game development: behind the scenes

John says:
felch!
can i make carry its nonstandonable?
Chris says:
dont use such foul words in my direction please
maybe
maybe not
who knows what fate has in store.. for the curious traveller
just passing through - or so he claimed. and yet i observed he had an unhealthy interest in Lady Tabitha, wife of the recently-departed lemon tycoon Lord St John d'St John
and with naught but a string bag some said contained only bottles of semi-polluted river water, he had intrigued all of the villagers
thus began the tale
of Geoffrey Howe: Carryit Traveller
*cue organ theme*
John says:
never mind, i fugured it out....
then i figured it out
Chris says:
aunt irma remarked: "his riposte would've been so much more effective, if only he weren't a nincompoop"
John says:
it didnt work
Chris says:
and with that we had spencer fetch another decanter of port

Do you speak broken website?

Every so often I get the urge to learn a foreign language. Normally when I spend some time in the company of someone who, despite having learned English as a second language, speaks better English than a lot of English people I know.

The last time this happened I came across a piece of software called Rosetta Stone - it claims to teach languages in an "intuitive" way, and has an endorsement from Eddie Izzard, which is quite impressive to me. However it costs a small fortune (~£400 for a full course) which put me off at the time.

Recently though it was bonus time at work (woohoo!) and I was reminded about Rosetta Stone. So I did a bit more research.. and found one or two reviews that talked about a concern of mine - that Rosetta Stone's "intuitive" method completely avoided teaching grammar, leaving you with a good stock set of phrases for various situations, but little ability to develop your knowledge beyond that point.

Another product seemed to deal with that - Tell Me More claims to be used by substantially more European governments, universities and businesses, and will happily tell you all about grammar if you ask. Iiiinteresting..

So tonight I decided it was time to just go for it - out came the debit card, onto Tell Me More's website goes the browser. After being redirected to the correct site for buying in the UK, I started entering my details. I tend to have things delivered to work (cos most of the time I'm there, not at home - clever eh?) so I had to enter a separate delivery address. The website invited me to check my details - it listed the correct addresses, but had me as "Miss" on the delivery. Oops! Must've filled that in wrong - "amend".. I set it to "Mr". Invited to check my details again - I'm still "Miss". Hmm. I tried to fix this a couple more times but the site was adamant. Whatever, it's only an address label. Next stage! I entered my payment details - and was sent back to step 1. Getting quite peeved now. Payment details again.. back to step 1. Right. RIGHT.

Off to the "contact us" page. I entered a polite message suggesting that I expect somewhat better service when they're asking me to part with £400, and hit the send button. Javascript errors galore! *sigh*

I went back to the front page. "Contact us". "Consumer". I'm presented with a slightly different contact form. This one has a field marked "Date:" followed by SIX boxes, marked "Day", "Month", "Year", "Day", "Month", "Year". You want two dates? Which two dates? I only have one birthdate, so it can't be that. If it's the date I got really fucked off with your website, that's today. The date I went to your competitor and gave them £400 - that'll be tomorrow.




(In case you were wondering - German)

HF2 earphones

Executive summary: Apple 0, Etymotic 1

A few weeks ago I tweeted my annoyance at Apple refusing to replace my knackered Etymotic HF2 earphones. A few people have asked "what happened next", so I thought I'd post the (slightly odd) tale here..

My headphones started having problems a few months ago - I sometimes had to wiggle the cable around at the jack to get sound in both channels. In hindsight it was obvious the wire was coming away internally, and I should've taken them back to Apple then, but I didn't *shrug*. As you can probably guess, some months later one channel died completely, so I took them back to Apple.

The guy in the Apple store was remarkably difficult. At first he told me I couldn't bring the earphones back as I'd owned them longer than two weeks. I pointed out that since the earphones were faulty that rule wasn't relevant (you can take something back to a shop for no reason at all within two weeks of buying it). He went to talk to the manager.. when he came back he asked if I had the debit card I'd used to buy the earphones. I said no, the card had been replaced since. His face lit up - "I'm sorry, we need the original card to trace the electronic receipt!". His smile faded when I showed him the emailed version of the receipt in my gmail. He went to talk to the manager again.. and this time came back beaming - "Apparently we don't stock them any more, so we couldn't replace them anyway. Sorry about that!" I didn't think I could demand a refund as I'd owned them for about 8 months, but I wasn't sure.. so I left it at that.

I did a little more research when I got home (as I couldn't get data on O2. Again. Oh, I can't wait for this contract to be up.. anyway) and found things a little hazy. The only concrete rule I could find was that if something you buy develops a fault in the first six months, the law considers that the product has always been faulty, so the retailer must replace it for you. After six months, the onus is on the consumer to prove they didn't cause the fault - which of course they can rarely do. I certainly couldn't..

Etymotic have a 2-year warranty on HF2s, so I guessed I'd have to go to them. The thought of possibly having to pay postage to and from the US, and the potential lengths of time involved concerned me, but I didn't have a lot of choice. I emailed Etymotic's tech support, and tweeted my woes.

