Count Binface

Some humans are rightly a bit confused by the whole Lord Buckethead / Count Binface saga, so here is a handy cut-out-and-keep guide to what happened in the great intergalactic battle between a plucky intergalactic space warrior (me) and an American Earthling film producer called Todd Durham, who now controls the Bucketfake.

Back in 2017, when I first came to Earth, I thought that if I appeared amongst you as Count Binface it might freak you out. So I decided to adopt a cunning disguise. I discovered that an obscure baronetcy lay vacant: that of ‘Lord Buckethead’, a very odd-looking figure who stood for election in the UK in 1987 and 1992. I thought that would be a far more acceptable look, so I donned the bucket and took on Theresa May (remember her? No, thought not) and went viral (when that was a good thing). I ended up appearing on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, played crazy golf with Ben Fogle, spoke to thousands of people at Glastonbury, and much more. It was lots of fun. None of it had anything to do with Todd Durham.

In 1984 Todd Durham made a film called Gremloids (US title ‘Hyperspace’), in which a character called Lord Buckethead appears as the baddie. However, he is never called by this name in the film. He’s only called ‘The Leader’, and is merely referred to as Lord Buckethead in the end credits of the movie. The question of who came up with the name is disputed. The actress from the film Paula Poundstone is on record as saying she may have come up with it.

In 1987 and 1992 a human called Mike Lee (as opposed to Mike Leigh), who ran a VHS label called Vipco, decided to stand in British General Elections as ‘Lord Buckethead’, to promote the sales of the film ‘Gremloids’, to which he owned the UK distribution rights.

In 2017, I tried to discover any information about the 1987 and 1992 incidents by lodging Freedom of Information requests with the relevant UK councils, but they had no info! Curious in itself. I also tried to discover anything I could about Todd Durham but the internet drew a blank. I thought he was dead.

I could have fought that election as Count Binface, of course. And maybe I should have done. But I was concerned that humans weren’t ready for the sight of a real alien space invader politician, so I thought I’d pick a bit of space camouflage. And what could be better than a peerage that had lain vacant for 25 Earth years!

The rest of that election is history. A year later, my time as Lord Buckethead would be as well.

Todd Durham has claimed on the record to a US website that he was involved in all of Lord Buckethead’s political activities, including 1987, 1992 and my run in 2017. This is NOT true.

In 2018 Todd Durham made repeated demands that he had to have full control of the Lord Buckethead ‘brand’ and threatened to sue me. I decided I needed to maintain my intergalactic independence, and referred him to the case of Arkell vs Pressdram.

In October 2018, after his repeated threats, I reluctantly acquiesced and gave Todd Durham the password to my @lordbuckethead Twitter account, which by that point had accrued 130,000 followers. Before I gave him the password, Durham demanded that I must not inform my followers about the change of ownership. I took the only course of action open to me and deleted all my tweets, direct messages and Twitter bio before handing over the password. Durham initially re-instated my bio blurb, making it look as if nothing had changed.

In December 2018 I respawned in my true form as Count Binface on Twitter, revealing myself to the universe in my upgraded, far cooler form. I have removed as much of my Lord Buckethead material from the internet as I can, until Todd Durham disappears or is vaporised.

In spring 2019, this new Bucketfake briefly tried to run in the European Parliament elections against Nigel Farage. They didn’t tell my followers that they’d taken my bucket, and decided to crowdfund the £5000 deposit required to stand. Strangely they asked for £10,000, and within days had raised more than £15,000. Many if not all the donors would have thought they were giving money to me, not an American film producer-led facsimile. Then the Bucketfake received criticism for potentially splitting the anti-Farage vote, which the Bucketfake then regurgitated as if he’d had the brilliant idea to not stand.

In December 2019 I ran in my second General Election, this time battling Prime Minister Boris Johnson in his home patch of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Meanwhile the American Bucketfake did a deal with the Monster Raving Loony Party to stand a new ‘Lord Buckethead’ in the election as a member of the Loonies. This helped make it look like the Bucketfake is still British, when in fact it is run by Todd Durham from California.

Fortunately the press saw my side of the story, and ran many pieces highlighting what had happened.

So, at the December 2019 election not only did I take on my second Tory Prime Minister, but I had to effectively take on myself, as the Bucketfake tried to appropriate my success from 2017. I’m pretty sure that’s a first in British if not all-Earth politics. Several British voters told me that they voted for the Bucketfake under the impression it was still me from the last election, and given the worldwide publicity I’d received, you can’t blame them. It’s my personal opinion that in this General Election the Bucketfake misled the electorate. Should an American have any involvement in who stands at a British election anyway? It certainly seems weird to me.

In the end I scored a magic 69 votes (what a number) from the public, from a standing start. In contrast the Bucketfake crowed about securing 125 votes, but they’d halved my vote from the previous election, despite all of my success with that name. You might think they failed miserably. I couldn’t possibly comment.

Luckily, on 11th October 2020 the truth briefly came out. Take a look at this tweet from @lordbuckethead. How did it get there? Who knows. But for just a few hours at noon GMT, the truth mysteriously emerged. When Todd Durham woke up in California later in the day he presumably deleted it. But for a small precious amount of time, for the first time in years Lord Buckethead broadcasted the facts, instead of his usual fake news. HAHAHA!