Last year I had dinner in a lovely little Greek restaurant called Elia not far from here in Shanghai. It was a memorable repast, resplendent in the authentic flavours of the mediterranean, a little slice of Greece slap bang in the middle of the Orient. Having gorged on dolmades, marinated lamb chargrilled to perfection, kofte and the best moussaka this side of Athens, my companions and I were presented with a complimentary selection of sweetmeats to round off our meal. Amongst them was some rather delightful chunks of Turkish delight, that reknowned and rather delicious gelatinous confection flavoured with rosewater. I voiced my appreciation of this: "Ahhhhh.....Turkish delight, wonderful!" Popping a sweet, lightly dusted cube into my mouth and allowing the wonderful aromas of rose and spice infuse my senses foxtrotting with the texture of the pistachio nut liberally sprinkled throughout. No sooner than the first morsel been savoured than my Bacchanalian reverie was interrupted by a sharp cuff across the back of my head from Christos, the owner of the establishment, who rather pointedly corrected me on my terminology. "It's not Turkish delight, it's a Greek delight!" he proudly proclaimed, looking at me with a mixture of disgust and astonishment that I could get something so elementary, so very, very wrong.
Which brings me onto the current subject of this blog. You see, just like Christos gave me a smack, I would rather like to do the same to Daniel 'Risu' Pawlik. The reason for this will be apparent.
Ever since David Tennant was unveiled to the world as our favourite Timelord, the cosplay brigade have been searching for their holy Grail: a screen accurate version of Tennant's costume. The search for this has been of varying levels of success none more so than in trying to track down the fabrics used for Tennant's suits. It was thought that the professional wanker Steven 'Pumpkiny' Ricks, has come closest and even managed to track down a pair of the near mythical Gap trouser from whence the brown Tennant suit was fabricated. He even managed to find the undyed fabric used for the blue suit. From these, Daniel 'Risu' Pawlik and that hack Tony 'Indy' Magnoli have rewoven the fabrics to feed the insatiable appetites of the cosplay crowd.
So what's the problem? Well, for a long time I've questioned Risu's ability to use his eyes and I still maintain that I think he's secretly blind, rather like Richard Pryor's character in Hear no Evil, See No Evil, who is in constant denial and likes to give the impression that his eyeballs are fully functional when in reality he's got all the visual acuity of a FIFA referee. From having a suspicion, I have recently come to the conclusion that his optic nerves really are as useful as Gary Moore's guitar.
The reason I say this is that even with all the reference material in the world, samples of the fabric and the guidance of legions of cosplayers, he has still managed to totally fuck it up. A while ago, I gave the analogy of missing an elephant at point blank with a cannon. This is what is like. Have a look at what I mean:
Here's the blue fabric:
Ok, weight is correct, weave is correct. But the finish, the stripe spacing and most importantly, the colour is totally off. The stripe spacing matches the original undyed fabric but when dyeing, the fabric shrinks, giving a narrower stripe spacing. This can be seen on the original fabric below, which incidentally, is substantially darker than Risu's recreation.
Which brings me onto the brown Gap fabric:
Again, weave and weight are correct. Colour is slightly off, but the difference is minimal. However, look at the stripes. Know what I mean?
It really irks me when twats like Risu continually make statements like 'this is 100% screen accurate' when it patently isn't. What is worse is when they have every opportunity to make it screen accurate yet through incompetence or just sheer laziness, they fuck it up royally as in this situation.
I swore I would never use this phrase but more than anything it sums up the sheer magnitude of this cock-up better than any colourful idiom I can come up with, and that's:
EPIC FAIL
As an addendum, I have been asked why the original fabric has a sheen on it that the reweave doesn't. The answer is NOT, as that talentless tool Steven Ricks thinks, down to the dyeing. It's actually because the yarn used on the original fabric is a mercerized long staple cotton.
