a third and, for this time at the least look you see, final post of our most recent sojourn to Blackpool. yes, indeed, once again you are encouraged to sing the magic of Holiday Road off of that film with that guy as you read.
quite a few pictures here, then, for family and friends. and indeed for the many random strangers, or if you like people that i do not know, who come by. you're always welcome to get in touch and leave a message, you know, to be sure. but anyway, onwards.
some, or rather exactly, 50% of the pictures in this post relate specifically to our experience on what many would call the main point of attraction in the place - the Blackpool Tower.
that there would indeed be the boys on the glass skywalk up very close to the top of Blackpool Tower. apparently, according to the staff, this glass skywalk can handle north of 5 tonnes of weight, so the idea is people are safe. as they did not say that this was metric or imperial tonnes i felt it inappropriate to try walking on it myself too much. well, that and i found it quite scary.
exactly how high up from the ground were we at this point? 380ft it says in this book i have got here, which is close to 116m for all you crazy, crazy metric fans. yes, i have been higher, which is to say a distance north of that, but no i do not find it a comfortable experience.
speaking of all things north, here's a picture i took of the celebrated north pier at Blackpool from that glass skywalk deck on the Tower.
an amazing thing it is, the Blackpool Tower. the only real issue with it (the cost of getting up it is not all that bad, especially not when you consider the smart 4D show before) is that the aspirational, pony tail wearing branding twats have gotten hold of it. no longer is it just simply "Blackpool Tower". no, they have gone and "rebranded" it as "Blackpool Tower Eye".
depressingly some Google research suggests that one of the other bigger towers i have been up, Centrepoint in Sydney, has been rebranded as the "Sydney Eye". what a shame. it would seem that this "London Eye" business has a very great deal to answer for. unless the Australians did the rebranding thing first and London copied.
perhaps this does not need my clarification, but for the sake of a few words William was most delighted to find a telescope or two available on the glass skywalk deck. i was delighted to discover that one of them, a telescope not facing out towards the coast or sea, required no £1 coin to be paid to use it. i wholeheartedly encouraged William to use that one as much as he so wished, then.
the glass skywalk part of Blackpool Tower is high, but not as high as the tower goes. oh no. if you wish you can walk up to further levels. i had no wish to do this but my family did.
yes, be patient, there is an image of me looking terrified up on this 2nd level coming up. for now, just enjoy how happy they all are. both with the view and, presumably, you would think, the level of distress and discomfort i had at this height.
i don't have all these pictures in an exact order, so bear with me. back down to the glass skywalk for a moment, then, and a look south.
at the forefront is the central pier, where we spent a fair bit of time. off in the distance is the south pier. we spent no time there. the celebrated and famous Pleasure Beach is there, with rollercoasters, rides and so on.
other than the boys having no interest, at least not expressed, in such rides, we were warned off going. apparently - and i have been informed of this not experienced it - they now wish to charge all £6.50 each just to walk around the Pleasure Beach. yes, you pay for any rides you use on top of that. as we had limited time and we would have no wish to try the rides, we saw little sense in paying north of a quarter of one hundred pounds to simply walk around when there's two free to use piers there.
quite, James. yes, that is him just chilling on the glass skywalk, showing he has none of the fear of being on it that his Dad most decidedly did. nice one for him!
an image of me on the level up from the skywalk, doing my best to look unafraid and even forcing a smile? why sure, if you so wish.
oh, bless, look at that smile i was managing to do. actually i think that smile was legit. i was happy as i had not plunged to my death. something, that is, that would cause others not to smile, but hey ho, here i am.
it was, i think, William in instigated the whole idea of "let us go up higher". he seemed to quite like it, and wished to go even one level more. but i said no. here he is, at the least, enjoy the level that i, under some duress, agreed to go to.
should you be wondering, we did indeed attract one or two "looks" when we informed people that we were off to Blackpool for a break, or if you like holiday. the place, alas, has a reputation these days for being somewhat rough. James was, in truth, somewhat alarmed when he saw the rather run down back streets of the sea front.
