July 31, 2007
My brother, Tim, somehow managed to persuade me last week that going to watch him "swimming with sharks" at the Blue Planet Aquarium in Ellesmere Port on Sunday would be something worthwhile to do.
And on the grounds that there was the slightest chance he might get a hunk of flesh torn out of his torso by one of nature's most fearsome predators while I stood looking on in the safety of a see-through underwater tunnel roaring with manic laughter much like Brian Blessed in Blackadder, I decided to take him up.
Memo to self: Don't go to the Blue Planet Aquarium again.
Aside from the fact that it cost a fishfinger-flattening £12 each to get in for the Rowster and I, and aside from the fact it cost me an illuminating £2 to buy a fucking ice cream, and aside from the fact the whole experience was akin to staring at a large fish tank fucking screensaver for 90 minutes, he didn't get eaten, or even bitten, or even nibbled, while "swimming with sharks".
And why didn't he get eaten while "swimming with sharks", I hear you ask?
Because he didn't "swim with sharks", that's why.
Instead, he padded along the fake seabed for about twenty minutes sprinkling fake sand over (probably) fake fish while docile beasts that only the night before had tried and failed once more to devour Richard Dreyfus and Roy Schneider on the telly (although he got lucky - yet again - with Robert Shaw) floated around in much the same manner as a stoned Tory MP on a lilo.
Still, in the pursuit of a possible news story when my brother was chomped into two halves by a Great White, I took along my camera and came up with these:
My Grandma, haven't you got big teeth

I'm not thinning on top, it's just the light

Still, at least I was able to find something for Hektor, so all was not lost

Not that I even saw the bloody otters, mind.
Flamingo Land, anyone?


LandersUK
Nice.