A day or so later @Charles_Kennard rather enigmatically offered to help with my HF2s. Google suggested links to Etymotic, so I mailed him. He was very helpful, and interested to hear what happened at Apple. I explained all, and sent my broken earphones to the address he gave me (in the UK, handily). My shiny new HF2s arrived on Monday. Thanks Charles!

Etymotic's tech support got back to me yesterday.. suggestion was that they would pay the postage back to the UK, so it wouldn't be quite as expensive as I thought. But I told them I didn't need their help after all..

So I've learnt to be much more of an arse with Apple - the next thing I buy from the Apple store is being returned if anything about it is less than perfect. Etymotic, on the other hand, have come out of this ok in my opinion. HF2s have really good sound quality, and they're the most isolating earphones I've ever owned. The cable problem is widespread, and that's disappointing in a product so expensive, but the warranty does much to ameliorate it.

The punchline of this whole thing is that I spent so long without HF2s my ears have regained their virginity :)

the 13 1/2 lives of captain bluebear

Is a book by Walter Moers which I'm currently reading (swapping occasionally for Dawkins' Greatest Show on Earth).

There is a gushing quote from the Telegraph review on the back which starts "Within the first 15 pages I was carried away by the sheer craziness of it all". I'm 100 pages in.. and I still think it's bobbins.

I looked it up on the web tonight in case it was meant for under 11s and Waterstones had just mis-shelved it - apparently not. Not only is it for "all ages" (and it appears to have quite a devoted following) but it is often compared to The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy. I can't help but find that slightly irritating.. Hitchhiker's is a book full of witty insights on human behaviour. Despite the fact it started as a vehicle for various of Douglas Adams' sketches it had several plotlines and many well-developed characters. Arthur Dent particularly was so well characterised you couldn't help but feel an affinity for him. Against this we are to compare a blue bear who is born into a wacky situation before moving into another wacky situation, pausing briefly to describe the new wacky situation before tumbling headlong into, yes, another wacky situation. Not only is that not particularly entertaining, it's easy. Let's see if I can show you what I mean:

I don't remember how I first met the trolls of Hum-da-woo, but my earliest memories were of their warty faces peering in at me in my basket of custard. For reasons unknown to me at the time they took me in as one of their own, combing my feathers and changing my custard regularly. In return they expected me to help hunt for Toffee Wombats on the plains - a task for which I was ideally suited, being a parrot with a sweet tooth and eyes that could see a thousand yards.

Gradually my need for custard became too great for the trolls to satisfy, and after many years of friendship I knew we had to part. The fateful day came when I perched atop the handle of my little custard basket and, with tears in my parrot-eyes, squawked a fond farewell to my carers of many years. Their eyes similarly moist, they turned from me and walked back toward the village - the Toffee Wombats wouldn't hunt themselves after all. Taking a deep breath I picked up my basket in my beak and flew off into the sunset.

Bedazzled by the brightness of the sunset I quickly got lost. I say I got lost, I didn't really know where I was going in the first place, but nonetheless I wasn't going in the direction I had intended and this caused me some anguish. After some hours of not knowing where I was I decided to land. I came to a standstill on a large grey rock. I put my basket down, and preened for a moment. To my deep astonishment, the rock spoke! "Have you no respect?" it boomed, "How dare you stand upon an Elder of the Granite Magisterium?! I, who have beheld the Darkening of The Wonkysocks - I! who single-stonedly thwarted The Army of Miserable Pasties!"

(etc.)

It's train-of-thought nonsense. It's hardly the beginnings of a novel.

I don't know, maybe I'll change my mind in another 100 pages.

sunny, lovely, cuddly manchester

© Tom Jolliffe

It's days like this I'm happy to just wander aimlessly around Manchester like a tourist. From my beautifully overgrown, tree-filled adopted home of Whalley Range to the various beautiful and striking buildings and views in the centre, Manchester stuns on a sunny day.

I went into town for a dull 5-minute errand this morning, and ended up staying most of the day - hopping between coffeeshops across town, sitting outside each one for an hour or so reading another chunk of novel and watching sunny people meandering by.

© temjin

I wandered into St. Ann's Square to find one of those peculiar markets that always sells the same things, whatever theme it claims and wherever it's meant to be from. Basically fudge and wool. And stollen if it's a German Christmas Market. A few elderly people were listening to a female guitarist sing some sugary ballads, clapping politely between songs and smiling serenely, probably thinking how nice it was to see a young person who wasn't stabbing someone to death in a drug-fuelled craze. Families were happily being fleeced at the fudge stalls (my favourite is covered-in-fluff-because-it's-been-out-in-the-open-all-day flavour), and young women were dragging their boyfriends around the clothes stalls cooing excitedly about bargains while said boyfriends nodded absently, calming their thinly disguised irritation with memories of just how much she put out last time it was this sunny. The advance guard of this year's gay freshers was also in town, looking oddly sweet in their identikit Top Man clothes, each one's eyes like saucers at the opportunities for moral turpitude; many salivating at the thought of binge drinking and casual sex, some salivating at the fudge. They'll figure it out.

