I drove to Swindon this weekend for my friend Debbies birthday, on the way I agreed to pick up Brett from Walsall.  We had arranged to meet in a hotel carpark just off the motorway.

I got there a little early, so wandered into the hotel to kill some time, and found myself surrounded by dwarfs.

That in itself would have been surreal enough, but these weren’t just a group of dwarfs sat around, or minding their own business..

.. there were dwarfs cartwheeling down the corridor, dwarfs doing handstands, dwarfs skateboarding, dwarfs in suits, dwarfs getting drunk, drawf families, dwarf goths, and a dwarf carrying a box to stand on.  It was a whole big dwarf thing.

Which kinda leads to a conversation I’d had with a guy at work the day before (as with most conversations with him, I’ve changed his name to protect the not-so-innocent)

me: I’m gonna meet Kenny Baker (R2:D2) this weekend

workguy: Isn’t he one of those little shit’s?

me: he’s a dwarf if that’s what you mean?

workguy: (looking shocked in a politically correct outrage) you can’t call them that!!!

me: erm…

Picked Brett up, and got drunk in Swindon.  Next day we all drove down to Milton Keynes for Collectormania 7

We were staying in the Holiday Inn, there were 8 of us, so we booked 2 quad rooms.  Got up to our rooms and found that.. instead of 2 double beds, or 4 single beds, or a double and 2 singles… there was just one HUGE bed.

It was bizarre!

The night was mostly uneventful, we nearly went to the Collectormania party but instead we got drunk in the hotel, the manager threatened to kick us out if Brett didn’t shut up, we found Lee unconscious in a bush outside, several people slept on balconies, and the rest of us got to bed about 4.30am

The next morning we went to meet the famous folk, everyone wanted to meet Spike and Giles (from Buffy), and their plan was to get up at 6 and start queueing for tickets (it opened at 10).  My thinking was “meh to 6am”, so I slept in whilst they queued.

At about half 7 I got a phone call from Sarah who’d just remembered we’d all parked in the council carpark the previous night cos the hotel one was full, and that from 6am you needed a ticket.  She asked me to nip downstairs, put some money in the meter for hers and Debbies cars, I mumbled that yes I’d do it, put the phone down and fell back asleep.

10 minutes later they both got £30 parking fines.

I would have got one too, except that late last night I’d moved mine into the hotel carpark

Eventually I got up, wandered over to the event, where I was confronted with thousands of geeks.

I got a ticket to see Gilesand one to see Wesley (also from Buffy) but never bothered queueing to see Wes in the end, cos it suddenly dawned on me.. sod the buffy stars!  Darth Vader is over there!

Didn’t want to get just the usual signed photo from Dave Prowse… Darth Vader deserved more, so spent some time looking for something suitable to get signed.  In the end bought this cool print (will try to get a pic of it up on here) or the Millenium Falcon fleeing the 2nd death star, and got it signed by Darth, Chewbacca, R2:D2 and Boba Fett.

I met Darth Vader!!