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Report - - Bouncy Castles-R-Us, The O2, London, March 2014 | High Stuff | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - Bouncy Castles-R-Us, The O2, London, March 2014

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GAJ

Mr Muscle
28DL Full Member
So, my first report of 2014, what the hell will this dickhead bring to the table and more importantly will it be worth it, I hear you ask. Erm, maybe. I think it's alright anyway, so here goes.

Recently there seems to have been a trend of reports, and subsequent replies, being very serious where the aim has been to either do the best site first, or take the best photographs of somewhere others have been, and the fun element seems to be missing with an air of competition taking over the place. Now don't get me wrong, some of this can be good as it motivates others to crack on with places they may not have bothered with before, or pushes peoples creativity improving their photography, but in the main it creates an element of 'them and us' and people get called the 'leet'. We all do this for different reasons and, let's be perfectly honest, no persons take on it is more valid than the next person, however I assume the one common ground we all have is that we enjoy what we do, so where has the fun gone? I'll happily fall on my own sword here, as I haven't posted anything for a while and have got a bit serious with the sites I've been going to recently, although people I've been with will probably say my insistence on building up a series of group selfies in somewhat inappropriate places is a bit non-serious ;) So, I'd had enough and it was time to do something a bit stupid, which brings us nicely to this place...

From The O2 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The O2 is a large entertainment district on the Greenwich peninsula in South East London, England, including an indoor arena, a music club, a Cineworld cinema, an exhibition space, piazzas, bars and restaurants. It was built largely within the former Millennium Dome, a large dome-shaped building built to house an exhibition celebrating the turn of the third millennium; as such, The Dome remains a name in common usage for the venue.

It is often referred by various names: the O2 Dome; the O2 Centre, which properly refers to an unrelated shopping centre on Finchley Road; or The O2 Arena, which properly refers to a smaller indoor arena within The O2. Naming rights to the district were purchased by O2 plc (now Telefónica Europe plc) from its developers, Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), during the development of the district. AEG owns the long-term lease on the O2 Arena and surrounding leisure space.

From the closure of the original "Millennium Experience" exhibition occupying the site, several possible ways of reusing the Millennium Dome's shell were proposed and then rejected. The official renaming of the Dome in 2005 gave publicity to its transition into an entertainment district. The Dome's shell itself remained in site, but its interior and the area around North Greenwich Station, the QE2 pier and the main entrance area were completely redeveloped.

The dome-shaped building, which now houses The O2's Entertainment Avenue and arena, was originally constructed as the Millennium Dome and housed the Millennium Experience, a major exhibition to celebrate the start of the third millennium. The exhibition opened to the public on 1 January 2000 and ran until 31 December 2000; however, the project and exhibition was the subject of considerable political controversy and it did not attract the number of visitors anticipated, leading to recurring financial problems. In popular usage, the dome canopy is often still called The Dome, reflecting the substantial, and often adverse, publicity given to its building in the late 20th century.

Up at The O2

Up at The O2 is a new attraction that officially opened on 21 June 2012. It involves an expedition across the roof of The O2 along a 190m long tensile fabric walkway. Halfway through the experience, there is a break at a central platform that provides 360 degree views of the city, before a descent down to the base of the venue on the other side.

From the platform, visitors will be able to see out onto the likes of the Olympic Park, Thames Barrier, The Shard, Historic Royal Greenwich and Canary Wharf.

A big bouncy castle then. Oh yes :D

I'd had this as an idea for quite a while really but never really bothered following it up as it was hardly going anywhere and, lets face it, if I missed out I could only blame myself for taking a 14 year snooze since it was built. But the idea never disappeared and on a night of checking other things out, Keïteï and myself went for a little walk around the North Greenwich Peninsula giving the site a good look over. I knew people had been up before back in 2006/7 and also a certain prolific BASE jumper had jumped it, so was determined to get up there all these years later. Walking round the base, both Keïteï and me were shocked nobody had done it recently as it looked so easy it should be the most popular dickabout site in London.

