Crazy & Co.

Rover SD1, British Leylands Finest

21 May 2020

In the picture above is a blue Rover SD1, . My dad bought that when I was about 18. I remember it coming and thinking wow, its the same car as the police used. It sure did look modern and impressive for its time, and I think it was a European car of the year.

Now, truth be told, the impressive police version used Rovers venerable V8 power plant. Ours was the paltry 2 litre version. Which to be charitable was a bit asthmatic on the power front.

Once we started using the car I found it a mixed bag. The space and comfort was far superior to anything I had driven before. But its short comings soon became apparent. One advantage of the smaller engine version was that when you put your foot down less bits fell off inside. You would turn a corner and bits of interior trim would whizz pass your head. The fit and finish looked like Stevie Wonder had done the final quality control.

When Your Best Friends With The AA Man

During our Rover experience we were members of the AA. Which was quite fortunate seeing as quite often the car returned on the back of an AA transporter. I think in the end the AA wrote to us and told us that we were overusing their service and they were going to have to rethink our membership.

In the 3 years we owned it, it had 2 replacement engines. The second engine then had to have a total rebuild.

Other items failed at random intervals, the gearbox, differential, electrical components. In fact midway through our final year of ownership a fuse had blown for one of the electrical windows. When we looked to replace the blown fuse, we noticed that 2 were blown, so we changed them both. Suddenly after 2 and a half years we discovered we had central locking.

Fuel Pumps And A Work Out

One of the items that seemed to fail regularly was the fuel pump. This was a small cylindrical pump about the size of a bobbin of cotton. It lived in the actual fuel tank and would fail with depressing regularity. At the time it was about £200, which 30 years ago was a not inconsiderable sum.

My dad eventually got sick of paying for this and bought an electronic aftermarket pump that bolted on the side of the engine. At only £100 this was a nice saving.

I was out one day in the car towing a small tourer following dad, when the car once again chucked it. Because this was such a common state of affairs, It no longer caused a panic, and we carried a comprehensive tool kit in the boot.

Whilst investigating which of BL’s finest components had stranded me this day, an absolutely stunning woman pulled up behind me in a brand spanking new Jaguar sports car. Dressed to the nines she was walking down the side of my trailer when she asked, “Do you need a lift, you can jump in with me.”

As she actually reached me she suddenly realised that I was not only wearing an absolutely scruffy boiler-suit, but both my hands and face were scruffy. Some will say this was a rare occurrence for me to have engaged in manual labour, but we had just finished derigging at an event before hitting the road. As she took stock of me I could see her heart sink as she suddenly thought about her new leather seats. I smiled sweetly and thanked her but told her I could repair it. She made a feeble attempt to argue then beat a hasty retreat.

Electronic Genius

And you know what, I could fix it, my first business was building electronic control systems, so I had a good working knowledge of how electronic units worked.

What I managed to work out was how the pump worked. Basically when the ignition was turned on and power applied to the pump, the electric solenoid pumped once. As it pumped it broke a light beam on an optical switch. This immediately cut the power and the solenoid dropped, whereupon the light beam connected and supplied power for another pump cycle.

Unfortunately said opto switch was defunct, deceased, as dead as a parrot. But being a bit clever with electrics, I disconnected the positive feed. Tapped a wire on, and ran it through the door into the car. By tapping it on the cigarette lighter I could pump enough fuel to start the engine.

Trouble was whenever I came to an hill, the engine would splutter and I would have to tap faster. By the time I caught up with my dad, my left arm felt like it belonged to someone else.

I think I flagged my dad down and got my sister out of the cab of the lorry. She was promptly given fuel pumping duty.

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Fun Story

The Customer Is Always Right

17 May 2020

But Boy Sometimes You Want To Slap Them

The majority of our enquiries come through our various website’s. We are happy for potential clients to ring us, but email is easier, as when they put all the details down we can work out a price and get a quote to them quickly and efficiently.

But sometimes you get some clients contact you, and you end up thinking “I just don’t need their money this badly”.

A couple stick in mind. The first an enquiry from a lady who wanted to potentially hire a Flying Frogs Ride. The initial enquiry was as follows on our website;

Website Enquiry

Name Jane Doe (not really but we are keeping her details anonomous)

Telephone No 01234 567890

Email [email protected]

Date Of Event 1st June 2012

Requirements I would like to hire a jumping frogs ride.