well, yes. there has been some neglect, and it has become the place for rather rough stag nights / hen nights for those who have had their passports confiscated to save them from getting arrested for doing so in other lands. but efforts are clearly being made to re-establish the town as, once more, a most splendid, must do once in your life family holiday place.
if we do not go along to support the regeneration and restoration of the place as a great place to take the family, then who?
yeah, that is indeed my most generously sized foot. i am, for the benefit of this picture for you, daring to place 50% of my known toes on the glass skywalk. i trust you are most satisfied.
efforts to in some way restore the image of Blackpool as family friendly are not strictly speaking 100% successful thus far. i did, for instance, watch a chap who the sauce had got the better of have a smart fight with himself. the fight went on until he was distracted by a tram, which he subsequently challenged to a duel. the most interesting aspect of this was that it was all around 8am.
in another instance, on one evening, i and many others got to watch a domestic disagreement unfold along the promenade. the younger, clearly not of England wife was somewhat distraught about the nature of the holiday. she was mouthing off to her (presumably) weaker half, who was so p!ssed he staggered along and seemed not to care for anything other than the next pub. oh he was very much a traditional of England sort, then.
and that above is, i promise, the last picture from on or if you like in Blackpool Tower. for this post at the least; you never know i may discover other pictures that i wish to share here.
on we go, then, and at one of the many amusement arcades i was delighted to find one of them machines that i really, really like. yes, one of those "photo booth" things that produces a sketch like effect of your picture.
i believe the last time we did one of these we thought it would be the last, as it was a struggle for us to all somehow fit in. the proprietor of the place in Blackpool what had this machine, however, had sense to position it so that patrons could use it from both sides. so, as you can see, my (considerably) better half and i just poked in, so to speak, as the boys to a central, sort of middle slot.
away from the Tower as such but still at Blackpool Tower, then. the very next day after we did the "Blackpool Tower Eye" experience it was back to the same building for two other things we booked.
the first of those was an hour or so on the massive Jungle Gym, called Jungle Jim's, i think. as there were many signs requesting that you did not take pictures i didn't take pictures. no such restrictions appeared outside of the entrance to the Circus, though.
blimey. looking at that i think i understand why these days i tend to attract even more disapproving and disliked looks or glances than usual. which is a lot. my beard and hair are really all over and shabby. perhaps i should get them sorted out and/or styled.
the circus at Blackpool Tower is, i would think, another well known tradition. been going for over 100 years, it has. oh, sure, there have been no animals used in performances there since 1990, but that's the enlightened trend around the world.
sadly, and perhaps wisely considering just how f*****g dangerous some of them high wire and trapeze artist things looked, you were not allowed to use cameras during the performance. the ban was probably due to "copyright" and "licensing", but there you go. we could take a picture before the show started.
yes, they are "light swords" and not unlicensed Star Wars knock offs which they sold at the Circus prior to the show. at £7 a go.
my favourite element of the show? well, the animals may have gone, so alas no sign of a clown or similar getting mauled to death off of a lion or similar. the traditional "water fountain" ending remains part of the Blackpool Circus. the only way i can think to describe the water fountain ending this year is Gladiator Eroticus. i, and i would suspect many of the other gentlemen in the audience, greatly appreciated this part of the show.
that central pier i mentioned earlier, then. here you go, here's the 75% you by far and indeed away prefer to sat upon the pier.
hopefully, if you are so interested, that comes out all nice if you click on it to enlarge. i really like this one, a "caught in action" shot, so to speak.
should for some reason you want a look at Blackpool Tower from the central pier without or if you like sans my family before it, here you go.
the central pier, or if it is right to say so Central Pier (the one in the middle) was the one which struck us as being the most fun.
why would this be so? not sure, really. it was all unassuming, perhaps. lots and lots of activities on offer, and not so much in the way of a hard sell to make you part with coins of money. i mean, yes, sure, them stall holders where you have to shoot things or throw things were vibrant in their yells for business. but they always are.
