The farce is strong in this one

My taekwondo graduation is held in the Oasis leisure centre on Saturday afternoon. It has been combined with the black belt graduation, and the place heaves with people. We queue for about an hour to get in.

I find the brown belt row with difficulty; it consists of only one person. The relief on her face as I arrive is palpable. 'Thank goodness you're here,' she says. 'I thought I was going to have go up there on my own.' The lines of the lower belts are long; the lines of the higher grades less so. It's beyond the expected level of drop-off, because our previous instructors both stole students when they left. Hence, the ranks around me are a little thin.

The special guest for the event is David Prowse, best known for his role as Darth Vader in the good Star Wars films. Accordingly, he enters to pomp and fanfare. The Darth Vader theme plays, the lights go down, and fireworks are set off. We have a man in a Darth Vader costume, and two dressed as storm troopers. They stand around looking like movie props. Mr. Prowse comes to the stage.

After finishing the speech that Master Childs has written, he makes a speech of his own. Somewhere, a siren starts going off. A woman starts talking over the public address system, her voice unable to compete with Mr. Prowse's. A little man in a high-visibility jacket starts running around the hall, panicked look on face.

The smoke from the fireworks has set off the building's fire alarm.

400 students, and maybe twice that number of instructors, family, and friends file outside. Many are heard to joke that Mr Prowse used the dark side of the force to make an early exit.

Eventually, the building is given the all clear and we are allowed to return inside and receive our belts. My brown belt now has a black stripe down the middle.