Venue My House

Now, most of the details are here. But, to give an accurate price, I need to work out where our equipment is going to. The venue of my house narrows it down to approximately 25 million possibilities. However she could be in Europe or anywhere.

I emailed back to tell her I needed her to be more specific about where the event was taking place. Her answer;

In a field at the bottom of the drive outside my house.

That is I suppose more specific, but of no real help. So I politely emailed back to her, informing her that as I didn’t know her personally I had no idea where her house was, and could she enlighten me.

The answer?

Next Door To My Mams!

At that point I gave up.

The second was a guy who rang to hire a burger van. Now, because of the amount of people who wanted to hire an empty catering unit for their own use, we actually used to have it state on our contact page that we don’t hire empty units out for anyone else to use. The customer would understand this surely?

Telephone Enquiry

The phone conversation went like this.

Caller “Hello, I know you don’t hire empty burger vans out for other people to use, but could you give me a price on an empty burger van?”

Me “Sprichst du Deutsch?”

Caller “You what”

Me ” Et le Francais?”

Caller “I dont understand”

Me “misschien ben je nederlands?”

Caller “Listen mate why are you speaking foreign languages to me?”

Me “Because I am trying to figure out what language you speak”

Caller “Well I speak English don’t I”

Me “Do you, so what part of we don’t hire empty burger vans out for people to use are you struggling with?”

Caller “Well I just thought you might hire one out to me!”

Me “Oh I do apologise, I didn’t realise you were the Duke of Kent”

Caller “Eh, I’m not am I”

Me “Well in that case we can’t help you.”

Now when they ring up for something similar I find it easier to give them a hire price, then inform them that there is a £35,000 cash deposit required to cover damage. That usually shuts the combination down pretty quickly.

So as they say, ‘The customer is always right’ but jeez.

Showmen, Covid and The NHS

3 May 2020

Showmen Thank The NHS. Like many business’s at the minute, the funfair industry has pretty much ceased to exist. With events cancelled up until the middle of the summer and beyond. Indeed some Christmas events are now being cancelled, we are not sure when we will be allowed to operate again.

The common opinion is that it will be next year before events start to come out of the lockdown. We can’t see all the sacrifices made during the lockdown period being swept aside by letting major festivals go ahead. And rightly so. The important thing at the minute is saving lives, hard as it sounds, business will need to take a back seat.

Showmen are an enterprising breed, many have rapidly started small food delivery business’s to keep some income rolling in. There must be a massive market in home delivered fruit and veg. If the amount of showmen who have turned greengrocer is any indication.

Saying Thank You

The showmen however, in the midst of seeing their livelihoods disappear, and with no real idea when they will be allowed to work again, have found time to say thank you to our heroic front line NHS staff and key workers.

We have all stood and clapped to let them know how we feel, but around the country, groups of showmen have raised funds to show their appreciation in a practical way.

Many hospitals put calls out for toiletries and such like. As patients were ending up on Corvid wards, with no supplies. Because of the current visiting rules, their families couldn’t come to see them and bring what they needed.

In short order groups of showmen have raised not inconsiderable sums to purchase toiletries, bottled water, things like pot noodles and other snacks to help alleviate the hospitals shortage.

Showmen’s Guild

In my native North East, the funfair trade body made a donation to start the ball rolling. A number of showmen also took it upon themselves to raise funds.

One member donated a vehicle to be used for delivering the items. Another who runs a small sign making business, lettered the vehicle up free of charge.

They made delivery runs to a number of Northern hospitals. Other showmen added to this and covered smaller centres such as care homes.

I have touched upon the Northern Section of the industry, purely because I come from the area. But the same thing has taken place in most parts of the UK. North East local press reported on the story.

It just goes to show, “There is no business like show business”, and the Showmen thank the NHS to show their appreciation.

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Catering, Fun Story

Environmentally Friendly Catering

20 April 2020

About 15 years ago I had the bright idea of switching to environmentally friendly catering. In fact we decided to switch not only our catering operations, but our travelling funfairs to a more sustainable method of operating.