as we strolled this most middle of central piers, then, we felt no pressure to do anything but that which we wished. one thing the boys wished to do was go on an absolutely massive section of bouncy castle and slides. this, after i had paid £3 per 6 minute session each, is what they did.
i took quite a few pictures of them on this palace of bounce but alas most of them are a blur. quite understandable, really. they were rather keen to extract full value from the fee, and thus went off, charging around having fun. i think they think that Daddy has more than enough pictures of them.
perhaps they are right. one aspect of us being in this era of everything having a camera welded on it means a lot of pictures taken. without having done any maths or research i would speculate that it is entirely possible the boys have their picture taken more in any month you care to name than were taken of me throughout my youth.
when you get to the bottom you go back to the top f the slide and you turn and you....sorry about that, i have a tendency to get lyrically distracted whenever i have a requirement to mention the joys of the fairground or in this case seaside attraction that is the helter skelter.
it is not really the case that William, so far as i have ever discussed it with him, plays favourites with the things in this world what amuse him. but it would equally be fair to say that William really, really does like the helter skelter ride. odd that he should be so nervy (although not as much as me) on the Blackpool Tower glass skywalk, then, but there you have it. fear and nerves are perhaps all matters of perception.
yeah, go on then, another picture of the Blackpool Tower. with reason, mind. for a change i am trying to structure some writing here. i think it is kind of going well so far, bear with me or keep bearing with me.
in the images from the central pier you may have noted a sort of coloured, lit up segment near the base of the Blackpool Tower. this next image, then, gives you a closer look at that.
see, i told you that it all sort of linked up. anyway, yes, as you can further observe, it is indeed a heart shaped icon made from red neon lights upon the western face of the Tower. and i know it is the western face as it stares out towards the sea.
i confess i know not if this heart is on prominent display for the duration of the year each year or if it is present now only for that other, other thing for which Blackpool is famous. yes, i speak of the Blackpool Lights, or if you will the Blackpool Illuminations.
as we went in the last throes of August i was not, in truth, expecting to see the Lights or the Illuminations or whatever you would rather call it. the big switch on for the Blackpool Lights is normally September, with the October half term holiday usually being the time families go along to enjoy them all.
we got lucky, then. we were there when they were doing what was really a trial run for the big switch on, but what got called a "pedestrians and cyclists" special. the whole of the road where the lights / illuminations are on display was closed to all but people walking and people cycling.
just what are the Blackpool Lights, or again Blackpool Illuminations, for those that have no idea? well i suppose you would not be asking if you had an idea. effectively they are intricate light displays the whole length of the road that goes along the coast, or if you will the promenade.
these lights are indeed world famous. i know this because Jack White out of The White Stripes did a concert in Blackpool with The White Stripes purely on the basis of him being intrigued by an interview George Harrison once gave in which he mentioned being "under Blackpool lights". if you get the DVD of the show, surprisingly called The White Stripes Under Blackpool Lights, you will see and hear Jack ask of the audience "what are these Blackpool lights, anyway?" during a break in songs.
hopefully he found out, and enjoyed them. although i have a niggling, nagging suspicion that the concert what they did was not of the same time as when the Blackpool Lights are on. perhaps he came back later, or the following year, to enjoy them.
yes, one of them "official" pictures to finish off with. this was done by some fella with a camera, a blue screen and a fancy computer just before we went into the Blackpool Tower "Eye" experience. as you can see, or perhaps rather not see, it was most unfortunate that James elected to wear so much light blue that day, as it really rather undermined the special effects magic.
so, did we enjoy Blackpool? i know you don't care if i did, but yes, the family had a tremendous time. some of the tremendous ways have, i trust, oozed out across these images. we would most certainly all go again. however, there are other things to see.
ever since i moved my family home - an action which, let us not forget, Theresa May attempted to block - we have travelled the east coast for the likes of Whitby and Scarborough, have been central (ish) to York, to the south for London (innit) and now the west. methinks it would be appropriate to travel to that beautiful land to the north next.
Blackpool was not the upper limit of our most recent journey, however. we visited one or two other places. those images to come soon, but until then, then,
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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