The Coolest Fairground Worker Ever?

Of all the places in which to find a “UK Funfair”, complete with British registration plates on the lorries, Bintulu, Sarawak, would come pretty low on my list. Thailand? Quite possibly. Peninsular Malaysia? Conceivably.

Borneo?

Nuh-uh.

Now, the nine year old and I love funfairs. The neon. The colour. The adrenaline rush. The cheesy music. The ephemeral, carnival spirit. And when the UK fairground concept meets Borneo safety standards, the results are extra-, extra-special.

Whisper it. Yet Bintulu, for all its position on the Pan-Borneo Highway and its status as Sarawak’s fourth largest city, is not exactly what you’d call bright lights, big city.

It has a market. A zoo. A Chinese temple, with fighting cocks tethered outside. An extensive waterfront. A brand spanking new hospital and local government edifice. A wide selection of hotels, several snooker halls, a flourishing “foot massage” and “reflexology” scene, plus a lot of businesses largely concerned with removing and/or processing what remains of the local environment.

Oh yes. And a Pizza Hut.

Anywise. The UK Funfair boasts a flume with real water, a mini-rollercoaster, spinny-roundy things to please all ages, yer classic ferris wheel, some win-a-cuddly-toy stands, an inflatable slide and… one of the best fairground rides ever.

Now, at first glance, the pink wheel of death looks innocuous enough. From the absence of safety harnesses or restraining bars one would, with one’s soft, Western conditioning, assume that it’s some kind of rotor affair, where you end up sealed to the seats by rotational spin.

Quite the contrary, in fact.

It spins round, horizontally and at an angle. It goes suddenly into reverse! It jumps up and down!

But gravity is pulling you AWAY from your seat, not securing you to it.

So, while a cheesy techno beat incites you to “raise your hands in the air”, you lurch about, in that classic fairground hinterland between whooping and screaming. All the while this beautiful, fresh-faced, Malaysian B-boy in a backward baseball cap, Adidas jacket and boxfresh white cutdowns DANCES (yes, dances) in the middle.

There’s something so wholesome, so, well, Malaysian, about his enthusiasm, that makes him, quite possibly, the coolest fairground worker ever.

He is infinitely more cool than the long-haired, tattooed guys who could leap from dodgem to dodgem on Wimbledon Common, ride the curves of the Waltzer, delivering super-charged spins, when I was a teenager and he, err, had yet to be born.

And, I mean, those guys were cool. Well cool. Shake your wrist until your joints crack cool…

But this boy is cooler.

In fact, even when I am being thrown up and down, hanging onto the rail behind my head with one hand, restraining Z from getting up and dancing with the other, wishing for a third with which to retrieve my skirt from my waist, and hoping the fat guy who fell off won’t roll into me or Z, this boy is still…

… The Don…

Making this, IMHO, one of the best fairground rides ever. And, clearly, totally illegal anywhere in the European Union.

As, incidentally, would be the bouncy slides. Can YOU see what crucial element is missing from the kiddie equipment in this snapshot?

Yes! That’s right!

The missing link between the bottom of the inflatable slide and the tarmac is, of course, an inflatable mattress on which to land.

I mean, the metal safety barrier is a nice attempt. But, according to Z, it doesn’t really cut the mustard when it comes to shock absorption.