I hate fun and the laughter of children, so obviously I can’t stand amusement parks: “The noise, my dear! And the people!” as actor Ernest Thesiger said (of the first world war). How can anyone enjoy simulations of terrifying near misses? Why is this drink blue? Where can I have a quiet sit down?
I have done my time in Europe’s least appealing, from Plopsa Indoor Hasselt – echoey elven torment in rural Belgium with the ever-present danger of a guest appearance from Bumba the clown – to Bruges’ brine-whipped Boudewijn Seapark, where we got stranded in the rain at the top of a ferris wheel, my son howling in terror. The Jardin d’Acclimatation in Paris helped me truly understand Jean-Paul Sartre’s “hell is other people” line: dodgems on which feral French tweens repeatedly chose violence, what seemed to me to be a devastatingly sad live bear in a pit, and the carousel, where, to the soundtrack of Sabrina’s Boys, a glowering Parisian carny dangled a grubby cuddly toy on a string – “le pompon” – just out of reach of the maddened infants below, in the name of fun.
