John Clifford Culine has just found out that he has received the MBE in the Queens upcoming honours list. He is the second northern based showman to receive this honour after Valerie Moody MBE was given the honour for her services to education.

John has been a long serving member of the Northern Section committee of the Showmens Guild, as well as serving in local government on the Spennymoor town council, including a stint as Mayor.

Congratulations Johnny!


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Funfair Rides And Games For Hire Or To Attend Your Event.

The stately home at Thornbridge Hall is an absolutely outstanding venue for any event. After attending a successful summer Fayre their we were asked back with a smaller presentation for their Christmas event. Financially this one was a bit quieter than the summer event, but once again it was an enjoyable day out, nice people and stunning scenery.

Whilst chatting with Emma, one of the organisers, she mentioned that the Police had been to see her. evidently the event had brought an increase in traffic to the surrounding village, an elderly gentleman had to walk around a parked car and duly called the forces of the law to deal with it. Now the British have a long history of being explorers, inventors, warriors, diplomats, traders and so on. With miserable auld bleeders like this shuffling about this green and pleasant land our former history fades into the depths of time. What is it with people, they are unable to make allowances for any slight inconvenience no matter that many more people are deriving enjoyment from the day. The truly outstanding point however, is the fact that the Police actually sent 2 officers to investigate! Obviously on a Sunday there is not any muggings, burglaries, rapes, murders or other crimes to investigate, perhaps we should close Police stations down on Sundays and save the tax payer some money.

In fairness we come across this situation a lot, at one street fair we attend for some 4 days in the year, we stand all along the high street which is used for parking the rest of the time. Someone will drive up to their regular parking spot and suddenly stop dead, a look of sheer panic across their face that there is a ride occupying "their spot". After they calm their trembling limbs, they will drive around the block and back, only to once again suffer a bolt of panic, "the ride is still there!" I have seen people drive around like headless chickens four or five times, thinking that perhaps its a dream and when they drive up again the spot will have been magically vacated, meanwhile 50 yards away, the free multistorey car park remains totally empty.

At most fairs of this type, the council post notices the week before informing everyone that after a certain time the high street is out of bounds due to the fair arriving. At one North Yorkshire market town, we arrived with our attractions to find the entire high street empty, with the exception of a solitary car parked right where we were due to begin setting up. After waiting in vain for a couple of hours for the owner to arrive, we had a word with a local Police officer. He found out a home contact no for the car owner and rang it. A woman answered and the officer asked if she could give him a contact number for the car driver as he was parked awkwardly in this particular town. "No your mistaken", replied the woman, "my husband is in Peterborough on business", and wouldn't believe any evidence to the contrary.

The officer eventually had the car towed away for us and we discovered later that the gentleman in question had been having an affair with a local woman, and indeed should have been in Peterborough.



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I'm going to pen a few articles concerning how to go about increasing your chances of winning on the popular funfair games, I also hope to dispel some of the myths surrounding the way games are operated.

First off lets deal with the situation you commonly see on many games. This is the one with a giant prize, around its neck hangs the label "Me free if you lose". Prizes of this size wholesale at around £10-£20 each, common sense would indicate that you are not going to give the game attendant £1-50 and be guaranteed that prize. What happens is that the game is designed in such a way that it is very difficult to lose, you win virtually every time, but when you win you are given a small prize. The fact is that the size of prizes is directly related to the difficulty of the game, shooting galleries require skill so tend to dispense quite large prizes, a hook a duck stall you merely have to catch a floating duck, so the prize must wholesale at less than the cost of the game.



The barrel is bent, and the sights are off are the two most common complaints heard in relation to shooting games. A gun with a bent barrel does not fire off target, it simply jams and does not fire at all. As for sights being off, some operators probably do but the fact is there is no need to do this. The vast majority of people simply have no idea how to aim a gun correctly, those who do can easily adjust their aim to take into account the sights inaccuracy so its pointless adjusting it off target. The technique for this is called aiming off. Take your first shot and see where it hits, if it hits half an inch to the left of where you aimed, then simply aim all of you remaining shots, half an inch to the right, if it hits an inch below, aim an inch above and so on.