© mijoli

On the fringes of this jolly scene there was a man shouting at the happy people as they milled past, causing brief expressions of confusion to pass some of their faces - what was this incongruous dog turd of hate in our collective mixed salad of summery fun? Ah - after a few sideways glances (never look a madman in the eye) the confused passer-by spots that he is carrying a book. That explains it - he's one of them. Yes, the one man in the square who isn't remotely happy is the one who's found the love of Jesus. I don't understand why St. Ann's Church doesn't send out some kind of hit squad to deal with him. There is a man stood next to your church, clearly demonstrating that God's love is corrosive and malignant. That can't be good for business. Surely this is the Christian equivalent of a man stood outside a Scientology shop handing out leaflets on dianetics and vomiting into a bin? "I used to be stressed but scientology fixed me - BWWUUAARRGGGHHHH - no, come back.."

I was sorely tempted to stand next to our man in St. Ann's, loudly shouting extracts from my own currently-beloved book. Unfortunately it's "Making History" which is largely about Hitler - rather difficult to precis without people thinking you're a Nazi. Perhaps next time I'll try with a Robert Rankin..







(By the way, Manchester also looks lovely by night - yowzer!)

Customer Service Demands: Unilever

From: chris*@*.com
To: Via website contact form
Date: June 10th 2009

Hello*

I am writing** with a query regarding your lovely pepperarmi sticks which I have just finished eating one.

I read on the packet that a stick has 150% pork. I had to ask my friend Sammy what % means because I never knew and Sammy is clever so I knew he would know what % means so I asked him. He said it was something to do with "out of a hundred" and that 100% of something is one of it, and more than 100% means more than one of it. He was going to draw me some pictures but he had to collect Cheryl from the swimming baths and when he got back we'd forgot but I think I know what it means now.

What I want to know is if 100% pork means one whole cow, does 150% (which is 50 more than a whole one) mean one pepperarmi stick has 51 cows in it?

Because if that is what it means I think you should tell more people about it because if you can fit 51 cows into a little stick, that means you can fit a great big farm in a carrier bag instead of lots of fields! I think farmers would like to know how to do that.

I was worried that you might not have time to go out to all the farms in the world telling farmers how to fit their cows into sticks but then I thought if you tell me how to do it I could go out and tell the farmers for you. I am free in the evenings except on Thursdays when I am a Cavalier*** in my local reenactment society.

I have packed my bag already, I thought I would go to Mr Wollesley's farm first as it's only just down by the paper shop but I will wait for you to say yes first.

If you do want to do it yourself then tell me that too, I don't mind. I would like to hear how it goes though!!

Thank you, and keep up the good (pepperarmi making) work!!

Chris


*Sammy says emails shouldn't have "dear mr X" written on. If you find this rude please tell me and I'll try harder.

**or rather EMAILING!!

***not the car!!




From: peperami@unileverconsumerlink.co.uk
To: chris*@*.com
Date: June 15th 2009
Subject: Peperami CaseID#701249#

Hello from Peperami

Dear Chris,

Thank you for your recent query about the confusing labelling on Peperami.

Under the labelling laws for processed meat products like sausages, we are
required to state the amount of raw meat as a percentage of the finished
product - including all the other ingredients like spices, salt etc.

For raw sausages the meat percentage will be less than 100% because other
ingredients are added during manufacture.

However, Peperami is a cured sausage and weight is lost through evaporation
of water during manufacture. This means that the weight of the raw meat we
put in before cooking and curing is higher than the weight of the finished
Peperami that is sold. The meat content is therefore more than 100%. As
an example - a 25g Peperami is made with 27g of raw meat.

I hope that this has helped. If you need any further information, then
please let me know.

Kind regards,

Aysha Pirgali
Careline Advisor



[booooooooriiiiiiiiiiiiiing]

Customer Service Demands: Swizzels-Matlow

From: chris*@*.com
To: sweets@swizzels-matlow.com
Date: March 11th 2008

dear mr swizuls-matlo my name is christopher and i am 7 yers old and i liv in manchester and i hav just been eaten jelly spiders FUN GUMS i like them lots becose they r cullerful and nice i have dun a project for school on spiders and i learnd that they hav got 8 legs but yor ones only hav 6 my dad seys they must be mutunts and if i tell yuo yuo will giv me sum 4 free i hav sent yuo my project so yuo can see it miss elkin scant it in 4 me she seys i shud eat fruits not swets but i think fruits are boran my adress is **** fank yuo yors sinseerly christopher russell



[No reply. Heartless bastards!]

Customer Service Demands: Next

From: chris*@*.com
To: (Via website contact form)
Date: February 2nd, 2009


Dear Sir/Madam,

Last Saturday I was enjoying a pleasant perusal of your homeware department when I was confronted with a product the purpose of which I could not for the life of me ascertain. When I came to compose this email I checked your website - perhaps in the hope that I had imagined the product - and discovered it in a section labelled "Kitchen Essentials". The product is displayed alongside numerous others, all in the same category. I have taken the liberty of listing some here:

1. Mugs - yes, they're certainly "kitchen essentials". I like to drink tea from mine. But never tap water! That's what glasses are for.

