Spike's fear of parks.

Ok, so this title is a little misleading. I am not scared of parks. Hyde Park is one of my favourite places ever, and it's a place I don't go to as much as I used to and really should start doign so again. I suppose not having presents under the bench for quite some time has been what has stopped me going as often.
Anyway, I do often have some problems when walking through a park. I walk through a park every day on my way to work, and there are many things I have to overcome, especially at this time of year.

The least of my worries is getting mugged or attacked by chavs. A few years ago in daylight as I was walking home, I saw an ambulance arrive and rush over towards a crowd. It was a guy who had been stabbed after an attempted mugging. He died and there was a big thing about it in the papers for a while. This didn't make me any more worried about walkign across the park. I have several ways to prevent getting mugged. One is a technique by Derrin Brown, in which you have to start saying 'I had a pencil case at school which was shaped like a calculator but wasn't a real calculator. I had it confiscated, even thoguh the teacher knew it wasn't a real calculator'. Apparently it works all the time! I also have some wicked self defense moves, as well as cards I can throw at them and flash paper I can set off to temporarily blind them.

So, my next worry is a little more odd. Football. I hate football, and I can't play it. Yet at this time of the year, the park is full of people playing football as i walk to work and back home again. Now, the problem with this is, that something happens quite often as I walk past people kicking a ball about. For some unknown reason, (maybe I'm some sort of football magnet) the ball is often kicked far away from the players and straight into my direction. They say say something like 'Over here mate!'. I then know that no matter however i try to kick the ball to them, something will go wrong. Either I kick it, but not hard enough and it just looks pathertic, or even worse.... I kick it and am slightly pleased there was some power in it, until i realise it has gone in a totally different direction, and the players then have to run even further to get the ball than if I hadn't passed it to them. This happens on countless occasions. I have at times ignored the players and let them get the ball themselves, but then they just shout abuse at me, so I still find myself having to try to pass the ball back, which is always a cringe worthy experience.

So, my last problem is the obvious one. Dogs. Parks are full of dogs, and I often find myself taking a slightly longer route if I see a dog off a lead. Thankfully it's been some time since a dog has chased me or come up to me, but I still know that if they start to run, I will run, which will encourage them more. I will then look like a fool and no doubt have countless spectators laughing at me.

So, these are the main dangers I face each day trying to walk across what may seem like a harmless ordinary park.

Spike becomes Spider-Man

During my geekier days I discovered conventions. Now, I never initially intended to go to one, but I got chatting to a very pretty girl called Kellie who everyone fancied including myself at the time. She's still a mate, but I only see her on rare ocassions. Anyway, she needed to find someone to share a room with a friend, so I didn't want to turn down a pretty girl or her pretty mate. So I agree to attend a Buffy and Angel convention at Heathrow. I knew a couple of people who were going, but none whome I was really close to were going.
Still I went along, met lots of new friends, tried chatting up Amy Acker (an actress from Angel), which went quite well surprisingly and just had lots of fun.
I don't think anything ever beat my first convention, but I went to several more and had a great time at most of those too. After a few of them, I then got into the whole fancy dress scene for the evening partys, and would plan different costumes for different cons.

Spider-Man had recently come out at the cinema, and as a fan of the 1960s comics I decided to make a Spider-Man costume for a con. This was made out of some blue pyjamas and an old sheet dyed red. If I'm honest, it looked awful, but I handsewed it all, which was quite an achievement.
I really started to love the costume, so as well as wearing it at conventions I decided to wear it out in public a few times for a laugh, and it certainly did get some laughs. I then wore it to a party, but one of the guests got very drunk on tequila and threw up over it. I decided I should bin it and create a new costume.

 My new costume I planned out better. I found a special dancewear company that sold stretch lycra costumes. So I ordered two lots of trousers and two long sleaved tops in blue and red. I then cut parts from the red set and stitched them onto the blue, with the spare red fabric being used for the mask and to sew onto some special soft aqua shoes I obtained.
This costume was awesome! It looked a lot better, was more comfortable, and now I could do some serious spidey stuff! The only downside was that the lycra was tight and you could easily see the shape of my penis. I therefore I had to wear a jockstrap with a sock in it to hide this, which also was a bonus as it looked as if I had a bigger package.

  I accomplished many feits with my new costume, and always got laughs from the general public. I even met Louise Redknap, but she seemed to be quite scared.
I climbed lampposts, kissed lots of hot women and even did my shopping. I even got featured in FHM magazine, which was amazing. Christina saw it before me, and when she told me, I was over the moon.

 As much as I had always wanted to save someones life, or even just stop a mugging, it never happened. Still, I was always willing to save people if the chance came about.
Unfortunately there did come a time when I felt I had to hang up my mask and retire from my superhero days. I discovered a small hole developing in the crotch area. I could have sewn it up, or I could have made a new suit, but I think I'd also lost the passion for running around central London as a nutter in a Spider-Man costume. There was also the fact that whenever there was a fathers for justice guy dressed in a Spidey costume and climbing some tall London landmark, people would think it was me.