The rain seems to have affected everyone at the weekend but it didn't dampen spirits on the grand day out to Alton Towers yesterday. Indeed your correspondent is keen to report that we all had a wicked time, and also suffered a very very nervous near-death experience! We were riding the "Air" rollercoaster at about 1.25pm, and as we were near the top of the first hill, it suddenly stopped. If you're not familiar with Air, it hangs you horizontally under the track in a "flying" position. See this picture to see what I mean.

So anyway a few seconds pass and then the nervous chattering begins. At this point we're about 60-70 feet up and effectively looking straight down at the ground, which consists of rocks, stone and a few bits of fence. This is fine so far. Anyway a minute passes and still nothing, and all of a sudden things are starting to get worrying. An Alton Towers worker then arrives and asks "is everyone okay"? Now that is quite possibly the most stupid question ever - whether we're all okay or not is irrelevant, if there's a problem, they can't get us out anyway, if they release the locks we all plunge to our deaths.

TEN minutes later we're still there and now there's mild panic, so Dom in the car in front decides that we all need a sing-song ... We make the best of it (exclusive picture) .... By now I have noticed that people queuing for Nemesis about 50 yards away on the left have noticed us ... and SOMEBODY HAS A CAMCORDER TRAINED ON US. Great, I think, if we die, we'll be world famous! The ever-so helpful lady comes back again, and one or two folks indicate that actually, no, we're not okay. "Just bear with us" she then adds, in a comment even more stupid than the first! As though we'll actually try and get off at this point!

Fortunately the coaster then started again, to massive cheers, and more than a little relief all round. Now that was certainly a memorable incident!!