'Scream If You Want To Go Faster' Man

You know, when people assemble to talk of Goose Fair, as they often do at this time of year, they always speak of dangerous-looking rides, or how much it cost for a Spiderman balloon that deflated to the consistency of elderly women's breasts the minute you got it home. Nobody ever speaks of the unsung heroes of Goose Fair (which is pretty obvious, really, because if we did speak of them, they wouldn't be unsung anymore, but anyway).

Yes, Goose Fair would be an impossibility were it not for the hundreds of people who work on it. Some of them are local part-timers, but for most people, the travelling fair is their life. Because, y'know, someone has to drag those ducks with the hooks in their heads around the country. Someone has to bend the sights on that air rifle. Someone has to paint over that amateurish rendition of a Pokemon and replace with an equally amateurish rendition of Shrek.

And as you move through the fair, you can't help feeling a bit sorry for their nomadic, unappreciated existence. Then you realise you've been there an hour and you've already spunked forty quid on rubbish. Then you hate the bastards.

I haven't got time to list all the different people who work on the fair, and you haven't got time to read them, either. So I'm going to pick out one of them, as an example. Scream If You Want To Go Faster Man.

Once upon a time, Scream If You Want To Go Faster Man had a dream. He was going to be a DJ, on a par with DLT or Kid Jensen. He would wear the Radio One white bomber jacket, hang out with Noel Edmonds at a Roadshow in Mabelthorpe, introduce the Bay City Rollers on Top Of The Pops, and go out with one of Pans People. And if that didn't work out, he would have been just as happy working at Radio Trent, kicking it with Dale Winton, dishing out car stickers at Broado and getting pissed with Forest players at the Beer Keller.

But Scream If You Want To Go Faster Man made a terrible, life-wrecking mistake; sometime in the early 70s, he went to see That'll Be The Day at the pictures, and was seduced by a young and virile David Essex shagging his way across the country as a fairground worker. The next time the fair came to town, he ran away with it - and has been trapped on the Speedway ride ever since.

At first, Scream If You Want To Go Faster Man thought his luck was in. He had a microphone, a tape deck, and a captive audience. Surely the day would come when somebody would recognise his talent. But he never counted on two things. The first was the fact that he had no control of the playlist. Mainly because the `playlist' was a tape of current hits, and it never changed until they got a chance to do another.

Secondly, and more importantly, he was only ever required to say two things; "Gerron yer rides if yer gerrin' on" and "Scream if yer want to go faster". The former is self-explanatory, but I've always had problems with the latter. Think about it; if you're on a ride and you start screaming, it's because you want to go slower. It's a bit like saying "Cry if you want me to keep punching you", isn't it?

Anyway, from noon til midnight, Scream If You Want To Go Faster Man lived in a hell of his own making. If you don't believe me, dig out a K-Tel greatest hits LP, go into the smallest room in the house, and play it over and over for twelve hours whilst bellowing "Gerron yer rides if yer gerrin' on!" and "Scream if yer want to go faster". Bad enough doing it in silence. But do it whilst listening to The Smurf Song and Some Girls by Racey, and within twenty minutes you'll be looking for something jagged to go at your wrists with.

Scream If You Want To Go Faster Man still works the fair, although in a different guise. He's now some poor deluded youth who would rather be at Ibiza then in a cold field in Nottingham. He might have a bigger collection of shitty chart CDs, and he's even allowed to do a bit of patter - "Hear me NAH, Goose Fair massive and crew! Shaat Aaht gooin' to Mappleh Top Gangsta Posseh!" - but he's still got to ask you to Scream If You Want To Go Faster.

Poor sod.


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