Battle of the dorks - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Lalwendë · 02-02-2006, 05:27 AM

Hmmm, I only saw FotR once at the flicks, but I saw both the other films twice. I can't count how many times I've seen them at home, as putting the DVDs aside (and I have both versions of all the films, bought on days of release), they've all been on heavy rotation on Sky Movies so they often get chosen during channel hopping.

When I'd just read the books it was the early 80s and I must have been a strange kid. I had this kind of trinity of obsessions: Tolkien, pop music and politics. I had my best black overcoat (with batwing sleeves, retro fashionistas!) onto which I attempted to embroider the White Tree of Gondor, with little beads to represent the stars. My mother went ballistic. I also had one of those canvas army bags which you could draw on (and which mums always used to throw in the washing machine as soon as they could get their hands on them). Mine had all kinds of arcane scribbles on it such as: Frodo Lives!, Frankie Goes To Hollywood Are Cool, and Solidarnosc!. The graffitti also appeared on ring binders and the horrible green paper we had to cover our text books in. The JRRT logo was a strong design feature, as were Runes.

Not long after I read LotR, we were set a task to write a fantasy story for English. The poor teacher expected about 2 or 3 pages per week from each of us in our exercise books. From me she got one and a half exercise books' worth. With maps and family trees and colour illustrations. I've also still got the school exercise book into which I diligently copied all the poems from LotR, with use of all different colours of biro and everything.

My friends at one point acquired new names based on LotR. These were generally on the 'good guys' but if one of my mates had done something deeply stupid they used to get named 'Shelob' for a while. My parents, who had absorbed all the Tolkien babble at home, learned some of the words and if they saw a dark wood they'd say "ooh, look, it's Mirkwood!".

In our front room, there are alcoves on either side of the chimney breast which have floor to ceiling bookshelves built in - one side is entirely occupied with Tolkien material and there still is not the space for all the books to be shelved there. The 78 action figures are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the amount of 'stuff' that's been collected...

And there are whole new avenues of dorkitude still to be explored... I still want to turn a shed into a Hobbit Hole, for example.

Perhaps the dorkiest thing is that if someone wrote a book about being a Tolkien dork then I'd be first in line to buy it to see how I measured up.

02-02-2006, 05:27 AM	#8
Lalwendë A Mere Boggart Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: under the bed Posts: 4,737	Hmmm, I only saw FotR once at the flicks, but I saw both the other films twice. I can't count how many times I've seen them at home, as putting the DVDs aside (and I have both versions of all the films, bought on days of release), they've all been on heavy rotation on Sky Movies so they often get chosen during channel hopping. When I'd just read the books it was the early 80s and I must have been a strange kid. I had this kind of trinity of obsessions: Tolkien, pop music and politics. I had my best black overcoat (with batwing sleeves, retro fashionistas!) onto which I attempted to embroider the White Tree of Gondor, with little beads to represent the stars. My mother went ballistic. I also had one of those canvas army bags which you could draw on (and which mums always used to throw in the washing machine as soon as they could get their hands on them). Mine had all kinds of arcane scribbles on it such as: Frodo Lives!, Frankie Goes To Hollywood Are Cool, and Solidarnosc!. The graffitti also appeared on ring binders and the horrible green paper we had to cover our text books in. The JRRT logo was a strong design feature, as were Runes. Not long after I read LotR, we were set a task to write a fantasy story for English. The poor teacher expected about 2 or 3 pages per week from each of us in our exercise books. From me she got one and a half exercise books' worth. With maps and family trees and colour illustrations. I've also still got the school exercise book into which I diligently copied all the poems from LotR, with use of all different colours of biro and everything. My friends at one point acquired new names based on LotR. These were generally on the 'good guys' but if one of my mates had done something deeply stupid they used to get named 'Shelob' for a while. My parents, who had absorbed all the Tolkien babble at home, learned some of the words and if they saw a dark wood they'd say "ooh, look, it's Mirkwood!". In our front room, there are alcoves on either side of the chimney breast which have floor to ceiling bookshelves built in - one side is entirely occupied with Tolkien material and there still is not the space for all the books to be shelved there. The 78 action figures are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the amount of 'stuff' that's been collected... And there are whole new avenues of dorkitude still to be explored... I still want to turn a shed into a Hobbit Hole, for example. Perhaps the dorkiest thing is that if someone wrote a book about being a Tolkien dork then I'd be first in line to buy it to see how I measured up. __________________ Gordon's alive!