Saturday, September 02, 2006

Even though the funfair...

has gone Crowcroft Park remains unsettled. The field arena is scarred with deep gouges made by heavy machinery, huge grooves filled with rainwater criss cross the area. Yellowed templates mark the grass where rides such as The Vomitarium, Sick Your Guts Up and the crude but effective Heave! temporarily stood. It was really no surprise that anything by Barf Bros might feature spinning as the central entertainment feature. Incidentally the entrance was indicated by a huge open mouthed neon head that in green and yellow lines sprayed the letters Barf Bros in an arc under which patrons passed. Nice touch I remember thinking, the whole event begins with someone being sick on your head. I'm not going to go on an on about this (see 21/8 blog for that) except to say that the experience of being washed, sprayed, sluiced, and flooded by the gallons of sick thrown from the rides left my skin wrinkly for days. For those who can't be bothered reading the previous blog I'll give you a taste, urf urf. One ride popular with the local youth was simply called 'Bucket'. It entailed being spun round in a large wooden bucket (plus handle) until your stomach was empty. When the exit sluices opened patrons not removed on the swell were flushed from the machine by rough types wielding high pressure hoses, so no matter how badly you might feel it really was in your interest to get up. Some laughing youth deliberately held on for the hosing, but hey, folly is youth's middle name.

However, the purpose of this post is to record how odd the park remains. Yesterday I kept glimsping things whilst jogging around the inner perimeter, movements that drew my eye, strange objects that were there and then gone. I'm sure I saw groaning bodies and other detritus caught against the parks railings as if a great tide had passed but when I looked directly all was normal. A gnarled oak that used to lean east-west now leans west-east and the line of old bench seats popular with the elderly have begun nipping wildly aside just as people are about to sit. Of course the elderly blame the youth except there no longer seems to be much youth. At the park entrance some families have put up posters asking have you seen this young person or that young person but no one really knows.

It's as if the fair left holes in the grass and holes in the neighbourhood.

Funny, I now recall reading in large copperplate letters on the padlocked doors of their final lorry as it pulled away, Barf Bros of Hamelin.

Hmmmm...

6 comments:

Hayden said...

humm. so youth runs away to join the circus, but is conscripted/abducted by the fair... strange goings on, as usual....

Dan Flynn said...

Hayden,

It's a weird neighbourhood. But interesting...

Hayden said...

mystery solved. sorta. when I use foxfire browser, I can't see any of your posts since the 19th. When I use Safari, all appears. Is that when you migrated? your new site may not be foxfire friendly.....

this is why I kept thinking you were posting, hiding, putting them back, hiding......

Dan Flynn said...

Hayden,

Not sure what to do about this. Firefox is still making it a bit difficult for me to see a new post (I have to clear the cookie cache first) but otherwise it works fine. I've looked on the Firefox helpline and they say that even though I might struggle to see a new post they are nevertheless published for others to see.

Ho hum. Will plough on nevertheless. Especially as I'm useless at sorting computers out.

neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

They barfed and all the kids followed?

Clare lives near where you live?

Dan Flynn said...

Clare,

Felix hasn't told you half the story. I visited the fair and it was grim. Those marks on the grass weren't made by leaving they were made by fleeing. Barf Bros, exit pursued by parents with those burning stick things and hoes, rakes, scythes, it was like in the films only Longsight this time rather than Transylvania. God knows where they got all that gardening equipment...

G,

Re barfing, teenagers in the UK are odd, take my word for it. And Clare lives two streets away. Next to Crowcroft Park in fact but I don't let that bother me.