix and see just how this particular engine takes to it.

I think a weak blend would be best to start with, perhaps a B10 (10% biodiesel, 90% mineral diesel). If it performs ok on this then it can be increased until it either reaches the point the engine doesn't run smoothly, or it reaches B100 which is pure biodiesel.

There are two reasons behine this test. Firstly it fits in with our environmental policy. Secondly, the rate that fuel costs are increasing, it is reaching the stage where we are considering investing in a micro plant for producing biodiesel, either from virgin vegatable oil, or from waste cooking oil. The current exemption from duty of 2500 litres per person, would be enough to power all of our generators, and make a start on some of our transport costs. If we can reduce our fuel bill by twenty five percent, that is more than enough to pay for the costs of acquiring the biodiesel processing system.


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The Swedish Jora, waste digester that is being mounted in one of our vehicles turned up this morning. Like most things Swedish it is flat packed! Admittedly the instructions are easier to follow than ikea wardrobes, but it still took a bit of headscratching and a couple of false starts before we finally had it together. Starting tomorrow we will start adding waste food to begin the composting process.

Arthur and I spent most of today visiting the RSVP exhibition in Manchester. It was held in the Gmex centre, now being called Manchester Central. For a major exhibition venue the signposting was absolutely ridiculous, after passing Leeds, the signposts disappeared, and we ended up using sat nav to zero in on the location.

Whilst at the event, we wandered past a stand containing a caricaturist, who promptly dashed off a drawing of Arthur and I, pictured below!




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Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us. ~Henrik Tikkanen

As part of our ongoing environmental strategy, we are supporting National Compost Awareness Week. We have a Swedish made hot composter for disposing of our food and biodegradable consumables waste, which seems be working well. However we have now decided to expand upon this idea by installing a hot composter, along with its supporting ancilliaries, into one of our prime mover (heavy transport vehicles). This will be ideal for events that last more than one day, meaning food and other degradable waste can be disposed of immediately, instead of either being stored for transport back to our base, or disposed of into landfill.

More details can be found at National Compost Awareness Week.



We have received a number of offers of events from new clients based on our "green" policies, so things seem to be panning out as we wanted with an increase in work helping to offset the money we are spending on things like recycling stations etc.

We are also waiting for a consultation with a bio diesel expert who can hopefully advise us on what we would need to do to switch our generators over to more sustainable fuels. If the switch is possible then we are looking at obtaining a micro biofuel processing system that we have found. Basically you pour waste cooking oil into the bottom of it, add a few chemicals and eight hours later you can pump the fuel straight into your vehicle. WIth the ridiculous cost of fuel it is a system that would probably pay for itself pretty quickly.


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In The Name Of The Father

Now not many people know this, but Arthur is a registered minister. Honestly, it has to be admitted he is registered in some obscure American state, but registered he is. He had intended to become a Bishop, but that was more expensive.

Anyway, we are just putting together the finishing touches to a large private event. Arthur is the man on the ground and has been liaising with the client. During their discussions, Arthur's theological leanings came up. A few days later the client contacted Arthur to invite him to perform the christening ceremony that the event is in support of. After due consideration, Arthur declined due to a sudden attack of morality (he thought that being registered in America might not be valid in the UK.)

Now this is utterly astounding, Arthur developing morals is akin to Lord Lucan winning the Grand National whilst mounted on Shergar! I am friends with a minister (a proper English one), and I did suggest we hired him, but Arthurs new found moral high ground precluded this also.

This summer is fast turning into one heck of a line up. Some weekends we have seven or eight events on simultaneously. Not little single item events, but some of them complete fairgrounds. One particular weekend has us operating in Birmingham, Stoke, Cornwall, Exeter, Malmesbury and Cambridge. We have also just received confirmation that every major event we supplied attractions to last season has re-booked us.


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We have just began to replace the drive systems on our children's rides with energy efficient alternatives. The existing systems consist of 110V D.C. motors that are supplied via a step down transformer. The voltage from this transformer is rectified to change it from alternating current (standard household type electricity) to direct current (an older system that was widespread in industry in the past). This rectified power is then fed through a variable resistor which turns a lot of it into waste heat and uses the remainder to power the ride.