We made some great advances on this front. Had a bit of attention from the press and even received a couple of environmental awards. Things seemed rosy and I felt I had made a good decision. But then a pattern started to emerge. We would quote for jobs, and explain all about how we were doing our bit for the environment. But we received a lot of replies along the lines of, ‘We really love what you are doing, unfortunately the non environmentally friendly companies are cheaper then you so we are going with them!’

For a time it looked like we could be the most environmentally friendly bankrupt funfair company. So sadly we had to dial down on what we were doing.

We feel now is the time to relaunch our initiative. Biodegradable consumables made from bamboo, paper and plant based products are becoming ever more affordable. Things like LED lighting are being mass produced to the stage they are getting cheaper than traditional alternatives. And many of our customers are starting to make environmental credentials an important part of their purchasing process.

To this end we are ramping up our green credentials. Well we going to if we ever get released from this bloody lockdown.

I’ll try and summarise our intentions, along with how we compare to where we were 15 years ago.

Paper Usage

Looking at our environmental statement from years back, we were going through some 20000 sheets of office paper a year. Over the course of 12 months, we had managed to reduce this to 15000. Our intention was to get it down to 5000 a year. This has been an easy win. Most of our clients are now happy to accept pdf versions of our safety document packs. We average less than 1000 sheets of office paper per annum.

This will no doubt help keep enough paper stocks available for the toilet roll industry to keep up with the current demand from the deranged panic buyers.

Catering Consumables

Last time we tried switching to greener alternatives, coffee cups weren’t too bad, but everything else was prohibitively expensive.

Nowadays there is a vastly improved choice. For many items such as doughnuts and churros we use bamboo boats. For larger items like jacket potatoes, we have found a good range of boxes and plates made from sugarcane bagasse . Bagasse is a residue from sugar cane production. Products derived from it include biofuel, wood substitute and now catering items. It looks very much like polystyrene but is fully biodegradable.

Knives, forks and spoons have been switched to wood. And a few of the items such as waffles on a stick are served in paper trays. In all I don’t think we have anything left being served in plastic.

Food Waste Composting

Its fine having environmentally friendly catering products, but there is another issue. Food waste. Any event we attend there is always some level of waste food. Whether its guests not quite finishing their servings, or the fact that we have cooked a few too many hot dogs. In the past this will all have ended up in landfill.

Last time we went down this route, we acquired a Swedish hot composting system. You would feed it with waste food, and a mixture of dry wood pellets. Then give it a good spin to mix it. Bacteria would slowly heat the mixture up and consume the food and waste to leave a rich compost, ideal for the garden.

Sadly our original composter was destroyed, (someone ran over it) and never replaced.

We are now looking at adding something to replace this to ensure we can remove our small amount of food waste from the landfill system. One system that does look promising is the HotBin compost system. Like our old Swedish system, you add food waste and in this case shredded paper. The system again raises the heat to allow microbial action to reduce everything to a separate mix of solid compost and liquid leachate (which makes a great liquid fertiliser). We are still looking at system, but as soon as this virus pandemic ends we will place an order for a system of some kind.

Biofuels For Our Generators

This is one avenue were we have had to admit defeat. What we discovered was that the newer generating plant we had didn’t like 100% biodiesel. Some of the older stuff would run happily on it, though we had to change many of the rubber fuel lines. The trouble is, the newer kit is both less polluting to begin with, and also far more fuel efficient. So it didn’t make sense to swap the latest kit back to stuff that was 20 years out of date.

Because of the transitory nature of funfairs, there isn’t really any scope to make use of renewable power. The one exception perhaps is the classic helter skelter. Because it is powered by gravity, it can operate without a power source, needing just power for lighting. Before we disposed of ours, I had drawn up plans to use a combination of a solar powered battery charger and small wind turbine to constantly charge a battery pack, and then use an inverter to power LED lighting throughout the ride. I still think this would work.

Lighting

This is one avenue that is actually coming of age. LED lighting prices are now falling to the extent where they are only a smallish premium over incandescent lighting. Additionally LED lights take far less power to run, with the result that either smaller more fuel efficient generators can be used to power them, or the larger generators are working less and saving fuel. With the chancellors decision to remove the tax rebate on red diesel (used to power generators) its now reached the stage where its a no brainer to make the switch. The fuel savings alone will pay the costs back pretty quickly. And technically LED should last far longer than a traditional light bulb.

