TK Max

I just got back from Waltham Gunpowder Mills where I was working for Easter. A while back I got an email from Dr David Kenyon asking me if I'd like to spend my Easter weekend dressed up as a Stormtrooper. I thought it over for a full three seconds before replying 'YES OF COURSE I FUCKING WOULD!' So as you all sat eating your Easter Eggs in celebration of the mythical Iron Age necromancing zombie warlock I was chasing kids around an ex-secret nuclear facility dressed as the Galaxy's finest. What could be better? Probably only doing the same dressed as a member of SS Wiking...

The Gunpowder Mills were playing host to a Space themed weekend and as with last year Dr David was asked to play Darth Vader because he is as tall as Everest, give or take a few metres.

He wanted some assistants, hired in two Stormtrooper costumes and asked Douche Bag and I if we were in. Mostly so he could get us both semi naked in his office...

Gerrem off ya!

Anyhoo, this was the first time I had ever dressed as something from a Sci-Fi film, so I decided to use this weekend as an education. What did I learn? I learned that children are totally fascinated by Darth Vader yet completely frightened stiff of having their photo taken with him. The amount of hiding behind daddy's legs was hilarious.

Not that scary...

As the Stormtroopers  are supposed to be the elite of the Emperor's military we decided to make a study of what they can and cannot do and the results may surprise you:

What a Stormtrooper can do:

• Look fucking cool:

What a Stormtrooper can't do:

• Sit down on a chair
• go up stairs
• go down stairs
• step down a single doorstep without looking ungainly
• have peripheral vision
• lookup
• look down
• wear glasses under the helmet
• walk quietly
• do anything quietly

Basically, if you are ever in a situation where you are faced with an army of Stormtroopers, not only will you hear the fuckers coming from about a million miles away, but you will just have to come at them from ANY direction other than the one they are looking in for a successful attack. If all goes to rat shit, simply run down or up a flight of stairs. Or indeed, a doorstep.

I make this look easy, but believe me, it wasn't...

As we were wandering about having our photos taken with various kids one of them asked me 'Are you a clone?' I answered 'I'm not, but' indicating Danny 'he is.'

The Clown Wars

Freakspotting

Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would they want to do a thing like that? They chose not to choose life. They chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got Cosplay?

Yes, Cosplay, the biggest threat to the country since Hitler and his sharply dressed army. But, unlike the Nazis, this lot know nothing of discipline. In fact a good dose of National Service would sort them out. If you have no idea what I am talking about, let me explain. Cosplay is the attempt by people with nothing to wake up for in the morning to dress up as their favourite characters out of comics or TV series. It probably all began with Trekkies dressing up like General Kirk or Doctor Spock, but has gotten all out of control with people dressing up as minor characters in the Legend of Zilda or E.T. The Extra Testicle. It gives them a sense of being, a belonging in a world that hates them. They gather together and perform strange little rituals, usually at comic conventions. Which is where I gazed into the face of madness. I was attending Thought Bubble, 'an annual celebration of sequential art in all its forms' (LOL. Just call them comics!) Ninjasaurus Rex had brought it to my attention and he was desperate to get to a Japanese restaurant in Leeds again, so this seemed like a perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. If only we'd killed one hundred Cosplayers with the same stone we would have come home happy men.

I arrived at the plaza between the Royal Armouries and the new Savile Building and gazed on what looked like a scene from the Fourth Circle of Hell. The avaricious with their cossetted material possessions danced about to the tuneless horns of Mars. Dressed as Manga characters. I panicked and telephoned Ninjasaurus who had been struck immobile by the scene of human degradation. Seeking comfort in numbers we banded together quickly and watched one anothers backs like hawks. Our fear was soon dissipated by the sight of the very chair SIR JIMMY SAVILE sat in:

Not only his Chair, but his car as well!! This was a man who was living the dream!

This was without doubt the best thing we saw all day and was well worth the ten pounds admission fee alone, but was nothing to do with the Comic Con. Which, frankly, was just loads and loads and loads of comics for sale. But then, what else did I expect it to be? Ninjasaurus saw some of his friends from the dark world of comic publishing and I bumped into the Big O, who rather kindly gave us a free comic each!

Cheers big man!!

Outside, the swirling mass of madness was gathering it's momentum and here are a few pictures to illustrate just what we saw. I beg you, gentle reader, do not allow your eyes to linger too long on these images...

Aren't you a little shit to be a Stormtrooper?

I wanted a photo, not a pose...

Electra's arse and Mario and Luigi. The mind boggles...

Is that a lightsaber or a lipstick?

Wrap up warm, love...

Interviewer: So what is missing in your life?

We retreated into the Armouries to look at real weapons, rather than over sized foam hammers and realised that we had a vantage point over the assembled freaks. After a few minutes of playing 'spot the tard' we both said in unison 'I wish I had a rifle.'

Sargent, three rounds rapid!

I was going to run up to him shouting 'Help! Help! Judge, I've just been raped in the Armouries toilets!' to see if he'd help, but I bottled it at the last minute. 

We finished the afternoon off by a visit to this authentic U-Boat which had surfaced in the docks.

It was captained by this fellow: