The Imaginary Reviewer’s Tour of England continues with some Tourist Attractions

A lot of tourists go to England for the history, and culture. They marvel at how clever those mediaeval people were when they built their castles so close to where the train stations would be, and buy all sorts of things with an extra ‘e’ on the end, like ‘ye olde corkscrewe’ and ‘ye olde amusinge postcarde’.

But England has a lot of other things for tourists, and in my recent trip (which actually lasted less than a week, but somehow managed, TARDIS-like, to house several weeks’ worth of activities), I went to visit them.

One of the rides at England's most popular amusement parks, Funville

Firstly, Suffer Gardens in Shuffleborough is a brand new amusement park based around the concept of pain and physical anguish. As such, it’s not a whole lot of fun. I queued for six hours to go on their most popular ride, “The Uncomfortablator”, pressed against other tourists and families with screaming children and idiots who can’t keep their hotdog condiments on themselves. It turned out at the end that the queue was the ride. Avoid.

According to the pamphlet given to me when I entered, The Twitter Museum in Gaviscon-upon-Cretin is a wonderful love-letter to the latest social media craze. But then, I noticed, it’s a love-letter in building form. And a love-letter without any perfume sprayed to it. Or embarrassing hearts drawn on it. Gosh, this is nothing like a love-letter, it’s a bloody museum! What an awful pamphlet. The Twitter Museum gets no stars because its pamphlet is misleading. Next.

A Boy Who Looks Like Harry Potter is the biggest draw for tourists in Shirehamptonshire since the World’s Biggest Cloud exhibition was called off due to the cloud going missing. The boy stands on a plinth, dressed as the eponymous character, and visitors have to pay ten pounds (about sixteen hundred groats) to get within four feet of him and take a picture. I’ll admit, he does look a lot like the character, but when I saw him he didn’t look very well. And his constant complaining to the crowds about “needing the toilet” and having not eaten “in weeks” did ruin the image for me. No points from this reviewer!

Finally, the Hedgehog Acrobatic Troupe have their home in Strathcarnage. With hedgehog trapeze artists, hedgehog high-wire acts and balancing-on-lots-of-chairs-routine hedgehogs, their twice-daily shows are billed as “fun for some of the family”. I will say that I had a fun, enjoyable time watching all the flying spiky rodent things, but you should think twice before sitting in the first twelve rows. I counted more than eleven fatalities from errant animals flying into the crowd, and many children’s faces were punctured like brain-filled water balloons. Tragic.

Pour encore d’information sur l’Angleterre, consultez un map ou un livre. Je pense que la Grande Bretagne est un pays joli avec les pommes frites et un tranche de biftek. Si vous voulez, manger beaucoup de fromage commes le Francais! Et joyeux Bastille Day. Pamplemousse!

The Imaginary Reviewer Takes on England!

One thing I wanted to do when I was back in England was to visit lots of places I’ve never been to before. Sure, there’s London, Manchester, Liverpool and Royal Leamington Spa, but I’ve been to all of them before and I love trying new things in new places with new faces and new spaces. Here’s what I found in my travels, like Bill Bryson but without the facial hair.

The village of Flatbrush in Upper Denmarkshire is famous among locals for being “that place that’s mentioned on all the pieces of paper that the postman brings”. It is home to Britain’s largest stuffed mandrill, which weighs more than a car seat and is tall enough to ride Space Mountain at EuroDisney. I loved it in Flatbrush, with its street-lined trees (very handy for stealing apples) and children playing army games with skipping ropes and needle-nosed pliers. Visitors should avoid the aquarium, though, as the fish are all made of innards.

A stuffed mandrill with quite an angry face, yesterday

Crannymagnet is a delightful town located between Blattford and Chorlton-cum-Bucket. It is full of small tea shops run by little old ladies who provide the most wonderful scones with clotted cream and jam. The rooms are all charmingly decorated with twee patterns and chintzy doilies, and the pensioners themselves are all delightful to talk to. Furthermore, give them fifty pence and they’ll take you into the back room and show you their underwear. Splendid!

There’s a tiny hamlet called St Laurence of the Leisure-Suit on Splee, and in order to find it one must first enter Godswood Forest in Bliss (near Bagshot), find a particular wooded glade and recite a poem written by sixth-century monk Douglas Twanky. Then, when the moon glides in a self-satisfied manner towards the South, scatter the ashes of a deceased rhythm guitarist around you and clap three times. A hole will appear in the ground, and when you walk through an imp will ask you three riddles which you must answer correctly or you will be turned to lymph. Only then will you find your way to St Laurence of the Leisure-Suit on Splee. And to be honest, all they’ve got is a crappy souvenir shop and a McDonald’s, so I wouldn’t bother.