Certification

To ensure that we can communicate the extent of our green push to our clients we are looking at a number of certification systems which would officially show our work. In the past we were part of a few different initiatives, but these petered out over time.

In summary offering environmentally friendly catering is something that is fast becoming a must, rather than an optional extra.

If you fancy hot dog cart hire or any of our offerings with an environmentally friendly service then get in touch.

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Fun Story, Photo Booths

The Duke, Our Wild West Photo Booth

8 April 2020

We have a number of specialised photo booths, London taxi cabs, a classic Mini Cooper, Indian Tuk Tuk. Well now we have a wild west photo booth

When looking for new lines we hit upon the idea of a Wild West photo booth. We looked at various saloon bars, a teepee, but decided that the most classic wild west ‘vehicle’ had to be the Concord stagecoach. Just like John Wayne in the classic film.

Luckily, we have a member of staff that happens to be a whizz, with wood. So, after some research, and finding some stagecoach plans (albeit for a model coach), we managed to create a workable blueprint.

The Build

When we started, in fairness, we didn’t actually realise the amount of work we were letting ourselves in for. But the initial body shaping looked spot on, and kept us reassured we were on the right track.

The initial body shape came together well, because the body curves in 2 planes, it was difficult to shape, but after some intensive work, we got it together into the basic body.

Adding The Detail to the Doors and windows.

Coat Of Stain, And Trying The Wheels For Size

Drivers seat and footboard added — Adding The Drivers Seat And Footboard

This about finished the body, other than the interior. We didi think that was the bulk of the work done, until we actually started assembling the chassis.

Assembled, Now Adding Some Of The Metalwork

The Chassis was actually quite complicated, as we tried to follow the real things metalwork, with a working handbrake, and the correct slings and fittings.

Almost The Finished Item. Body Mounted, Much Of The Steel Work Fitted.

All in all it was a long complicated build, but it has given us a totally unique photo booth, perfect for those wild west events.

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Fun Story

Coronavirus Diary 4th April

4 April 2020

Well, a week after my release from hospital and another entry in my Coronavirus Diary. I am walking a 4-5 mile course every day. The 2 stone I lost inside wouldn’t have been too bad if a lot of it hadn’t come off my arms and legs. So to build them back up I dusted off my kettlebell weight. The only one I have at home is 16kg so its good for a decent workout, and I am feeling pretty good so no problem. Ha, I only managed to get half way before I felt absolutely knackered. And my arms and legs feel like they belong to someone else this morning.

A lot of the fairground industry is starting to go into panic mode. Initially they thought this was going to be a two or three month break, but now I think we are all realising that we may end up writing this season off. The government has just cancelled the major climate change conference in November, so they aren’t too confident that things will be back to normal by then.

They say necessity is the mother of invention. An awful lot of the showmen I know seem to have turned into fruit and veg salesman, with a multitude of home delivery options on offer. Good luck to them.

Poor Premiership Stars

I see the players football association is suggesting the premier league stars take a 30% pay cut. The poor darlings, the average wage is £3 million a year, how an earth will they manage on only £2 million per annum. Perhaps we should start a gofund me page to help them out.

The major clubs have furloughed their support staff, because obviously all of them together will add up to perhaps the left backs salary so its a big saving. The next step will be them asking for a government handout to enable them to keep paying their stars mega salaries.

When I was a kid my dentist was actually an ex professional footballer. He had played for Newcastle United, and was wanted by Manchester United. He instead chose to go to Darlington. When I asked why you would choose them over Man U, his reply was, “At the time I could earn more as a dentist, than I could as a football player, Darlington offered to let me continue my dentistry as well as playing football. Man U insisted I stopped being a dentist, and with a family to look after I couldn’t afford to do that.”

How things have changed.

Its A Conspiracy

I tend to use Facebook for my business pages, its another business tool. With the lockdown I have to admit I am using it more from a personal perspective. One of the things which really tickle me is the prevalence of conspiracy theories. It turns out there isn’t actually a virus after all, its 5G transmitters that are causing people to have viral symptoms. Its the fault of the Illuminati and the Masons who are ushering in the new world order.