Most fairground rifles have simple open or "iron sights", these require you to line 3 things up, the rear sight, the front sight and the target. Lets assume the target is a small dot, the picture below shows the image you should see if your sights are lined up correctly. This image, coupled with the aiming off technique should give you a good chance on games with the round targets, usually rings of increasingly smaller diameter, with the inner ring or bullseye being worth the most points.



One of the most popular targets on the fairground is the 3 hearts. This consists of 3 hearts of increasingly smaller size, the object of the game is to land a shot inside each heart without touching the red line. The smallest heart is quite difficult, consequently the prizes tend to be large ones. The big mistake everyone makes is trying to aim dead centre on each heart, whilst this works on the first two, the smallest heart doesn't have room for a pellet to fit into this position. You need to aim into the upper corners of the heart which forms a naturally rounded shape. Also another tip is to always go for the biggest heart first, if the guns aim is slightly out, the larger heart gives you a chance to sort your aim out whilst still landing a shot inside, the smallest heart can only be done with a very accurately placed shot.

These articles will continue over the coming few weeks.


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The following is an excerpt from the comments posted on the Edinburgh Evening News website;



I've lived in Marchmont for 25 years.
I use the Meadows pretty much everyday... going to work, going out, playing football, etc. and I've never had any bother, even when i'm staggering back from that amazing kebab shop on forrest road dribbling kebab sauce down my chin and onto my trainers whilst singing Bugsy Malone tunes to myself!!

However thats not say that the meadows are safe...A point was made in a previous post that mentions how attacks in the meadows seem to go up quite substantially whenever the "funfair" (more like Scumfair) is in town. I agree with that statement 100%!!

All that the fair does is attract teenage chav scum from nearby parts who do nothing but cause trouble and along with the fact the fair itself is run by a dubious bunch too!

Notice too how there always seems to be an increase in the number of car's getting broken ito and houses getting burgled!! Coinsidence?? I think not!

Police patrols are quite regular in the meadows and i appluad thier efforts to get rid of vagrents, teenage drinkers and other menaces to socitey!

But yes, more CAN be done! Such as infrared CCTV being added to the area! Especially at the east end.

Anyway...when the fair is in town you best make sure your windows and doors are locked!!!!


The story is about an area of Edinburgh called "The Meadows", where people are concerned at the rise in crime and attacks that are occurring there. In true British fashion the funfair must be to blame. The funfair visits the area about 2 weeks in every 52, but the apparent effect of this obviously lingers and forces the local people to commit crime for the next 50 weeks until they arrive again. In the 21st century we are still reverting back to the days when if someones cow dropped dead, an old woman in the village would be burnt at the stake for being a witch.

There are occasional dissenting voices on the website, but the overall impression seems to be that the funfair, (or scumfair as they refer to it) somehow lowers the tone of the area. Well I have news for them, some parts of the city are so rough, nothing short of a serial chicken molester would lower the tone.

Before there is a storm of protest about my comments, please reread the excerpt above, I am quite sure that the newspaper in question would not have allowed these comments to stand if instead of funfair they had made reference to asians or black men, so why the hell should it be O.K. to insult people going about a legitimate business, her majesty the Queen was quite happy to allow Hyde park to host a funfair and also the Mall, the fact that such an august publication as The Edinburgh News hosts this discussion gives it added legitimacy in the eyes of the readers.



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The following video clip shows a ride similar to that on the Janice clip, with a lady ending up in a similar position to the kid in the first video.
It might not suit the P.C. brigade, but perhaps there should be a body mass restriction on some rides as well as one for height.





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We've just rolled in from the small North Lincolnshire town of Crowle. This event is run by a friend of mine who asked me the other day to take a couple of attractions there for the switching on of the lights. We didn't expect a lot with the size of the town, but we were pleasantly surprised, there was a good turn out and it ended up a worthwhile exercise.