This has been swapped for an electronic inverter system which takes standard household voltage and turns it into a 3 phase industrial supply. The main advantage of this is that there is very little heat produced, and on the toyset ride, the power consumption for the drive has fallen from around 10 amps to less than 3. We use much less fuel to power it, and smaller more efficient generators can be employed to further reduce costs and emissions.

An additional benefit is that previously the drive control had to be altered each ride depending on how many children were riding. Now the electronic system keeps the speed at a preset level automatically, which helps improve safety.




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We organised a large private funfair for the Student Loans Company at their new HQ in Darlington last weekend (30 March 2008). We used the event to launch the first phase of our new environmental policy.

None of us knew what sort of notice the patrons would take of the various recycling stations we had placed around the site and at the various catering units, but I have to admit to being pleasantly surprised, with a couple of minor exceptions virtually all of the rubbish created at the event was placed in the correct bin. At the end of the day we were left with around 12 bins full of recyclable rubbish and 6 of non recyclable. Ideally we would like to be able to recycle everything, but for the first attempt we had still reduced the level of waste going to landfill by two thirds, compared to what it would have been previously.

The day before the Darlington event we had presented 4 attractions at a private wedding in the Derby area. On the way to the venue the value of our cheap Garmin sat nav proved itself yet again. The high tech Tom Tom I was using got us to within half a mile of the venue but it still took us around half an hour to actually find it. The cheaper Garmin unit took the driver straight to the gate of the field the event was being held in, it doesn't play music, games, do funny voices, it just gets you from A to B with the minimum of fuss. The wedding was like most wedding we have attended, real fun. The bride at this one was of Irish heritage, and I have to say her Irish brethren knew how to enjoy themselves. A ceilidh band playing Irish music had the whole room bouncing.

After the event, we found that due to heavy rain our transit van was marooned. It took Paul (a member of staff) and I around 20 minutes to use skidmats to extricate the van from the field. As we were almost onto the hard ground I put my foot down to ensure the van kept going, as I did so I heard a muffled howl. When I finally reached the road, I stopped to wait for Paul, only to see a tall mud coloured apparition lurching towards me. As it came nearer it turned into a roughly Paul shaped thing. Seemed he had been standing directly behind a wheel when I put my foot down and the resulting spray of mud from the spinning wheel covered him from head to toe. We had to stop while Paul got changed and I laughed so much I cried.


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"It's a job that's never started that takes the longest to finish."

— J.R.R. Tolkien

We are pulling together the strands for the initial phase of our green policy. On Saturday we are presenting a large private funfair for a corporate client in the North East. In readiness for this we have a number of different recycling bins and the first of our new recycling stations. The station is almost finished, it would have been ready, but in conjunction with our green initiative we have also decided to publicise the upcoming Keep Britain Tidy campaign which is focusing on reducing cigerettes that are thrown on the ground. To this end we have ordered some wall mounted cigerette bins which will be mounted on the front of the recycling stations along with posters advertising the campaign.

In keeping with our green policy we have managed to build the recycling stations out of around 80% recycled materials, mainly steel which has been recovered from side stalls that we no longer use.

The catering units operating at this launch event have been stocked up with biodegradable plates, cups, napkins and utensils. Our microbial waste digester hasn't been delivered yet but hopefully that will be here this week.

We have also begun implementation of DEFRA's voluntary code of practice for waste from mobile food units., and signed up with the Green Achiever scheme where we have committed to reducing our waste and energy requirements.




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Some of the venues we visit are absolutely stunning, (although it has to be admitted that some of them stun me for other reasons). Anyway I have just rolled in from another trip to the smoke. This time the venue was the Tower Hotel, nestled pretty much between Tower Bridge and the Tower Of London, this is the view from out of the window.



The same week Arthur and I had a trip through to one of our upcoming venues to meet with the safety planning group. I had to pick Arthur up from Conisborough where he was operating at an established event run by another company. I arrived to collect him just as he jumped out of a lorry cab and twisted his ankle. As he lay there looking at me imploringly trying to telepathically tell me he didn't want to come, I cheerfully told him to stop snivelling and get in the car. He spent the rest of the day giving any ladies we met puppy dog eyes and explaining how much pain he was in. I spent the rest of the day telling them what a drama queen he was and that he would be alright once he had spent some time in a public house.


