Mirth and Woe: Disney

Disney

These pages are filled to brimming with my most awful confessions. I've done a poo in the shed. I've spewed all over the pert, heaving norks of a lovely, lovely potential girlfriend, and I once gave somebody a bottle of my own piss as a present. I have told you these things with little or no embarrassment, and have even gone as far as having a choice few bound into book form.

So now, I confess to an awful lapse of taste.

Oh, God.

I've been on holiday to Disneyland.

In fact:

I've been on holiday to Disneyland four times.

Granted, three of these trips were to the tatty establishment in Paris, where I spent my time stealing soap from the cleaners' trolleys (it's not as if they'd be getting much use in France as it is), and deliberately spreading myself out in a restaurant to make sure that Ron Weasley out of Harry Potter and his enormous entourage of grannies, family and assorted hangers-on got a really crappy table by the toilets.

I will also admit to a certain amount of enjoying myself, and count Scaryduck Junior's unfortunate groping of Minnie Mouse's pert mousy breasts as the height of my short existence on this planet. He'll go far, that boy.

Disneyland in Florida is like no other place on Earth. To start with, Florida is like no other state in the Union, as it's the place they send all the misfits and nutters from the rest of the country. It's looked on like we might regard the unfortunates who live in, say, Cornwall. Hi, Dad.

I've seen some of the most frightening things in my life at Disney in Florida, because, regardless of what they say, it is not the bestest place in the world.

I have never, for example, seen quite so many enormously fat people in one place. It's like they were drawn together by their own gravitational fields and, once in orbit, were unable to get away. One fella (at least I assume he was male - the tits were so disconcerting) was so big, he could only propel himself around the park in a wheelchair that was cobble together out of three regular chairs and a scaffolding pole. Even Goofy fled in abject fear.

Second, there was my crap celebrity spot. I'd already seen TV's Victor Meldrew on the plane, and annoyed him, along with about 250 others with choruses of "I don't BELIEEEEEVE IT" for the whole ten hour flight, but I was unprepared for what was to come, even though I was aware that Florida is where footballers and C-Listers go to get away from it all.

Big Mo from Eastenders. In a bikini. A tiny, tiny bikini. With spider's legs sticking out.

"Bowk", I said, losing control of my breakfast. "Bowk."

It would be enough to send a sane man back to the airport, but, as you well know, I am not Mr Sanity. "Bowk."

And so we made our way into the Magic Kingdom (TM) to marvel at the overpriced shops and forced jollity. I wore my best rictus grin, and "Have a Nice Day"-ed everyone I could, drawing fearful looks from Mrs Duck as I tipped a disappointed waiter one Disney dollar.

Taking a break in the blazing heat, we watched, with several dozen other holidaymakers, the sight of a mother duck ushering her cute ickle ducklings across a small pond in the middle of the park.

"Aaaah, ain't they cute?" observed a 30-stone American from behind a catering-sized bag of candy floss.

The crowd coo-ed and aah-ed as the family of ducks bobbed around in the water, quacking to each other in the cutest, fluffiest way imaginable.

Yes. One had to agree. Yes, they were cute. And so, so Disney.

Right up to the moment that a large spiky stork swooped out of the Floridian sky scooped up one of the cute little ducklings in its bucket-like bill and set about killing it to death and eating it with a specially prepared orange sauce it had brought along.

There were screams. And cries. And more screams as parents, children and lardarses fled in horror.

"Stop it!" someone shouted. "In the name of pity, STOP IT! This is supposed to be Disney!"

Others, expressing the kind of free enterprise that has made the United States of America what it is today, joined in:

“Stop it! Stop it someone! I’ll sue!”

For the fat woman next to me, it was all to much. She took one final munch at the candy floss, swallowed hard a couple of times, and bowked rich, pink vomit down the front of her one-size-fits-all circus tent.

The stork, fearing nothing,and undoubtedly having seen it all before and feasting on the bloated corpses, looked me in the eye, turned, and went back for seconds.

Donald Duck had better watch his feathery arse.