People are calling on their comrades to get ready for the fightback. Well, any organisation that can successfully have every health care professionals, not only in the UK, but the rest of the planet, all toe the line and lie that its a virus, well, do you really think power like that can be challenged?

Personally I know its not 5G, its pod people from Mars. That’s why Boris isn’t appearing on TV, his symptoms was the first stage of his body being taken over by a pod person. When he appears again he will be fully assimilated. Bit like the Borg really.

Though my wife has a novel theory. She claims that I am the cause of the coronavirus pandemic. Allegedly I am trying to keep my daughters boyfriend away. I will keep you informed on how well this worldwide plan works in a future update to our Coronavirus Diary .

American Pirates

I see in the news that America has been accused of piracy. It seem Trump has invoked a Korean war era directive to prevent companies like 3M exporting face masks to the rest of the world. Their entire production is now being ring-fenced for the States. Whilst I can understand the outrage of other countries that were expecting deliveries from them. Can you really condemn Trump for looking after his own people first. Imagine the scenario of Europe recovering with the aid of millions of 3M masks. Whilst Americans die due to a lack of them. In all honesty I would hope our government would make the same call in that situation.

Hopefully some more Coronavirus Diary to come soon.

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Fun Story

Coronavirus Diary 30th March

30 March 2020

This isn’t going to be a coronavirus diary par se. Its more of an occasional ramble of what we are doing and thoughts about the way things are going. To be honest its more to give us something extra to do rather than being a serious social commentary.

Like everyone else we are in lockdown. Luckily our house is built on the side of our business premises, so we have a fairly secure 3 acre site to wander, rather than being stuck in a small gardenless house.

My significant other is starting to repaint all of our external fences. Tbh they don’t really need doing yet as she did them about 18 months ago, but she’s happy that it gives her a couple of weeks work to pass them time on.

My daughter, who hasn’t been speaking to me for a couple of weeks due to my refusal to let her make a trip to Birmingham, has come round a bit. We have decided to spend some of our time learning a language. After a bit of debate we have settled on sign language. We don’t interact with the hearing impaired all that often, but it would be nice to be able to show we have made the effort on the occasions we do.

Learning Something New

When we built the wild west stagecoach photo booth, we added quite a number of props to it. One of which was a ukulele (and indeed a banjo, because we were going to recreate the scene from deliverance). This has sat on the top shelf in the office for quite a while now. So I decided I am going to learn how to play it. Lol, by the end of the lockdown, I will either be a musician, or I will have a ukulele shaped dent in the back of my head.

We usually refurb our carts and equipment a couple of times a year. This enforced downtime will let us go through them all ready for when the events industry re emerges. It will also give us time to look at possible new ideas and lines to add for the forthcoming season.

I have just had a months stay in hospital where I ended up losing 2 stone. In truth I needed to lose a bit of weight, but that is probably half a stone too much. As soon as the remnants from my surgery heal up enough I intend to have a fairly heavy exercise regime, it would be nice to tone up and keep my weight down. We have a few basic items such as kettlebells so should be able to cobble together some basic exercise sets.

Woah boy overdoing the exercises a bit there.

Truth be told mentally I am not feeling the lockdown too much. When ever we were not at events, I always had plenty of promotional work to be doing on the computer, so I am just doing what I would normally do. It will let me get our blog and seo work well in front, and take the pressure off me once things get moving again.

The World At Large

In the wider world, I still can’t believe just how many people are totally ignoring instructions to stay in. The police broke up a party in Derby yesterday, where they had a disco and buffet, the full works. Are people really that stupid, or are they just plain ignorant.

I got into a debate with a guy I fly with, a liberal democrat activist who claims the government haven’t been clear enough about having to stop in. WTF, every time you turn the telly on it is telling you to stay in. Every other post on Facebook is tellling you the same, what more do people need, Zeppelins roaming the sky with the message painted on the side? What it really needs is the North Korean method. It was reported there that a guy refusing to isolate was shot. I bet that wouldn’t need too much promotion from the government before it was adhered to.

So in summery everyone;

Stay SAFE

Stay IN

And check back for more ramblings from our Coronavirus diary.

