Roll Up...Roll up.....the CIRCUS is in Town

Hurry up 4pm, we were off to the circus. Before we arrived I contemplated the difficulty of parking. Much to my surprise, that was the easy part.
With the car parked and locked we made our way over and proceeded to do what everyone else was, looking at the animals. The photos did not turn out that good as the public was kept well back and I only had the trusty camera phone. Sure enough there was the obligatory fairy floss, or as the Americans call it, cotton candy and the freshest dagwood dogs I have ever tasted. A jumping castle with a few exuberant kids and mine tugging on my arm, "Come on mum, let us go on?". One grand male lion was laying on his back in all his glory, catching a few sun rays before show time. Lining up wasn't the nightmare usually experienced at such events and once we were seated it wasn't long before the rotund Ring Master bellowed into the microphone as the lights went down.
All eyes ringside and the lions were first to appear. Straight away I sensed that not was all that it seemed and the lions looked bored, it was very routine, simple and the lion tamer was seen to taunt the lions, albeit in a small way. One mumma lion took a few swipes at him and let out a low growl that sounded like she was pissed off more than having fun. Yay, we had ringside seats and right in front of us is where the male lion sat. Having seen many tv shows and documentaries, you can never appreciate just how big his paws are until you have one right in front, not even 6 feet away. He was magnificent. The tricks consisted of them each sitting on their own stool, then one jumped through a paper hoop, that was it...lion show over!
A scantily clad young lady came out and performed an act on a rope, twisting and turning upside down, contorting into unthinkable positions that made my bones creak just watching. One part, she was upside down with legs split and Mister 9 leaned over and whispered in my ear, "That's disgusting and gross mum".
There was some very , very good acrobatics from the guys, then they brought out the monkeys, been waiting to see these cute little creatures do their thing. One rhesus monkey entered the ring, done 3 forward somersaults, he was gone, the other walked around the ring on his hands, he was gone. Hmm, well that was exciting.
The Welsh ponies came next, run around the ring half a dozen times, then formed a line standing behind each other, the one behind stood up and placed front hooves on the rump of one in front. The stench from the ponies was overpowering, there was no normal horsey smell about them, an excruciatingly vile stink that got right in the nose and hung around for the entire show. That was the ponies over.
The trapeze artists were great, it was about 15 minute segment and I give them credit for scaling such heights and executing the twists and tumbles with apparent ease.
The clowns were not what I envisioned. Nothing like the clowns of yester-year and about as funny as a fart in an elevator. I know a circus is aimed at entertaining the kids, but there wasn't many laughing at the clowns either.
The highlight of the night for me was when the clowns grabbed an audience member, tied him to a board, blind folded him and pretended to throw huge carving knives at him. Then one at a balloon which was placed precariously between his legs. All the while the clown wasn't throwing the knives, it was the ring master sneaking out from behind the board and stabbing the knives into place, he hid back when the blindfold was lifted. The reason this amused me no end and I wil not go into the finer details of why but the audience member chosen was none other than one of our local police detectives...'good job', I thought.
Although Mister 10 says it was boring, he didn't like the animals being caged, the show was a success in the eyes of the children and that is what counts.