Hot air balloons fill the sky above Bristol ahead of annual fiesta
The launch took in views of Bristol's City Hall, cathedral, historic harbourside and Temple Meads train station.
The 47th Bristol International Balloon Fiesta, which is free to attend, will return to Ashton Court Estate from August 8 to 10, celebrating the city and its hot air balloon heritage.
More than 100 balloons are expected to take part in this year's mass ascents, scheduled for 6am and 6pm each day, weather permitting.
Speaking to the PA news agency, Steve Thomas, a pilot from the Hot Air Balloon Company, based near Bath, said: 'We had a perfect morning for flying over Bristol.
'Steady speeds out of College Green, perfect track all the way into Keynsham.
'The weather was perfect, with nice visibility across the city.
'It did get a bit hazy as the flight came on, so we dropped down our altitude as we came in to land.'
Mr Thomas, who has been working as a hot air balloon pilot for around 10 years, said the team is really looking forward to the fiesta, describing it as an important event for the city.
Hot air ballooning has been a historic part of Bristol's culture for many years, with the first recorded flight in the city dating back to the 18th century.
This year's Fiesta programme includes the return of fan favourites, alongside new attractions making their debut.
In the line-up will be beloved classics alongside new additions, including the Up balloon, Wallace and Gromit Moon Rocket, Thomas the Tank Engine and Sonic the Hedgehog.
On both Friday and Saturday evenings, visitors to the festival can experience nightglows, where dozens of balloons inflate and use their burners to glow in time to music.
Helen Godwin, the new mayor of the West of England, said: 'Those of us lucky enough to grow up here in the West Country know there's nothing quite like the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta.
'Seeing our skies full of shapes and colours is truly special, whether you find balloons already flying overhead or hoping the wind will bring them your way.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Daily Mail
Gayle King's CBS Mornings future 'murky' over $15m-a-year star's DEI agenda blamed for tanking ratings
Gayle King 's future at CBS Mornings is uncertain as networks boss are not happy with the star's focus on DEI and tanking ratings, according to a new report. King, who earns and eye-watering $15million a year, has reportedly refused to follow her bosses' attempts to move away from polarizing coverage, sources told the New York Post. The sources claimed that the 70-year-old anchor and her executive producer Shawna Thomas have alienated viewers with ultra-progressive programming, like an interview with RuPaul 's Drag Race winner Bob the Drag Queen, who was promoting his 'gender-bending' novel Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert. Ratings for the last-place morning show, once a cash cow for the network, have dropped to below 2million in recent months, according to Nielsen figures cited by The Post. Meanwhile Gayle lost between 20 to 30 percent of her audience in the last three weeks when compared to last year in the coveted 25- to 54-year-old demographic. 'The audience doesn't want woke. It doesn't like progressive and provocative bookings,' one of the sources told The Post. 'The morning show audience wants optimism and cheer and joy and what they were producing is at odds with audience expectations.' Gayle signed a contract extension last year for between $13 and $15million that is scheduled to end in May 2026, a source told The Post. Skydance Media, which is to take over running CBS likely won't offer Gayle the same deal given the ratings, the source added. The potential Mornings shake up come as CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, whose own reported $15million contract also ends next May. Gayle's producer Shawna Thomas had reportedly already been told to tone down the progressive content, but just 'didn't do what she was told.' Thomas views herself as a 'major journalist who wants to heavy reporting and provocative interviews with edgy guests, insiders said. However, Thomas kept her job because she has Gayle's support. The Post, citing sources, reported that aside from the woke programming, viewers were 'alienated' by the fact none of the show's anchors, aside from Tony Dokoupil, are white. A shakeup is expected once Skydance, led by CEO David Ellison, takes over the network. As part of the deal with the FCC, Skydance pledged to monitor for political bias and Paramount eliminated its DEI policies. reached out to CBS for comment on this story. The network declined to comment to the New York Post. As previously reported, CBS Mornings is leaving its prized Times Square studio amid ongoing cost cutting efforts and plummeting ratings. The last-placed morning show spent big just four years ago to build the state-of-the-art studio, which reportedly cost tens of millions of dollars. But CBS Mornings is packing up and moving home to the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street. The move is reportedly slated for September and comes as CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon makes efforts to slash $500million from the network's budget.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- The Guardian
The Trolley Solution: the internet's most memed moral dilemma becomes a video game