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Whilst we await completion of our resource recovery units ready for the launch of our 'green' policy at the end of the month, I have been looking into other ways of reducing our carbon footprint. Whilst doing this the idea of carbon offsets came up. Basically for the uninformed, this is where we calculate the amount of co2 we are responsible for producing and then pay a third party who use the money to make improvements somewhere else in the world that reduces carbon emissions by the same amount as we are putting out.

There are a number of different companies that will do this for us, the thing that is annoying me is the fact that the british based companies charge between £6 and £20 per tonne for this service, yet a number of American based firms can provide the same service for around £2.50 per tonne. So once again, its rip off Britain time. Virtually everything you wish to price up in this country is at least double the cost of its equivalent in the States. A newspaper article once claimed that secret negotiations had taken place to make the U.K. the 51st state of America. Well the sooner the better!


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Although I strive to present a professional image (hard sometimes when Arthur is with me), there are occasions when my tact and diplomacy appears to come straight out of the German Gestapo's handbook. The Evening Gazette has just run a story about the launch of our Environmental policy, click here for details. During the conversation with the reporter I made a comic remark about being hit over the head by a compost bin, only to see the line appear in print. Oh well, won't be the first time my strange sense of humour rears its head.

I attended another of Leeds Mets networking events recently, Arthur was supposed to be there with me, unfortunately the day before he had been doing a bit of work on something and managed to get a bit of rust in his eye. He rang me about half way to Leeds to tell me he couldn't see out of one eye and was driving himself to the hospital. Why he couldn't drive to Leeds is beyond me, good job Admiral Nelson didn't have the same attitude or we would all be speaking French now.


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I've stated before that I always enjoy visits up North. Today we ended up at Middlesbrough, which is my hometown. This was in support of Middlesbrough Environment City, an organisation set up in the 90's to promote environmental sustainability. The event was promoting Middlesbrough councils support of Fairtrade fortnight, and we supplied one of our Victorian candy floss carts giving away free Fairtrade candy floss. This is one of 3 events involving North East local authorities that we are supplying candy floss to. One of the events will see us sending an espresso coffee cart along with Fairtrade tea and coffee.

Whilst in the Boro, I had a walk around the town, I hadn't realised just how much development was going in in the area. Captain Cook's Square where we were operating looked really fresh, and was busy all day long. Other parts of the area that I remember as run down last time I was there have suddenly been transformed into eyecatching new properties, so it's nice to see some money being spent in that part of the country.

Whilst we were there a photographer from a North East based newspaper turned up. I thought it was for the event, but it seems she had come especially to see me. The paper had picked up on our recent environmental initiative and will be running an article in print about it.




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Well its been an unusual week this last one. About 1 am the other morning I suddenly woke after hearing what I thought was my daughter falling down the stairs. After rushing out of the bedroom in a panic I could see she hadn't. My wife thought that someone we had asked to leave our property (people seem to like parking in my front drive) and received a mouthful of abuse from had come back and rammed the house with something, so she was running around the house looking for signs of damage. After a while we decided it must have been a joint bad dream and went back to bed. We found out the next morning that we had experienced an earthquake, which to be fair is not something you expect in West Yorkshire!

Anyhow back to our efforts to save the planet, the main recycling bins were delivered the other day, ready to be built into mobile recycling points. We hope to launch them at an upcoming event in Darlington. The bins in question are ideal for outside use at larger events, but we have many indoor events with our candy floss carts etc. To solve this we have bought a number of miniature 3 way recycling step bins with the idea to place one at the foot of each cart, candy floss, popcorn, coffee etc.

They are a nice stainless steel item and look classy enough for our more prestigious events.




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I must admit that I like gadgets. When I buy a phone, the last thing I look at is its ability to make phone calls. Sat nav, internet access etc, great.