2. Knife block - handy for storage and juggling, certainly essential

3. Mug tree - most necessary - without one your mugs will fall victim to mug weevils

4. Cream ceramic decorative cook letters - umm..?


I hope you begin to see my point. The other items can all be categorised - crockery, utensils etc... but - "decorative letters"? That isn't a "type" of "thing". You may as well sell "denim horses" or "submarine shoes", they make as much sense. You even go as far as to say they're wipe clean only - as if someone might be tempted to eat their dinner off a massive ceramic 'O' and then be upset when they can't put it in the dishwasher. Surely they'll be more concerned about their trousers?

Ultimately I suppose what I'd like to know is how on earth the idea to sell decorative letters came about in the first place. I can only imagine at the most recent board meeting the head of marketing said something like "well I've noticed we aren't getting any of the decorative letters market, so I propose we gain 100% by INVENTING IT".

Can you make enquiries please? I am most perplexed.

Many thanks,

Chris




From: Customer Service Management Team
To: chris*@*.com
Date: February 5th 2009

Our Ref: CRN/007955-09/CPI

Dear Mr Russell,

Thank you for your recent email enquiry about this seasons ‘decorative cook letters’.

I am sorry that these have been the cause of bewilderment and confusion to you whilst perusing our Homeware Department. Certainly, this would not be our intention.

I can confirm that decorative letters are not a new concept in terms of marketing and have been used over many seasons by Next.

We carefully consider and plan our ranges many seasons ahead and study current trends and moods to reflect the products that we offer our customers.

Based on our findings during previous sales of these products, decorative letters are a very popular range and have featured over our Home and Christmas ranges, with great success. We have therefore, taken the opportunity to offer the letters in the Kitchenware section and current response from our customers has been very promising.

To also help to explain, in categorising our products each item must fall into one of our product codes, for the purpose of ordering, storage and distribution. Additionally, for marketing reasons each item must feature in the area most appropriate for its purpose. On this occasion, the ‘decorative cook letters’ are intended to be placed somewhere in a kitchen.

Whilst I would agree with you that these are not essentials, they have on this occasion been placed with other ceramic products which may fall into such a category.

We appreciate the fact that you have taken the time to contact us and I do hope that I have been able to answer your query.


Yours sincerely,

Claire Pickering

In The Loop

I've always been a big fan of The Thick of It, the TV show on which In The Loop is based, so I had great hopes for the film.

The TV show was written by a team including Armando Iannucci, a name attached to several of my favourite comedy shows ever* (The Day Today, The Armando Iannucci Show, Time Trumpet, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle), as well as Jesse Armstrong and Simon Blackwell (Peep Show). The team remained the same for In The Loop, except for Iannucci who directed instead.

The film's similarities to the TV show go beyond the writing of course; the shooting style is identical, using handheld cameras for that "fly-on-the-wall" look, and there is no soundtrack. The comedy is entirely about the dialogue, which in the TV show comes thick and fast, before the title has even appeared. Because of this I was slightly wary as In The Loop opened with comparatively sparse dialogue. It got up to speed soon enough though; I can only assume it was deliberately calmed down for audiences unfamiliar with the style.

Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) is a new face for In The Loop, although a very familiar character. He is a career-obsessed, decidedly untalented minister who you find yourself siding with one moment then hating the next. It struck me halfway through the film that perhaps this was basically Hugh Abbot (Chris Langham**) from the TV show, but Hugh Abbot was never careerist, he was just useless. I suppose they share an awkward (and mainly suppressed) desire to "do the right thing", but Hugh was much more of an old-guard lifetime civil servant type of character.

Chris Addison and Olivia Poulet reprise their relationship, though with different character names (Toby and Suzy in the film, Ollie and Emma in the TV show). Their relationship isn't nearly as interesting in the film - in the TV show Emma worked for the opposition, and their relationship was entirely based on mutual espionage. Since In The Loop isn't about domestic politics that's not massively relevant, so Suzy is part of the government in the film.

The central character of Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) is thankfully identical in the film. He is the same foul-mouthed, basically evil bully he was in The Thick of It. His assistant Jamie MacDonald (Paul Higgins) also returns, though I thought with far too small a part. Both have the same delightfully offensive way with words (I can't believe I've never thought to use the word "catastrofuck" before..) with Jamie being the slightly more unhinged and potentially violent of the two. There are several marvellous scenes of rooms full of hapless victims silenced by Malcolm's acidic rejoinders, which I suppose is really the hallmark of The Thick of It. But where in the TV show Malcolm often appears as the only one with any sense in a government staffed by ministers completely detached from reality, with the weight of an all-too-real story about dodgy intelligence he becomes actively evil by the end of the film. I did leave the cinema feeling slightly cold; not what I'd expected.

Still, I definitely recommend it. And if that's not enough to convince you, here's a clip (warning! contains references to "lubricated horse cock")





* I was going to declare Iannucci incapable of wrongdoing, but wikipedia tells me he directed the recent Post Office adverts. I hope he didn't write them..

** I looked up Chris Langham on wikipedia, to check the facts of his sentence, and found out one of his first jobs was writing for The Muppet Show. Bet you didn't know that!