In 1967, British philosopher Philippa Foot unwittingly created one of the internet's most regurgitated memes. A runaway train is hurtling towards five people tied to the tracks. You can pull a lever to divert the train to a different track to which only one person is tied. Do you intervene to kill the one and spare the five? What if one of the tracks twisted into a really cool loop-the-loop? Or the trolley was replaced by a bloodthirsty Thomas the Tank Engine? Or the whole dilemma was clumsily altered to comment on the political controversy of the day? Originally formulated as a reflection on moral decision-making, the trolley problem found a second life in the 2010s as a well of inspiration for variously silly, irreverent and self-referential trolley-based memes. Now, it may be entering its third era as surreal interactive comedy game The Trolley Solution. Each level plays as a minigame tenuously shaped around the thought experiment. There's always a trolley, a lever and a pseudo-ethical dilemma, plus a twist to throw everything off the rails. The track is dissected into puzzle pieces that you must reassemble against the clock. A commuter next to the rails needs help remaining emotionally stable by balancing the blasts of serotonin they receive from scrolling social media. One level spirals into a short visual novel about a Japanese girl falling in love with a tram that threatens to murder her high school rival. It is, obviously, all very silly, and sees in the trolley problem the same absurdity as the memes. 'It's a serious matter presented in a kind of ridiculous way,' says solo Chilean developer byDanDans. Or, as he puts it in terms of a Reddit thread: 'It's free real estate for shit-posting.' With the basic gag already well worn, byDanDans focused on iterating the dilemma into quirkier scenarios and experimenting broadly with the minigames, before nailing down the final selection. 'Some iterations were too bland, too unfunny,' he says. 'Or I just couldn't think of a minigame that followed the four rules I set for myself.' Those rules being that each minigame needed to be fun, connected to the dilemma that unlocks it, do something that hasn't been seen before, and subvert expectations. Even so, if all this sounds a bit gimmicky that's largely because it is. The trolley solution may be best thought of as an extended interactive sketch show based around a single joke. But it's a joke with enough charm and a quick enough punchline (each minigame lasts from a few seconds to a few minutes, and the level select screen hints at a concise total run time) that it shouldn't become stale. In many ways, it's also ideally suited to the era of social media. The humour is internet-coded and the bite-size minigames are a perfect fit for quickfire TikToks pitched to video game laymen. 'I did try to make something easy to pick up and finish,' says byDanDans. 'My previous games were too technical and too hardcore for most players. I tried to make something anyone could enjoy.' Enjoy is a slightly weird word to use in the context of an ethical dilemma. If byDanDans were faced with the original trolley problem, what would he do? 'I'd have to go with the option that leads to fewer legal repercussions,' he says. 'I'd call the cops, scream for help, and try to untie or push them off the tracks.' So he'd ignore the parameters of the thought experiment and concoct a far-fetched scheme for added excitement? That tallies. The Trolley Solution is set for release on PC this winter
The Guardian
3 days ago
- The Guardian
The Trolley Solution: the internet's most memed moral dilemma becomes a video game
In 1967, British philosopher Philippa Foot unwittingly created one of the internet's most regurgitated memes. A runaway train is hurtling towards five people tied to the tracks. You can pull a lever to divert the train to a different track to which only one person is tied. Do you intervene to kill the one and spare the five? What if one of the tracks twisted into a really cool loop-the-loop? Or the trolley was replaced by a bloodthirsty Thomas the Tank Engine? Or the whole dilemma was clumsily altered to comment on the political controversy of the day? Originally formulated as a reflection on moral decision-making, the trolley problem found a second life in the 2010s as a well of inspiration for variously silly, irreverent and self-referential trolley-based memes. Now, it may be entering its third era as surreal interactive comedy game The Trolley Solution. Each level plays as a minigame tenuously shaped around the thought experiment. There's always a trolley, a lever and a pseudo-ethical dilemma, plus a twist to throw everything off the rails. The track is dissected into puzzle pieces that you must reassemble against the clock. A commuter next to the rails needs help remaining emotionally stable by balancing the blasts of serotonin they receive from scrolling social media. One level spirals into a short visual novel about a Japanese girl falling in love with a tram that threatens to murder her high school rival. It is, obviously, all very silly, and sees in the trolley problem the same absurdity as the memes. 'It's a serious matter presented in a kind of ridiculous way,' says solo Chilean developer byDanDans. Or, as he puts it in terms of a Reddit thread: 'It's free real estate for shit-posting.' With the basic gag already well worn, byDanDans focused on iterating the dilemma into quirkier scenarios and experimenting broadly with the minigames, before nailing down the final selection. 'Some iterations were too bland, too unfunny,' he says. 'Or I just couldn't think of a minigame that followed the four rules I set for myself.' Those rules being that each minigame needed to be fun, connected to the dilemma that unlocks it, do something that hasn't been seen before, and subvert expectations. Even so, if all this sounds a bit gimmicky that's largely because it is. The trolley solution may be best thought of as an extended interactive sketch show based around a single joke. But it's a joke with enough charm and a quick enough punchline (each minigame lasts from a few seconds to a few minutes, and the level select screen hints at a concise total run time) that it shouldn't become stale. In many ways, it's also ideally suited to the era of social media. The humour is internet-coded and the bite-size minigames are a perfect fit for quickfire TikToks pitched to video game laymen. 'I did try to make something easy to pick up and finish,' says byDanDans. 'My previous games were too technical and too hardcore for most players. I tried to make something anyone could enjoy.' Enjoy is a slightly weird word to use in the context of an ethical dilemma. If byDanDans were faced with the original trolley problem, what would he do? 'I'd have to go with the option that leads to fewer legal repercussions,' he says. 'I'd call the cops, scream for help, and try to untie or push them off the tracks.' So he'd ignore the parameters of the thought experiment and concoct a far-fetched scheme for added excitement? That tallies. The Trolley Solution is set for release on PC this winter