The one area I don't apply this rule to is the equipment we operate. I've found over time that the more sophisticated something is, the more there is to go wrong, so I try to operate the K.I.S.S. methodology (keep it simple stupid!). Our prime movers, (heavy vehicles used to transport or tow attractions) tend to be Fodens. This is an English marque established over 100 years ago. Now the thing I like most is the fact that the most sophisticated piece of electronics on a Foden is the radio cassette player, this means that most problems you encounter can be sorted in house, or at the side of the road.

I was reminded of the wisdom of this approach recently. On the way back from Mablethorpe I called into a service station to refuel, and pulled alongside another showman's vehicle. As I climbed out of the cab I recognised a mate of mine called Patrick. On seeing me his eyes lit up and he exclaimed "Good, you know what you're doing with technology, I need help."

What it transpires happened is that his vehicle, a Swedish built Volvo, has probably the most sophisticated drivers seat I have ever seen. Around a dozen buttons on the side are connected to a number of motors and valves enabling you to adjust virtually any part of the seat. Pulling into the service station, Patrick decided his seat was inclined slightly too much, so he pushed the adjustment button. The electronics in the seat chose this moment to malfunction and promptly kept folding the seat forward, doubling Patrick up against the steering wheel. Luckily it ran out of adjustment just short of squashing him completely, otherwise he might well have went down in history as the first man killed by a self adjusting drivers seat!

By the time I had rolled up he had managed to extricate himself from the position and was trying to strip the seat down to move it into a position he could sit in. After the Stratford incident I try to make sure our vehicles have a comprehensive supply of tools available, so I was able to help him get the seat into some type of order.



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Coming from the North East I always like it when we have an event in the area. I'm writing this having just returned from Stockton on Tees which is just down the road from my hometown of Middlesbrough. Now I like Stockton, but when it comes to operating there I am beginning to think there is a vicious little gremlin lurking about, and for once I am not talking about Arthur!

At the back end of last season we operated there and the details of that episode can be found here
This time we were presenting a couple of carts (coffee and candy floss) in support of the town centres Fairtrade initiative. I got there nice and early expecting Arthur to be waiting as he was coming half the distance I was, but he wasn't . About half an hour after arriving my phone rang and Arthur explained that a gust of wind had hit his vehicle on route and damaged the candy floss cart, he was limping back to the depot at Houghton le Spring and then coming through without the cart, we would just have to use one cart with both products. So I set to work assembling the coffee cart, it was like a scene from the 3 stooges, as fast as I put something together it blew apart in the gale force gusts. Eventually I managed the get the barrow assembled as well as the frame for the stall which was to cover the cart, Arthur and I and protect us from the weather. At that point a van full of workmen rolled up. The gangmaster jumped out shaking his head. "What's up I enquired?", and he proceeded to point out that the yellow marks the cart was stood on, marked the spot where his team where just about to dig a big hole. I rang the town centre management team that had positioned me there and they came over. After a while it was decided that I would have to move about 15 feet, so I got to work disassembling the bloody cart.

Arthur eventually rolled up just in time to help me put the cover on. By now the wind had got event stronger, we struggled for quarter of an hour with Arthur insisting we could get the cover on and I taking the opposite viewpoint. At one point we were both balanced on the frame of the stall trying to pull the cover over, when a guest of wind blew the cover with Arthur and I still attached, straight off. It was at this point Arthur decided I was right after all.

We went to explain our predicament to the organisers only to be told that everything was being cancelled due to the 50 MPH wind.

On a brighter note I have just managed to source 100% biodegradable cups for the coffee barrow at a price not much above that of normal cups. This was a relief as up till this point It looked like we were going to have to pay around 3 times the normal price which would have hurt a bit, but it goes to prove that a little shopping around can save you a fortune.




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There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed. ~Mohandas K. Gandhi

After making the decision to go green, we've put some extra effort into examining our basic operations, finding what we can alter quickly, easily and economically, and putting this into practice. Going ahead with the easier options first means that whilst we are trying to solve the more difficult problems we are still making a difference, however small it may be.

The major waste production at our events is centred around the catering operations. We have ordered a number of waste recycling stations for use at our events. These will be set up so that aluminium cans, plastic bottles and waste paper can be easily placed into the correct container by members of the public. We have arranged with a number of organisations for them to take delivery of this waste stream. The cans are actually a valuable commodity, we have decided that any returns from them will be reinvested into our recycling efforts. The plastic and paper won't earn any revenue, but they will be taken out of landfill so that is a benefit in itself.