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Fun Story, General

Free Colouring Pages, Something For The Kids During The Lock Down

25 March 2020

Pretty much the entire world seems to be in lock-down at the minute. The scary thing being no one really knows how long it will last for and whether it will actually work.

Its trying enough for the adults to keep their sanity during this unprecedented crisis, but it must be even worse for those who need to try and entertain young kids. At the best of times they take some handling, without needing to do it 24/7 every day of the week.

Here are a few funfair themed colouring pages to download. They might just pass an hour or two on.

There are plenty more examples for free download on the internet, just google fun fair colouring pages.

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Fun Story

Sometimes The Simple Ideas Are The Best

23 March 2020

Sometimes the simple ideas are the best. I have just come out of a 5 week stay in hospital, to find scenes of carnage in the supermarkets. Toilet rolls (lord knows why), hand sanitiser, food all stripped from the supermarket shelves by hordes of the criminally stupid panic buying.

There are tales of older people and infirm distraught because they can’t buy anything. NHS and other key workers are similarly finishing shifts to find they also cannot buy any shopping. Civilisation is starting to fray around the edges.

Genius

There has been much talk of what the retailers should have been doing, limiting sales to so many per person, exclusive hours for older people etc.

One supermarket in Denmark has hit upon an idea so simple, yet so bloody effective.

Basically if you want to buy a bottle of hand sanitiser, it works out at around £5. If you want to buy more than 1 bottle, you can do, but the price then becomes £125 PER BOTTLE.

Brilliant, there is no argument at the till about limits or suchlike, you can buy as much as you want, as long as you are willing to pay for it.

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Fun Story

Apocalypse Now, 21 Days Later

19 March 2020

As I lay here in my hospital bed, connected up to drips and feeling the warm glow from my last shot of morphine, I can’t help feeling the sense of dread that is leaching through the walls as the apocalypse approaches..

Wait, I hear you cry, whats with the hospital bed? Well I would like to say things went like this. 3 weeks ago I was flying a Cessna (one of my hobbies to relax after a hard week), when my appendix unexpectedly burst. I heroically ignored the pain and managed to land safely, before being whisked away for emergency surgery.

Well, that’s what I would like to say, but the truth is a little more mundane. I was actually flying, and my appendix did actually burst. However the initial symptoms were mild indigestion, and I landed the plane without even noticing.

4 days later I was in severe pain and ended up at A & E. After a CT scan and some blood tests, they admitted me for emergency surgery. At this point I was still quite laid back. I knew the appendix was a useless organ so wasn’t too worried about losing it. It was only when a nurse commented on how well I looked for ‘someone seriously ill’, that I started to worry. A quick Google revealed that said useless appendix, could become a fatal appendix once burst.

Surgery

Surgery went well, although the surgeon commented it had been one of the worst cases she had dealt with. Unfortunately I then developed a massive after infection, and have been in here 3 bloody weeks. I am beginning to think it is easier to get out of prison, than hospital.

Anyway back to my first musings, when I came in, there were a handfull of Covid 19 cases in the UK, and a couple of deaths. 3 weeks later, reading the news reports and social media we appear to be on the verge of apocalypse. The expected deaths are being reported at anything from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. Sport, outdoor events, pubs etc are being advised to close. People are fighting in the shops for supplies. Its like one of those movies where the hero becomes unconscious for a couple of weeks and when he wakes up society has collapsed!

Fashion

What I am worried about, is do we have to start dressing like they did in Mad Max above. If so how soon, can we like wear our normal cloths until they wear out. Or will we have to immediately wear the new styles.

Absurd? It is rather, but then again, is it anymore absurd than grown adults fighting over toilet roll. Some of the stocks people have they are going to need to crap hundreds of times a day to get anywhere near using it. Once this crisis is over, the poor toilet roll makers are going to be twiddling their thumbs for months whilst people use up the stocks they have.

Looking at some of the scenes we appear to have turned into a nation of Corporal Jones’s You know the character from Dads Army, who screams ‘Don’t panic, don’t panic’ whilst running around like a headless chicken in a blind panic. In some ways I think a zombie apocalypse might have been better. The supermarket shelves always seem full in a zombie apocalypse.

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