Why I love the Pope

Pope Benedict XVI is a Pope for the modern era. In a world where atheists, homosexuals, and (God forbid!) homosexual atheists parade their sins in full view of all decent members of society his guidance shines as a paragon of moral teaching.

Long gone are the glorious days of the Crusades, of course, in a time before so-called "political correctness" saw us giving "rights" to blasphemers and infidels. But while the Pope no longer wages religious wars, his instruction of the faithful remains unquestionable.

Take the recent example of Bishop Richard Williamson, who made certain remarks regarding concentration camps that were perhaps a little out-of-touch. Unfortunately when the Pope lifted Williamson's excommunication he didn't realise Williamson held such views - after all lifting an excommunication is such a minor thing the Vatican would only have done the most cursory of research. Besides, Williamson had only declared his holocaust-denial on Swedish TV - and I don't suppose they get Swedish TV in the Vatican! As soon as the Pope was informed, his action was decisive and immediate - he had his staff issue a frankly poetic statement saying the excommunication had "nothing to do with the personal opinions of a person". Then he was told that wasn't good enough, by Israel's envoy to the Vatican. And The Chief Rabbinate of Israel. And France's Europe Minister. And the German Chancellor. So he exercised his power as God's representative on Earth and demanded Williamson publicly recant his views. Which Williamson still hasn't done.

Another demonstration of the Pope's ironclad morality and certitude of purpose came shortly thereafter when he deftly linked saving the environment with not-being-anything-but-heterosexual in the beautiful phrase "human ecology". In his end-of-year speech to senior Vatican staff the Pope denounced gender theory as likely to cause the destruction of the human race, and declared lifelong wedlock between a man and a woman "the sacrament of creation". Fairly typical stuff - but here again the liberals spring into action, harping on about rights and oppression and all the rest of it. A lesser Pope would've responded with "**** you, I'm the Pope, I've got the hotline to God" and moved on - but not Benedict! No, he realises that would be inappropriate for today's world and has his staff declare the liberals to have misunderstood - "He was speaking more generally about gender theories which overlook the fundamental difference in creation between men and women" apparently.

What people forget about moral guardians like Pope Benedict XVI is that they hold back the floodwater of corruption. They stand, seemingly alone, reinforcing the dam against the tide. Every hundred years or so they move the dam back a bit to make it slightly easier but the new position is just as valid and holy as the last.

Another admirable aspect of Benedict is his refusal to conform to the modern obsession with vanity. In these days where every public figure has fashion advisors and makeup artists to have them present a flawless image, Benedict's purity again shines through by always looking like the Emperor out of Star Wars. Or an evil old Nazi.

God bless him!

have we reached the future yet?

I watched "2001: A Space Odyssey" tonight, for the first time in years. I think it's a great piece of cinema, but also it's a wonderful insight into the optimism of the 60s - it seems laughable now that at the beginning of the space race people genuinely believed we'd have both space travel and artificial intelligence "sorted" inside forty years.

We don't really have that promise-of-technology excitement any more, and that's a shame. While the expectations of the 60s were somewhat unrealistic, science and technology do enrich our lives - but I think perhaps we take them for granted. The film made me think about the cool stuff 60s sci-fi promised, like robots and hovercars, and wonder that if the year 2001 didn't bring superintelligent computers or artificial gravity, what did it bring? Put another way, what technology does exist today that makes me think "that's the future - right there"?

So far I've only thought of two examples. The first is Google Earth, which I sat and played with for hours when it launched. I learned more about the geography of our planet in that one night than I ever did at school. It made the world seem.. not small exactly but.. somehow closer together. I just wish it were realtime! The second is the iPhone - simply because it is the first real demonstration of mobile internet. The Internet is the sum of all human knowledge (leaving porn and nazi forums to one side for a moment) and having it available at all times, in all places, I think will make a great difference to society. Remember - there was a time back in the dark ages where you had to go home or use a phone box to make a phone call, and I think our static use of the Internet will soon be remembered the same way.

I'm sure there must be many more. Any suggestions?

Mixed messages at the BBC

Today the BBC are running this story (how awful!) and this story (how cute!)

(slightly related: I notice in the first article Iain Duncan-Smith is using the tabloid's favourite phrase "broken Britain". Nice to see he's still in touch with ordinary folk. The poisonous little twerp.)

Why Reading Matters (or, Why Susan Greenfield Doesn't)

Tonight's iPlayer-based dinner entertainment was "Why Reading Matters", a documentary on BBC Four. This is what the Beeb had to say about it:

"Science writer Rita Carter tells the story of how modern neuroscience has revealed that reading, something most of us take for granted, unlocks remarkable powers. Carter explains how the classic novel Wuthering Heights allows us to step inside other minds and understand the world from different points of view, and she wonders whether the new digital revolution could threaten the values of classic reading."

Eek.. minor alarm bells. No, don't panic, it can't be that bad, I thought. This is the BBC after all, and only this morning I was singing their praises regarding the high quality of their documentaries. Still, I have a defence mechanism picked up from years of reading the Metro over people's shoulders - if I come across a sentence that sounds like it wouldn't be out of place in the Daily Mail, the Bullshit Detector gets turned up to maximum. I was on high alert for balderdash.

