With only half the potential to generate adrenalin I did not anticipate a boost from the Booster.

It might be Lynn Mart's highest-ever ride, it might swing its helpless riders out above the rooftops at 60mph, it might tip them upside down and then fling them face down, hurtling towards the ground, it might be the most high-octane, adrenalin-pumping experience that thrill-seekers have ever had... but (gulp) it wouldn't phase me, an adrenalin deficient, would it?

I was up for the challenge laid at my door by colleagues (all of them, to a man and woman, incidentally, too chicken to ride the Booster themselves) to strap myself in and abandon my well-being to electronics and hydraulics all held together with string and spit... no, stop it, high-tension metal, stainless steel bolts and torque-wrenched nuts, lovingly and carefully assembled by trained technicians. My safety was assured.

The Booster towered above the Tuesday Market Place, above Lynn, above West Norfolk. And it did exactly what it said on the tin. The slow ride to the top was stupendous, the view out across the town and along the river and to the countryside beyond, spectacular. But we had only precious seconds to drink it in before things began getting serious.
Very serious. For once, those who have often said Purfleet doesn't know his unmentionable from his elbow were spot on. I was up, I was down, I was going up, upside down, and then coming down, still upside down.

There was a rush, a buzz, a boost. Adrenalin DID surge, blood pressure was pumped up as I was this second pulling Gs and the next almost weightless, pausing giddily and turning turtle at the top and then rushing face first to ground, thrown forward against the safety bar and then pinned back and squashed into the unyielding seat. I was an astronaut, a super-hero, a child all over again... I was feeling great.

No, now I was feeling sick. And now I'd had enough. But the evil operator had other ideas. He'd been bribed, surely, to keep it going longer, faster, higher, spinnier (yes, I was inventing impossibles and new words all at the same time). I landed on legs gone to jelly, but with a grin a mile wide. It had been electrifying. The Mart brings Lynn to life and the Booster had brought me to life.

My colleagues, who gathered, keen to see me silenced (or screaming), sponsored my torture in aid of cystic fibrosis research, bless 'em.