Wall of Death on the Hoe!!

A few weeks ago, there was a motorcycle rally on the Hoe, which also featured "The Wall of Death"! This can be described as a carnival sideshow, featuring a drum- or barrel-shaped wooden cylinder with high perpendicular walls, ranging in size from 20 to 36-feet in diameter, where stunt motorcyclists ride and carry out tricks. The audience views from the top of the drum, looking down. The bikes start in the middle, at the bottom of the drum, and drive up an initial ramped section until they gain enough velocity to drive horizontal to the floor, defying gravity. It was an incredible show, starting with a go-kart ...

followed by one of the motorcyclists - notice he is not using his hands AND has got his feet over the handlebars - let alone the fact he is also defying gravity!!

And as a finale ... all three together!!

The whole show was fascinating ... luckily, Bob has not been tempted to give it a try since then! Apparently they find it difficult to get insurance - I can't say I am surprised.

Plymouths Fireworks Festival!

Plymouth hosts one of the most spectacular pyrotechnic displays anywhere in the country as the British Fireworks Championships Finals are staged over two evenings in mid-August. It consists of four displays per evening, each one lasting 10 minutes - thus a total of eight leading fireworks companies battle it out for the honour of being crowned British Champions, after which they represent Britain in the International Competition. This year we were lucky with the weather, although on both days it was rather windy with showers, by the evening it had calmed down, and was warm enough for crowds of people to stand and watch the event - the finals are eagerly anticipated by many thousands of people each year. We were fortunate, of course, being in our flat on the Hoe, we had a birds-eye view! We had Bob's sister/brother-in-law staying with us at the time - the show was excellent, at one point they even had various shapes lighting up the sky, as shown in the video below - see how many you can spot (click on the forward arrow on/below the picture to play ... please excuse background "wow's" and squeals/comments etc - normal firework behaviour I guess!) :-

Apparently the show has never yet been cancelled, even if the weather is exceptionally bad which it has been occasionally.