The needle started to waggle two minutes in: ".. the Internet, blogs, and videogames - it's a digital revolution that some think challenges the old world of reading". Precisely how do the Internet (undoubtedly meaning the web, which is mainly text) and blogs (entirely text) threaten reading? This was beginning to confirm my suspicions - that the "controversy" had been made up to try and make the programme more interesting. But I stuck with it - sensationalism to hook the idiot viewer at the beginning, I'm sure they can back it up, I'll give them a chance.

So... nearly 50 minutes later and I realise there's been no mention of the Internet yet. It's been vaguely interesting - quite lightweight; I question the value of some of the "research" mentioned, but so far so not-so-bad. 49 minutes in and we're celebrating how reading in the UK still seems as popular as ever - moreso even (quoting stats from 2005). Hurrah for reading! Ah but hang on, the tone's changed: ".. but since the beginning of the 21st century, the spectacular rise of digital technologies like the Internet and videogames have brought a fresh wave of fears in their wake". Had the 21st century not started by 2005? Am I missing something here? Perhaps I'm being too picky. Carry on, science writer Rita Carter. "In the United States - exposed to digital media for longer - " er, no, gonna have to stop you there. In the words of wikipedia, "[citation needed]". In what way has the USA been "exposed to digital media for longer"? That's just silly.

51 minutes in and we are introduced to Baroness Susan Greenfield, Director of The Royal Institution - "an outspoken critic of digital media". We get a minute or so of her saying how good books are - fair enough, nothing to disagree with here. Then our voiceover says "there's one aspect of the digital revolution that especially troubles Professor Greenfield - videogames". Ahhh, now I get it. This is really just about games, but for some reason you felt the need to say it was about "the Internet, blogs, and videogames". Which became "the Internet and videogames". Which has now become "videogames". Perhaps in the closing minutes it will become "Grand Theft Auto" in which case I won't mind after all.. let's see..

Greenfield again: ".. videogames .. emphasise the thrill .. as you win the princess or slay the dragon ..".

Now. It's quite difficult for me to express just how utterly, inanely stupid that kind of statement sounds to me. Perhaps this will help:

Me: "Science is evil because scientists spend all their time putting shampoo in rabbits' eyes!"

Scientist: "We don't really do that."

Me: "You do! I saw it in a picture once. At least I think I did. About 6 years ago. In the Daily Mail."

Scientist: "Well that's not a very accurate view-"

Me: "BUNNY KILLER!"

I may have got carried away at the end there. But my point remains! To claim all computer games are about winning princesses or slaying dragons is to demonstrate that you haven't seen a computer game, possibly ever. And therefore you really don't have the right to comment. But anyway, we're nearly at the end, it can't get worse, surely?

Our voiceover tells us we've gone to "Gamebase in Piccadilly" which is apparently where gamers go to.. well, play games it would seem. Carter appears at this point to ask probing questions of the various gamers. Gamer #1 is playing some kind of WWII-themed first-person shooter. Carter asks "what's the aim of this game?". Gamer #1: "Just to kill people basically".

Well frankly I give up. If the people I'm trying to defend are going to say things so blatantly stupid, what's the point. *sigh*

Another gamer is asked "do you think its an either/or thing? That you either play videogames or you read books?". As dimwitted as the first gamer he agrees wholeheartedly. "Why do you think that is?". "Cos it's easier to just play a game isn't it?".

Well sorry to ruin the stereotype but I'm a gamer who loves reading. And in fact, when I think of all my gaming friends, I realise that every one of them is a big reader too.

Thankfully Carter admits that her "vox pops" can't represent the majority, and accepts that a lot of online games have a huge cooperative element to them. But unfortunately she then lets Greenfield speak again:

"When you rescue the princess [oh CHRIST this again] you don't care about the princess, the princess is meaningless [..] whereas when you're reading a book you do care, that's why you're reading the book.."

A lot of games require no empathy, I would agree with that. Certainly a lack of engaging story in games is something I constantly lament and hope to have some part in changing, but to suggest that is true of all games is as stupid as suggesting the opposite is true of all books - nobody reads Tom Clancy because of the moving interactions between the characters, people read Tom Clancy because they like guns. This can be applied to a large number of books, I'd suggest almost anything advertised in a train station for instance (more on that in a later blog post!).

Thankfully the programme finished with an interview with Naomi Alderman who rather neatly crosses the divide by being a novelist and a game designer.