If you like custard, you’ll love the city of Cataract, which is down the M18 from Tattersby (turn left before you get to the mill). A tragedy in their pudding factory means that the entire city is covered in eight feet of custard, and daring scuba divers are encouraged to visit and see if they can find any more remains. Anyone is welcome to gorge themselves silly on sweet and gloopy yellow liquid, so long as they bring their own spoon.

Finally, I have heard great things about the village of East Frottage on the cusp of Dantwedge and Throttle. The scenery is beautiful, with gorgeous parks and all-you-can-eat lawns. Museums and art galleries of the highest quality fill the place; in fact, there’s so much culture in the village that the average IQ of the residents is six thousand. I wish I could have seen it all, but I couldn’t as there are no roads which enter East Frottage, only ones that leave. This town planning oversight is quite egregious, and thus I cannot recommend this place at all.

England is open from Monday to Saturday, 06:00 to 23:00, except Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Entrance is free to under 12s and racists.

The Imaginary Reviewer back in England! Pubs Reviewed!

As I mentioned recently, I just spent a week back in the old homestead, Blighty, the place of my birth, Britannia, that sceptred isle, and so on, et cetera. Now, as many of you gorgeous readers know, there's one thing us Brits love: Booze. And something we love nearly as much as booze are places in which booze is sold for consumption on the premises. So while I was over in the Kingdom of Unitedness, I thought I'd check out some of our finest (and not so finest) pubs, and relate my findings back to you, my loyal fans, because I love you all, even when you give me that look that you know annoys me.

A really impressive pub is the Cuckolded Arsewipe in the beautiful village of Dripple-on-the-Gabe. This visit was my second, as I had been there several years before. I have to say, the place has really improved in the intervening time, a fact that - I am told - is due to the regular customers removing the previous landlord in a bloody coup and leaving his lifeless body in the beer garden as a warning to all. They have an excellent selection of beer, engaging portraits of the barmaids in various states of undress, and very enjoyable food. The Ploughman's Lunch was particularly delicious, although he wasn't very pleased when he caught me eating it.

The Gratuitous Mention is a very nice pub hidden away in Smothkenyonhampton, the picturesque town in Kooganthomsonborough. It's a great place to find people you know and haven't seen in a rather long time, even if they are a bunch of absolute piss-heads. It does pay to spend a lot of time here, too, because otherwise you won't get any of the the in-jokes, but it really is worth it. Oh, and the weekly quiz is fun, but rigged.

I wasn't a big fan of the Craven Beverley which is situated in a secret location at 34 Christendom Lane, Chatterstoft, because of the terrible curtains. The beer was excellent, the clientelle was fun to be around, the food was delicious and the prices were all top-notch. But why (oh why?) did they decide to make their curtains out of screaming children? It really does put a massive dampener on an otherwise brilliant pub.

The locals in The Fantabulous Fountain of Fancy Footwear and Firkin in Dullard, Kent, are wonderful people. They were amazingly kind to this out-of-towner, and helped me to choose from the many ales and lagers, going as far as to buy me several pints of their favourite drinks. They even helped me to find a nearby hotel when I started feeling a little poorly, and apparently made sure that I made it to my room without incident. Sadly the hotel must have had some kind of security problem, as when I awoke the following morning, my wallet, passport and all my clothing had been taken. Also, I also appear to have a scar on my chest which appeared at some point in that night and may or may not be related to the fact that my pancreas is missing.

Finally, The Dog and Steamroller is a delightful little establishment in the back streets of Cockthrobton, a small village just south of Badford and Goodbury. The Dog (as locals call it) is the only pub in England licensed to serve Saint Godspeed Methadone Ale, a locally-brewed tipple that really hits the spot. In fact, I found it very difficult to only drink one pint of this excellent beer, and still find myself craving the sweet, sweet liquid and oh my God I have to go back for some RIGHT NOW BECAUSE NO MATTER HOW HARD I SCRATCH THE ANTS ARE STILL UNDER MY SKIN CRAWLING CRAWLING CRAWLING PLEASE I NEED THAT BEER RIGHT NOW.

The Imaginary Reviewer is not responsible for any injuries suffered as a result of pinching the buxom barmaid's bottom.