James Salter

Under New Management

Five months to the day plus one, I was invited for a return visit to the fizzy pop factory on Saturday. There have been some changes!

Professor Burp, the factory’s previous owner, has gone. Nobody will talk about him - it’s as if he never existed. I wonder if it was something to do with the scandal involving him riding a bike through the factory with no clothes on.

The manufacturing process has also been modified. You wouldn’t have thought making fizzy pop had many similarities to making soap, but you’d be wrong. The factory is now exclusively licenced to produce Imperial Leather products.

Entering the station for our boat tour, I immediately noticed a strange smell. It’s a weird combination of soap and fruit: a mixture of old and new.

The station posters have been changed and an attempt to make it look underwater has been made. I said an attempt. I didn’t say it was successful. In fact, it just makes the previously colourful room look dull.

Our boat tour itself was a massive disappointment. Gone is the innuendo and copious quantity of puns. Gone too is a lot of the old scenery. That which has been kept really doesn’t make sense. Cows make milkshake, not bubbles. Ducks may ride rollercoasters, but they do not run on rollercoaster track themselves.Bubbles are everywhere (although most of them look like scoops of ice cream). Ducks make their mark too - not carefully handcrafted ducks either. Oh no, these are off the shelf. As if to prove it, you can buy them in the shop at the end of your tour.

Most of the old music has been retained but has had random duck quacks added. Unfortuanately it hasn’t been edited properly resulting in jumps and bits of silence, most notably in the former fairground scene.

The life really has been sucked out of the factory. The place is now so sterile it could easily be a hospital. Looking for jokes? That train (boat) don’t stop here anymore.

One thing that hasn’t been changed too much is the classic fountain finale, although Professor Burp has been replaced by three men sitting in a bath tub. In the interests of the family audience, I won’t discuss that any further.

Elsewhere in Transylvania, the Vampire station’s restoration to its former glory continues. This year, the station lighting has been returned to green from the funky disco colours of last year.

A new squirrel monkey enclosure is being constructed. If things go to plan then guests will be able to walk into this and experience the monkeys up close. If things don’t go to plan, guests will be able to visit the medical centre with blood gushing from their monkey-bite-ridden-fingers. The five year plan is still to open up the field at the back of the zoo and turn it into a safari trail. Staff are hoping to reintroduce some of the larger animals into this space, so it may not be long before the rhinos return.In “celebration” of the new Bubbleworks, the park was going bubble-crazy. The magical bubbleman was creating huge bubbles over the Dragons Fury queueline mid-afternoon and there was a foam party for under-12s on the lawn in front of the Burnt Stub.

Bubbleworks aside, the start of the season at Chessington is still a disappointment. A lot of money is being invested in the zoo (�80,000 was spent on a single enclosure for example), but there’s not much evidence of spending elsewhere. This time last year the park looked fantastic. This year, it looks like it’s barely survived a huge winter storm. Does anybody have any spare paintbrushes to help them out?
Wait a minute - is this where the money’s going? It’s not where the monkey’s going and that’s for sure.Wahey! A whole Bubbleworks report and no duck puns to quack you up!