The Highest Rollercoasters are at Alton Towers

This weekend saw the end of the Alton Towers season for 2004 in which the theme park went out in a barrage of impressive, expensive fireworks. But blue touchpaper wasn't the only thing being lit that Saturday night…the whole place smelled overwhelmingly of weed for most of the day. What can this mean? Is there a new subculture of rollercoaster dope heads, who queue up giggling for the ride, climb aboard, then get higher and higher and then never come down again? Or were they just killing time until they could chill out to 20 minutes of pretty lights and cool explosions?

I pointed this out after the fireworks were done and we had joined the Nemesis queue in the vain hope of squeezing in a final ride before the coach left at 9.00pm.

"Yes, I was just thinking about that myself," said Brian. "But never mind that, enjoy your beer instead."

I nodded, and took a swig from one of the bottles we had recently smuggled out from one of the several bars.

Since suffering through a 2 hour queue earlier in the day, we had ditched the plan of alternating a ride with a beer, and had begun squeezing in more of the latter. By 5.30 we were sat at a table in another bar, nicely toasted and staring out at a sideshow that enticed passers-by to fool the guesser. The rules were simple. You paid your money and challenged the guesser to guess your age (to within 2 years), your weight (to within 2 pounds) or your birthday (to within 2 months). If he failed, you won a prize.

"He's very good," said Jamie, watching him beat another punter.

"Indeed," I agreed. "He's guessed loads right so far, and the ones he hasn't he's been very close."

"Okay," said Brian. "One of us should do it. Andy doesn't look his age, send him up there. I can't do it, I look my age and I look my weight. Or you could do the weight thing. Here, put this coat on top of your coat, maybe we can disguise your beer belly."

"What's the point?" I said. "It costs two quid. Look at the prizes. Either a stuffed toy or an inflatable hammer. They're rubbish."

"Yeah, your average bloke wouldn't choose a crappy cartoon rabbit stuffed toy, would he?" said Alan. "He'd choose the crappy inflatable, which that guy probably bought for a few pence from a crappy inflatable wholesaler."

"But we could win this," insisted Brian.

"But even if you win, the prize is rubbish, and you've just spent two quid."

"Yeah. In effect he's selling them…buying them at a few pence and selling them at two quid. That's a shitload of profit, even if he was rubbish at guessing."

"But it would be cool to beat him, even if the prizes are crap."

I considered hitting Brian on the head with an empty bottle.

"And you want to spend two quid just because you'd enjoy beating him?"

"Hey, wait…it costs two quid?"

Everyone at the table rolled their eyes.

"Another round?" he said.

In the end we only managed to get on five rides during the whole day. We had been told it would be the busiest day of the year, but it never seemed to register until mid-afternoon when we queued for the Spinball rollercoaster. Now, two hours is a bad number no matter how you look at it, but it was a new ride, so we bore the wait with good grace and a few wild bets on our expected ride time.

By the time we left the ride, the queue had swelled again by a hundred or so people. It was appalling; there was now a queue just to join the queue, and the haunted looks on people's faces were getting hairier by the minute. And then I realised…this was why the place smelled of weed. What better way was there to keep on top of the stress of constantly being surrounded by a thousand angry parents, wailing kids and whining teens, all going out of their heads for a minor, minute-long adrenaline rush?

I may go again next year, perhaps during the rainy early season when it's not busy. But whatever happens, I think I'll be taking the Rizlas.