Our coffee carts are being switched to 100% biodegradable cups. The lids aren't available in a degradable form as yet, but a mini version of our recycling station will be sited with a coffee cart to enable the plastic lids to be collected for recycling. The teabags and used coffee grinds will also be collected and forwarded to a gardening company we deal with, it seems they make excellent compost.

With the best intention in the world, we are still going to be left with some waste that we cannot recycle and is going to end up in landfill. We are using biodegradable refuse bags to transport the rubbish in so at least the amount of plastic we dump will be reduced.

Clear candy floss bags in biodegradable form are proving a bit more problematic. The best price we have found so far is around 6 times that of normal bags, which is a bit steep. We will keep looking and eventually I have no doubt that we will source something more affordable. That will only leave us with the candy floss sticks to deal with. Being made of wood the hope is that we will be able to drop them in at a wood recyclers.

As soon as one of the recycling stations turn up I will post some photos here, in the meantime I'm off the try and find some accurate information on the level of biodiesel an unmodified engine can tolerate.


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Just occasionally, something happens that restores my faith in human nature. We've just supplied a candy floss cart for a marketing event for the Market Walk Shopping Centre in the Lancashire town of Chorley. We were hired to give out free candy floss for St Valentines day in conjunction with a shopping precinct. Now normally when undertaking events of this type the conversation runs like this;
"How much is your candy floss?"
"It's complimentary sir"
"Yes but how much is it?"
"It is free"
"Oh, in that case I will take three bags, might as well if it's free"

This time however things were different, those people with more than one kid seemed genuinely embarrassed when they asked if they could take another bag, and I lost count of how many people on being told the candy floss was free, asked if we had a charity collection tin they could put some money in. That's the first time I can remember receiving a reaction like that.

Dodgems Available For Any Event, Nationwide

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We are now running out of time, and the question now is not what is happening to the climate, but how bad will it be before the world, starts doing enough? - Jonathon Porritt (2007)

Climate change and sustainability is rapidly becoming the hottest topic ever. No one in the developed world today can be ignorant of the damage that is being inflicted upon the planet by the industrial nations of the world. This is all well known and documented, what is not, is the solution. Respected scientists are still arguing over the cause and effect of global warming, with one camp claiming it is all down to human activities, whilst others claim that mankind itself contributes less than one percent of the emissions into the atmosphere, with the bulk coming from rotting vegetation and methane emitted by the digestive process of cattle? Similarly it has been stated that if Britain cut its emissions to zero, the developing nation of China would make up the shortfall in a short space of time, so what is to be done?

We don't claim to know any better than the academia of the world, but we feel that mankind is contributing to this global crises, and we are obligated to look for ways of cutting our emissions and waste products. A chinese philosopher , Lao-tzu once said "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step", and we feel that climate change is like this journey. Every little step from whatever source will help us towards the eventual goal.

We have just finalised our Environmental Policy Statement, a copy of which will be supplied to our clients as part of the comprehensive safety dossier we present before any event. We have also put together our initial Environmental action plan, which is a list of what we would like to do to help achieve our aim of becoming the most environmentally friendly funfair operators in the U.K. Much of what is contained in this action plan is easily achievable, and indeed we are already doing it. Small things like using only recycled paper and printer cartridges in our office, (we used approximately 15,000 sheets of paper last year), asking our clients to accept PDF documents, instead of hardcopy , we estimate that we saved an extra 30% use of paper last year and hope to double that this year.

Most of our events are for corporate clients rather than members of the public, but we do have a number of events that are run along the lines of traditional fairgrounds, and need to be promoted to attract people to them. We have redesigned our advertising strategy to use posters that are undated, allowing them to be recovered and reused. We have an in house vinyl graphics machine and make use of this to produce advertising material that can be altered quickly, inexpensively and in an environmentally friendly way.