I looked up "Susan Greenfield" - The Times and The Independent have both run articles about her theory that computer games will create "a generation of children becoming emotionally stunted, inarticulate adult hedonists with tiny attention spans, who can't differentiate between blasting away aliens on screen and happy-slapping grannies". I couldn't help noticing that all the way through both articles she repeatedly advertised her new book, but never once backed up her theory with scientific evidence. And then, oh the irony, I found a BBC article which was basically an advert for her new DS brain-training-alike game. The last site I found listed a few reactions to her book (in which she promised to explain exactly how games were rotting children's minds) which made me feel somewhat less infuriated:

"Greenfield's neural account of personal identity is, despite her claims, profoundly reductive, if not incoherent. As such, it removes the very premise upon which her book is based: that technological advance poses a unique threat to personal identity." - Raymond Tallis, writing in the Times

"The neuroscience never marries up with the complaint, just impressively but speciously adorns it. Which is why Greenfield's speculations, interesting as they are, don't get much further than Tunbridge Wells whimsy." - Jane O'Grady, writing in the Guardian

Golden Circle and Blue Lagoon

On Monday we hired a car to do the "Golden Circle" tour - we were going to go with a tour company but Helgi and Paul insisted it would be cheaper and easier to drive ourselves. The car didn't come with satnav, so I appointed George the cuddly puffin to do the job instead. I'd bought George the day before to assuage my guilt (see earlier post!).

The Golden Circle tour consists of four sites relatively close together: Geysir, the Gullfoss waterfall, Þingvellir, a national park containing the site of the oldest parliament in the world, and Skálholt, one of the oldest Christian sites in Iceland.

Geysir marked the beginning of what were to be a fairly surreal couple of days. The Haukadalur valley in which Geysir is situated features a field full of holes pouring steam, man-sized pools of boiling water, and rings of expectant tourists clustered around larger stone pools waiting to say "blimey" in their native tongue as they get soaked through by rather pleasantly warm towers of water. All of the major geysers are named - Strokkur is a regular chap, belching wetly every six or seven minutes, but the great Geysir only graced us with one eruption, which none of us managed to get on film. All of the geysers confirmed our egg-sulphur theory however, as the whole place had a familiar whiff of rotten eggs to it.

Leaving Haukadalur valley we drove on to Hvítárgljúfur canyon, where the Gullfoss waterfall was ready to boggle our braincells with terror. The terror started some time before reaching the waterfall, when I stepped onto the wooden walkway to the visitor centre and found it immensely slippery. "Jeezaforfucksakes" exclaimed and flailing dances performed we all wandered gingerly down the hillside. At the bottom of the hilariously iced-up wooden steps we reached the path that followed the edge of the top of the canyon, trailing slightly upward around to the peak of the waterfall itself. To describe this path as "a bit icy" would be akin to describing a pavement as "a bit concretey" - the entire thing was one long (and rather cambered) strip of ice. At the peak there was a safety rope, which reminded me of previous conversations about Icelandic health and safety, because it was lying on the ground in the main. Of course that means nothing gets in the way of the photos :)

Þingvellir is an immensely peaceful place. We didn't see a lot of it as it's not the best time of year to go - most of the wildlife has done the sensible thing and buggered off for the Winter. But the Almannagjá ravine was still very impressive. It leads to the site where the Alþingi (Icelandic parliament) convened, from 930 AD. What I found most interesting is that the parliament convened there annually right up until the end of the 18th century. The view from the cliff above the ravine is beautiful - huge plains broken by small streams and the occasional tiny lake stretching out to the horizon, bounded by shining snow-speckled mountains. The plains are actually much more rugged close up - the land is broken quite a lot by fissures and caves because the whole area is right on the join between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates.

Tuesday morning saw another early rise - we were due to do the only thing we booked in Iceland before leaving the UK: our trip to the Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon is an artificial outdoor pool created by filling a large natural gully through volcanic rock with waste water from the geothermal power plant next door. The result is a pool of water coloured blue from the minerals in the rocks, at a temperature of 37-39 degrees celsius. It steams immensely, and the steam is carried by the wind, so you can't see further than about 25m - you certainly can't ever see one side from the other. There is a restaurant in the building where we had lunch - including a white chocolate Skyr mousse, yum yum. The restaurant is called "Lava" because two of it's walls are carved out of the volcanic rock. The other two were almost entirely glass, looking out onto the lagoon. The architecture and lighting left me with the distinct impression we were guests of some archenemy of James Bond.. there was a pretty neat "supervillain's volcano hideaway" vibe to the whole place. I had an hour-long massage while I was there too, which was very nice. I was impressed (and slightly disturbed) when the masseur said, ten minutes in, "You work in IT, right?". I said "Yeah, but what specifically?". He didn't even pause - "Games". Masseur and psychic, clever stuff. We chatted quite a lot; by bizarre coincidence in his previous job as a carpenter he helped build CCP's studio in Reykjavik. Small world..

local delicacies

Skyr is tasty. I read about it in some touristy leaflet this morning, where it was recommended for children, old people, bodybuilders, dieters, and also as relief for sunburn (presumably you rub it on your skin for that). I had a Skyr Brulee for dessert tonight in a restaurant called "Thrir Frakkar", which means "Three Frenchmen" or "Three Trenchcoats" depending on how you interpret it. Anyway, our new friends Paul and Helgi took us there tonight after drinks in the Penthouse.

I've waffled about that to lead up to something that might shock some of you. Those of you of a nervous/'awwwww' disposition, make sure you're sitting comfortably.


For main course I had whale.


And for starter.. I had..


puffin.




