Once again - tooth predicts the future...MEAT TREES

[Trout]

I keep meaning to have a go at that Sphere thing, as it's based about 20 minutes' drive from Trout Towers.

It does look great fun!

On meat trees, I welcome the idea, but would first like to find out what vegetarians taste like.

- Trout

[johnnystress]

Do it! And take photos.

I'd imagine I'd end up rolling uncontrollably down a hillside with my vomit swiriling around inside the sphere , much like being inside a washing machine.
on spew cycle.

[Trout]

Some damn funny stuff, written by a colleague a couple of years ago:

Perched high in a corner of a field near Dunkeld, at the top of a steep hill, is what appears to be one of those balls that terrorised and held Patrick McGoohan captive in the old television series, The Prisoner. It?s a sinister looking thing, around 12-feet high, with what appears to be two large eyes on either side, and an inner skeleton of harsh-looking rods.

But compared to those ``Rovers'' which confounded McGoohan?s every attempt to escape from his confines, this ball has something of a fatal flaw. Attack it from the right angle, jump right through one of the ``eyes'' and you are inside a bubble. Strap yourself in and you can start rolling away down the hill merry as you like. Why Patrick McGoohan never thought of this is entirely beyond me. But then again, maybe he just had a working brain inside his head. . .

The large ball in this particular field belongs to Nae Limits, the adventure sports company based in Dunkeld who delight in sending people flying over cliffs, barrelling down white water rapids and doing things like ``freefall abseiling'' which, to the uninitiated, seems like a blatant contradiction in terms. This is all done in the name of fun. With some people, sometimes you just have to wonder.

Anyway, it?s all very popular, and set to be just about as popular as ice cream during the summer is this sphereing business, also known among those in the know as ``zorbing''. Like most of these things that involve voluntarily putting your faith in the lap of the gods, it was invented in New Zealand, the country that also gave us bungee jumping and the haka. Too much time on their hands, obviously.

The ``good'' news is that zorbing works just as well in Scotland as it does Down Under. After all, all that?s needed is the big ball and a steep hill, and we have plenty of the latter in this country. Oh, and some people silly enough to climb inside and be rolled down the steep hill in the big ball. Of course, there?s no shortage of them here either, so it?s all go.

As it was for me. Before I had the chance to say ``you must be joking'' I was beside the ball and being asked to sign a waiver absolving anyone else of any blame whatsoever for my decision to climb inside the thing. Like it was my idea to go bouncing down a hill in a ball!

There is a serious side to this, as they can?t be held responsible if you go aggravating an old injury. The chap who was meant to accompany me in the sphere had to forego the experience due to a recurring shoulder injury. Having seen the ball up close, and the steepness of the hill it was about to roll down, the look of ``disappointment'' on his face was equal to that of a small boy just given exactly what he wanted for Christmas.

To take his place another reluctant passenger was pushed to the fore. You don?t have to do this in pairs, but I think there?s something about it being better not to face death alone that encourages them to send you down as a twosome.

You have to take your socks and shoes off before you enter the sphere, just in case you happen to kick each other in the head or something, which at that point seemed the least of my worries. Then it?s time to make your graceful entry into the ball. This is achieved by taking a few steps back and then making a running dive at one of the ``eyes''. It feels like getting sucked up into a tube, and then you are inside a bubble in the middle of the sphere, about seven-feet wide.

On each side of this is a full body harness which straps you in. Your feet are also strapped in tight at the ankle, and there are two hand grips above your head to hold on to. It was explained that once the ball started rolling quicker the centrifugal force of the motion would effectively pin us to the side of the bubble, but until then you kind of have to just hold on for dear life.

And that?s you ready. All that remained to do was for the staff to roll the ball away from the straw bales holding the sphere in place, and give us a shove down the hill and we were off on our travails.

What happened next is perhaps best described in terms of the view, which ran something like this-grass. . . sky. . . grass. . . sky. . . grass. . . sky. . . grass. . . sky. . grass. sky. grassskygrassskygrassskygrasssky!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That?s what you see as you start to roll slowly first, but then, as the momentum gathers and the hill gets steeper, faster and faster. And the faster it gets, the more you start laughing, probably out of naked fear at first, but then out of pure exhilaration. The ball can roll at a fair pace, up to 50 kilometres an hour, but whatever speed it is doing, it feels much faster from the inside.

It also tends to roll, with the odd bobble. But again, from the inside the sensation is considerably heightened, so it feels like you are taking huge bounces down the hill. Never mind the washing machine, this is what it feels like to be at the very heart of the Dambusters operation, that is, inside the bouncing bomb.

And then something really strange happened. The view changed subtly to suddenly read; grass. . . sky. . . five naked men. . . grass. . . sky. . . five naked men. . .

For a second I thought I had died and was being confronted by the ugliest group of angels ever to fly the heavens. The reality was more mundane, but hardly less bizarre. Perthshire Rugby Club were shooting one of these fashionable calendars of questionable taste, where they all get naked and are photographed in unusual situations. Such as running down a hillside in Perthshire giving a ``helpful'' push to a huge rubber bouncy ball.

Their encouragements sent the ball down the hill at an ever quicker pace, and by this time the two of us in the middle of it were in giddy hysterics. Getting inside the sphere and rolling down the hill is like climbing on one of those fairground rides from which you fear an important lynchpin has been removed. It is obviously not an entirely sensible thing to do, but it is edge-of-the-seat, plain-and-simple fun! Even when you are upside down staring through toughened plastic at the parts of a rugby player you shouldn?t ever see up close, not even in a scrum.

We eventually rolled to a halt at the bottom of the hill, again helpfully eased into position by the rugby players to leave us hanging with our heads closest to the ground. We were still laughing hard. The sorest thing after emerging from the ball were my sides, from just being lost in laughter the whole way down the hill.

It takes less than a minute to get from the top to the bottom of the hill, but it is a hoot all the way, like doing about 300 forward rolls in quick succession down a steep hill. It?s not the sort of thing you might want to try doing every day, but I?d heartily recommend it to anyone looking for something unusual and fun to do of a summer?s day.

They can even make it seem like really being in a washing machine-one of the options available over the summer will be to take a solo ride with only a couple of gallons of soapy water chucked in the bubble with you. You don?t have to be strapped in for that one, but you do get soaked, just to add to the experience.

It?s also going to be interesting to see the condition of some of the people who emerge from the sphere as it goes on its travels this summer. Nae Limits have got an inflatable ramp which they are hoping to take to events like T In The Park, offering sphereing as a portable fairground attraction with an edge.

The one thing you don?t get is the naked rugby players, although believe me you maybe don?t want them. However, if you offer them enough money, or free beer or suchlike, you never know. But the sphereing alone is fun enough.

*Nae Limits are based in Dunkeld and can be contacted on 01350 727242 or at www.naelimits.com

[WoD]

Office-Monkey-Mike uses zorbing as one of his pulling-lie-lines, 'Oh yeah, I've been Zorbing...'