Use of fossil fuels is probably one of the biggest topics regarding emissions. Many fairground vehicles are custom built systems incorporating built in games units, generating plant and sometimes rides. It isn't possible to just replace these with newer vehicles that have better emissions ratings. Indeed it wouldn't really be good for the environment as they tend to do relatively low mileage, and the raw materials used and emissions created by replacing them would outweigh any benefits gained.

Biofuels hold the promise of a more sustainable future, but they are not really the answer at the moment. It isn't possible with many engines to just replace the diesel fuel with a 100% biofuel equivalent. Most engines will run on a blend, and that is one avenue we are following. When our current agreement with our fuel card supplier expires, we intend to begin using the Rix Petroleum Green card. Rix have a number of service stations dispensing a biofuel blend, and if you have to use a station that doesn't stock this blend, you use normal fuel, and Rix then place an equivalent amount of bio blend into the system so you are in effect offsetting you use of fossil fuels to a degree.

We are also looking at a way to convert our generating plant to the use of biofuel. One possibility, depending on cost, is to purchase a micro biofuel production plant. These are available in versions that produce around 200 litres of fuel at a time. Not enough for our transport needs, but they would provide a blend that could reduce our use of fossil fuel, and if they work well enough the system could be expanded.

We already use a large number of wastebins at our events, so theoretically it should not be too difficult to have them set up for different types of waste, with the idea being to then separate the recyclable items and transport them to a plant that can make use of them, the left over litter would be disposed of as normal, but it should hopefully be less than it is at the moment.

The action plan we have put together is due to be reviewed every quarter, so as it becomes clear what is and isn't working we can adapt it to be more effective. Updates will be posted on this blog concerning both what we have and have not been able to do with the state of current technology.

Coupled with our recent Fairtrade initiative, we hope that we can help make a difference, no matter how small.



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One of the best things about our move into the corporate entertainment industry has been the number of stunning venues that we have operated at. The latest of these was the Wallace collection in Manchester Steet London.

This event was the 100th birthday party of Mills and Boon, the romantic novel publisher and was designed to bring together their editors, publishers and authors in a birthday bash. The theme was PINK, with the room being decorated with coloured spotlights and giant flamingo stilt walkers greeting the guests. We only received confirmation of the event on Monday morning, and the event was being held on Thursday, which resulted in a couple of days rushed activity to respray one of our candy floss carts in pink tones to fit in with the theme. We pride ourselves on our customisation service, although we do tend to like a bit more notice.

In the event the event was stunning, with Greek tenor Attila serenading the guests while waiters handed the ladies Roses. Alan Titchmarsh gave the opening speech, followed by a couple of senior executives from the Mills and Boon and Harlequin companies.

At one point Venessa Feltz came over for a candy floss, and I have to say that she looked really well. I know television is supposed to add pounds to your appearance, but she looked slim and healthy.

We operate a lot in the London area nowadays, so most of the little foibles such as the congestion charge and red routes hold no surprises for us. We were however caught out by one little item. The venue unfortunately had no parking or unloading facility and London seems packed with eager traffic wardens. We ended up parked on double yellow lines waiting for the loading doors to be opened, all the time a traffic warden was stood across the road watching. The usual procedure is as soon as you step out of the vehicle and open the back doors, he pounces. I decided to take the bull by the horns and sauntered across to speak to him. After asking for the best place to unload he pointed out a small piece of road, about 8 feet long with a single yellow line, "You are allowed twenty minutes there to unload."

Nineteen minutes later I jumped in the van to find a parking space for the night, I circled the block until I came across an empty slot and parked up. Approaching the meter with a handful of coins I got a surprise, London parking meters no longer accept cash! I rang Arthur, gave him all the details and walked back to the venue for the start of the event. Ten minutes later Arthur rang, "I can't get the pay by phone system to work!", (didn't want to pay the seventy five pence more likely). Looking at my watch it was quarter past six, after half six parking is free, but knowing my luck I would probably get a ticket in the meantime, so I ended up sprinting back to the van, then driving round the block for fifteen minutes.

During the event, we receive an email for another corporate client who wanted a candy floss cart for a St Valentines event. They specified a pink cart so the spray job ended up serving its purpose better than we expected.

JARM Amusements, The Corporate Funfair Specialists

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