I found another interesting clip on YouTube. This one shows scenes from Newcastle Upon Tyne in the 1950's, the last 30 odd seconds shows the Newcastle Town Moor Fair, or Hoppings as they are known locally.




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Watch the news report on the following link: BBC News Report Lightwater Valley Accident

This is a dreadful case where the combined failings of a manufacturer, the operating company and a maintenance engineer led to the death of a young girl. The latest news report is that the three responsible parties had been hit with fines totalling about £150,000, which really isn't much for the death of a 20 year old girl.

Although this accident happened on a large theme park ride, there is no doubt that the tabloid press will once again run stories about the impending slaughter on funfairs up and down the country without once bothering to let the facts get in the way.

Obviously I have a vested interest in presenting the industry in a good light so I can in no way be said to be unbiased. For this reason I suggest you click on the following link, Funfair Safety Report from Health And Safety Executive.

This is a report from the H&SE, the government body responsible amongst other things for ensuring the safety of the public at funfairs in the U.K. The report contains a lot of statistical evidence which makes heavy reading, but 3 facts stood out for me which I will repeat here,

1 A pessimistic estimate (H&SE description) of the chances of being killed or seriously injured on a funfair ride is 1 in 83 million.

2 You are 12 times more likely to be killed or seriously injured on your way to the fair, than you are once you arrive there.

3 Statistically there is a greater chance of being struck by lightening than there is of being killed on a fairground ride!

However none of these statistics will prove to be of any comfort to the family of Gemma Savage, and our thoughts and condolences are with them.


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We no sooner got home from Ripon than the phone rang and we were offered another event in the market square, this one is for the Christmas Shopping on Saturday 23rd. Here is the MicroFormat for it;

Ripon Christmas Shopping 2006:
December 23rd
,
at the Market Square, Ripon



Whilst browsing the net I came across this clip, it is quite funny, as even "Janice" in the clip seems to think so, but on a more serious note I would think that the kid in the clip was perhaps too short to be allowed on that particular ride a good arguement for the Americans adopting the height restriction we work in this country.




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Ed (names changed to protect the innocent) occasionally helps me. He will look after a stall or help erect/dismantle one if I am short staffed. He use to have a job somewhere down the country, but after losing it he fell on hard times and has been unemployed for quite a while. At the moment, Ed and his girlfriend live in a tent at the bottom of a friends garden. The local council have told him that he is that far down the housing list he will be an old man before he gets any accomodation. The same council take great pride in the help they give to immigrants, they provide housing, food and in some cases money to buy a car.

Now at the moment the funfair industry would find it hard to carry on without the Eastern European (mainly Polish) staff they are using. Most of the Poles I have met have been friendly, polite and very hard working, so I have no problem with them bettering their life by being in this country. There is however something tragically wrong with a system that condemns a native of these shores, who has worked and paid tax in the past, to live in a tent. Ed would be better off getting himself to the port of Dover, climbing into the back of a lorry and claiming asylum, there is a whole industry of professionals who would be falling over themselves to help him.

Ed was all set to go up in the world, his friend had spent the last few weeks building him a garden shed to live in, unfortunately one of the legion of local busybodies complained to the council, so even this has been denied to him.

The frightening thing is, no matter who comes into power, the Ed's of this world will be no better off. After much consideration I have come to the conclusion that Democracy itself is fatally flawed, onlya benevolant dictatorship would hold any hope of redressing the balance.



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We've just got back from our latest visit to the picturesque City of Ripon, in North Yorkshire. This is one of my favourite venues, and the market place in the centre of the city never seems to let us down when it comes to earning money. This event wasn't as good as some we have had this season, the frequent rain showers didn't help, but at the end of the day it was still a decent days earnings.

We also discussed a couple of new events with the organisers for next year so hopefully we can visit the city some more.

Whilst we were there a local dance school performed their jive routines in the centre of the market place, and a youth drama group enacted 'Grinch who stole christmas' to quite a high standard, the inclement weather put a lot of people off, but those who did attend enjoyed the day.





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