MONKEY
02-08-2006, 11:34 AM
A Star Trek fan has spent £12 000 (about R132 000) turning his home into the Starship Voyager.
Tony Alleyne's flat in Hinckley, Leics, has moulded walls, touch-panel blue lighting and a life-size model of the show's transporter room.
He even built a command console, reshaped windows to look like portholes and set up vertical lights so he can pretend to be "beamed up".
He hoped his pad would tempt other Trekkies to pay him to convert their homes too.
He took out two huge loans and ran up debts of over £100 000 on 14 credit cards marketing his idea and paying for the merchandise and has filed for bankruptcy.
Tony, who split from his wife Georgina after he replaced their fridge with a "warp coil" said: "I was convinced Trekkies all over the world would want a house like mine and pay me to do it.
"But I was wrong and just overstretched. Building it in my apartment was the enjoyable and easy bit. But then I got hooked up with marketing and merchandise people here and in America and it all got out of hand.
"I'm still proud of what I created but it's been a financial disaster."
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=29&art_id=iol1139301177263A551
I laughed like hell at this story.
Tony Alleyne's flat in Hinckley, Leics, has moulded walls, touch-panel blue lighting and a life-size model of the show's transporter room.
He even built a command console, reshaped windows to look like portholes and set up vertical lights so he can pretend to be "beamed up".
He hoped his pad would tempt other Trekkies to pay him to convert their homes too.
He took out two huge loans and ran up debts of over £100 000 on 14 credit cards marketing his idea and paying for the merchandise and has filed for bankruptcy.
Tony, who split from his wife Georgina after he replaced their fridge with a "warp coil" said: "I was convinced Trekkies all over the world would want a house like mine and pay me to do it.
"But I was wrong and just overstretched. Building it in my apartment was the enjoyable and easy bit. But then I got hooked up with marketing and merchandise people here and in America and it all got out of hand.
"I'm still proud of what I created but it's been a financial disaster."
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=29&art_id=iol1139301177263A551
I laughed like hell at this story.