So, on to the night. We've been cracking on with other stuff recently that has involved a lot of time on the road, tense periods of silence with security/workers literally feet away and no real fun involved. Lots of sense of achievement, but no laughing and joking around, so this was the time to let our hair down and just do something a bit daft. Chances of being spotted doing this is about 99% you would think due to the amount of cameras on site, so we had already decided that once we'd started, we were going to the top no matter what commotion we caused. Only a rugby tackle from an over zealous secca would stop proceedings. And anyway, there's always that slim chance you may not be spotted. We found a point there would be a partial blind spot from the cameras, only after my idea of running up at the front entrance was discarded as a potentially bad one due to several thousand Beyonce fans leaving the place and made our way inside the perimeter. We moved quickly to our chosen starting point past about 50 cameras, checking for the people who appeared to be doing a dance routine whilst emptying bins we saw 10 minutes previously (Secretly I wanted to try some of my best Beyonce dance moves out with them but they'd gone :p: ), and began our ascent the way we'd decided all those weeks earlier. Sadly upon actually giving it a go, it became apparent this way was not possible due to what appeared to be a fine algae covering the surface creating a dome shaped ice rink which would make your legs go like roadrunner trying to get grip. It was nice and bouncy though :D Plan B then, get to the expensive walkway over the top and hope they aren't throwing a party up there. We casually walked to the base of the walkway through an outdoor bar area, and who knows how many cameras, to begin our ascent. If you've paid your £26 and walked over the top, you'll know how steep this is, and also how bouncy it is due to the fabric construction, deep breaths then all the way up. After passing 2 cameras in direct view, we made it to the platform at the top complete with 2 fixed cameras, 2 dome cameras and just smiled as we looked around at where we were now stood expecting someone to follow up soon enough. The views are relatively shit tbh and the platform vibrates making your shots blurry but you're stood on top of the O2 and you've saved £52 by going late at night. That has to be a result :)

We got our cameras out, took stupid selfies, Keïteï started doing cartwheels, we bounced like kids on a trampoline on the walkway and just had massive smiles on our faces at the absurdity of where we now stood. On the way down we sat at the steepest part of the walkway and Keïteï decided it would be an awesome slide down to the bottom. That's my girl! 3-2-1-GO!! It was fucking awesome, noisy as hell, super fast and you'll land in a heap at the bottom with the biggest smile on your face :D I recommend it to anyone who goes.

I'll post some shots now, they're absolute shite but I don't care. This was a place where 2 people went out to have a bit of fun, we succeeded and it was absolutely awesome!

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Couple of cameras up here :D

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Stupid HISO selfy :p:

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The slide..

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The end

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There you go, a report where two people went out and had a fuckton of fun. We laughed, acted like big kids and had smiles on our faces from the second we started until long after we'd finished it. It's probably the most non-serious explore I've ever done and I'd recommend giving it a go to anyone. Seriously go, don't give a fuck if anyone catches you, you're only taking pictures, just leg it to the top, jump around like a loon, slide down on your arse at mach 1 and have a big fook off smile on your face for days after. It's quite big, but it's not clever and any of you could do it. I'd rather read 10 reports of people dicking about and giving over a sense of real fun than the tallest, deepest, gnarliest sites the world has to offer written in a serious competitive way. Go out and have some beers, take comedy shots, bait the fuck out of security and have a Benny Hill style chase captured on GoPro, whatever makes you smile, just go out to have a laugh and tell us all about it :thumb

Massive props to Keïteï as always, for being generally awesome and making this a great night out. Let's go do some more daft stuff :D
 

Oxygen Thief

Admin
Staff member
Admin
About time... :thumb

Seriously though, it's very strange up there. It really doesn't feel secure, very bouncy, like an old, hard, plastic tarpaulin, complete with dodgy stitching and patches.
 

tweek

SNC/SWC
Regular User
Hats off kids. Proving quite the double act you two.

Bit of a waffle going on like, but I think I'd concur with most of it. There does seem to have been a bit of drama lately, although I'm sure people do have fun when they're out and about, otherwise why would they do it? I also think some of the competition between a few of the more dedicated members has been quite a good thing (like you say). Certainly with the powerstations... I mean, we've done them all now, which is something I didn't think the scene was going to achieve this time last year... it took a while to get people going, but once people got cracking, it didn't take too long to nail 'em all.

Anyways, top bombing ladies, it certainly sounds like you had a blast. :thumb rooftop slides ftw!
 

Gabe

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Good effort both of you, and hears to having a little more fun and a being a little less serious.
 

Ojay

Admin
Staff member
Admin
You implying I don't have fun getting covered in :turd frequenting local shit pipes, I can assure you that isn't the case :D
 

GAJ

Mr Muscle
28DL Full Member
Pfft, all I've heard from you is a bit of moaning when you got some in the mush :p:
 

Wevsky

A Predisposed Tourist
Regular User
That write up sums it all up mate..to much drama and serious faces and stern words..go have some Lolz..and that slide looks like you would break many bones on hitting the bottom ,but you didnt!as for your shakey shit shots ,there's fuckall wrong with them mate
 

Marsden1002

Love it!
28DL Full Member
To be honest i think those shoes are far from shite! Well done for getting up and larking about for a change!
 
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