Tell me any sports facility in the world where you pay your money and are then not allowed to practice the sport in question. ANY. Sounds totally ridiculous, I know, but step (or skid) forward Planet Ice Gosport. I used to skate regularly, but have only put my ice skates on once previously in the past 12 years, so I am hardly what may be termed an expert, but as we are moving to Berlin in a few weeks and there is a huge open air ice rink just round the corner from our flat, I thought I'd have a quick practice before deciding whether or not to pack my skates. I had a bit of a shaky first 10 minutes till I got my balance, but fairly soon, was OK. Time for a go at a few basic tricks. Unfortunately, no sooner had I pulled off a dodgy 180 than up came the Ice Police to tell me that "jumps" (I think he was flattering me,) were not allowed. A bit later, I was doing figure of 8s in the otherwise totally unpopulated centre of the rink, and the Ice Police were on hand again to admonish me for "skating in the wrong direction." I'm not kidding, the rink has a capacity of around 300, and there were maybe 40 at most on the ice, of whom almost all were clinging to the side. There were 2 of us who had the centre, which was at least half the total surface area of the entire rink, to ourselves. We could have probably performed Bolero from start to finish without coming close to anybody else. I asked if it would be easier if he just told me what was allowed. There are a list of dos and don'ts on a sign by the skate hire booth. I read it. Also banned are, inter alia, spins, holding hands with more than 1 person, photography (something I saw the Ice Stasi enforcing later,) almost anything which you could be expected to want to have a go at after a couple of sessions, basically. They did not explicitly outlaw having fun, but that was the cumulative effect. It was never like this years ago. (If it had been, I would never have been able to learn any of these frankly quite basic skills that are now outlawed.) If I wanted to do any of that stuff, there were special sessions for that, the young policeman told me. On the way out, I tried to enquire about them. The receptionist looked at me as if I had asked if if it was OK to defecate on the ice. "You have to have a coach for those sessions" she informed me, when we eventually established what I was asking, i.e. to come to an ice rink and to do a bit of ice skating. "Do you want to coaching sessions?" Not really. I did say that it was a bit odd that an ice rink bans probably 95% of the things that you can do on ice skates. "It's health and safety" interjected some other youngster. When I used to bring my daughter here all those years ago, this place was much busier, and there were lots of decent skaters doing stuff way way above what I have ever been capable of. And now, as I said, there were maybe 40 people there, of whom only a handful looked like they'd ever pulled on skates before. The place is dead compared to what it used to be like. Not surprising really, given the restrictions they now place on you. As I say, is there any other sporting venue anywhere in the world where you pay your money and are then prevented from practicing the sport in question? Some other reviewers have said that the ice was rubbish. I actually thought that it was good. Honestly. It had been skimmed since the previous session, and there were no melted patches at all. Also, come to think of it, defecating on the ice was not actually on the extensive list of forbidden practices, so maybe I can go back and have...
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