Now I didn't make the decision lightly. My thinking was that chickens, which are pretty ugly, don't taste of much. Ducks on the other hand are quite cute - and taste yummy. So.. puffins? They're extra cuddly - so they must taste fantastic, right? Well, kinda. To be honest it was difficult to tell - the meat was heavily smoked so not a lot of flavour got through. The meat is very red though, not remotely like chicken or duck.

Whale, Helgi assured us, was not remotely fishy - and he was right, it tasted like an incredibly flavoursome beef steak to me. Whale I'd eat again (if I didn't think it so controversial) but puffin I can leave. I'll leave them to posing for photographers with gobfulls of fish.

Hallgrímskirkja is ugly

I'm sorry, people of Reykjavik, but it is. You've made a valiant attempt to disguise the fact by a) making sure all tourist leaflet photos of it are taken from a great distance and b) covering half of it with scaffolding, but you haven't fooled me.

It's "Hallgrim's Church" in English - it dates from 1945, and it looks like a concrete space rocket.

Now that I've got that off my chest, I'll change the subject.

On New Year's Eve we met a lot of people. Some were Icelandic, some were British, one was Venezuelan, one was cross-eyed with booze but knew the "correct" way to kill a duck ("and that's what we should do to the bankers!"), and all were marvellous fun. Two who we got on with particularly well were a couple called Paul and Helgi, who live in London, but were over visiting Helgi's family for New Year. When they went home around 1am we told them it would be nice to see them again, maybe go out for a meal, and that we were in the penthouse for the rest of our stay (but of course!) and they agreed, but no numbers were exchanged so we didn't expect we'd see them again. So it was great to have them knock on the door this morning! Armed with cups of tea we sat around various maps, and they showed us all the best places to visit - and were adamant a hire car would work out cheaper than a tour bus.

The weather forecast isn't great so we're gonna stay in Reykjavik for a day or two yet. The flea market is open tomorrow, which should be fun, and in the evening we're having dinner and drinks with Paul and Helgi. Worryingly one of the places Helgi mentioned that he liked was one of the first restaurants we'd walked past, and immediately written off as far too expensive (~£35 for a fairly basic main course), so it'll be interesting to see where they've decided upon.

Interesting fact I looked up today: the population of Iceland is around 320,000. The population of Manchester (central, not greater) is slightly less than 460,000.

Penthouses, eggs, and Icelandic TV

We moved up to the penthouse apartment on New Year's Day. It's a bit nice - I'd post a picture but normal USB cables don't fit my camera unfortunately. The guys running the hotel told us they used to live up here until they sold the hotel just before the recession (good timing!).

The water in the shower smells hugely of eggs - we've decided it must be sulphur.. we're blaming volcanic activity. On the bus from the airport we noticed several plumes of steam in the distance which appeared to be coming straight out of the ground. Quite a surreal sight really.. adds to the general feeling I have about Iceland - that it's the last outpost of civilisation before you fall off the world. The darkness here is so total.. no light pollution I suppose. It makes for fantastic views - looking out across the bay from the jacuzzi last night I saw the nearby buildings lit up perfectly, then just nothing beyond. Tremendously geeky reference: it looks like the skybox isn't rendering :)

We got up around 9am this morning - it was as dark outside as it was when we went to bed at 1am of course. Interestingly when Russell turned on the TV there was only a testcard to be found. I'm beginning to think people here are offset by a few hours to get up with the sun at 12 - the road outside was still full of people at 1am, but there was barely a soul at 9..

To the whores of Italy!

New Year's Eve began with us getting the bus out to the Kringlan shopping centre to buy food for the week. Icelandic supermarket highlights: all manner of "Lazy Town"-branded fruit products, tens of types of flavoured butter (garlic, herbs, tomato etc.), and more types of gouda than I could count (but no cheddar! b*stards!).

Of course along the way we encountered a lot more embarrassingly good English-as-a-second-language speakers - the woman in the shop who told us where the bus stop was (clueless bloody tourists), the exceptionally friendly woman at the bus stop who, unprompted, told us which bus to get and to have exact change, and various members of staff at the supermarket who recognised all of our requests except "pancetta". To be fair our description of it consisted purely of the words "pig" and "carbonara".

In the evening, after dinner and a few rounds of fuzzy duck with some wankered-on-gin cockney couples we met in the jacuzzi, we wandered into town to see how the night's preparations were getting on. There were fairly regular fireworks going off every couple of minutes, seemingly all from family homes. We saw several bonfires across the bay but couldn't find the one alleged to be nearby (we surmised later we'd somehow walked round it several times without seeing it - pesky buildings getting in the way).

Eventually we made our way back to the apartment building and the party the owners were throwing in the lobby. After much champagne and chat we wandered up to the roof to watch the fireworks. From there we had a panoramic view of the city, all of which was alight with explosions. In every direction there was pyromania. It felt rather like everyone in Reykjavik was trying to outdo everyone else - the major fireworks started at 23:30 (because that's when the comedy revue on TV finishes, apparently - and out of interest last year's audience figures showed 96% of Icelanders watched it. Eat your heart out Angus Deayton) and remained constant until 00:30. Tourist jaws remained dropped throughout, but some of the Icelanders seemed a little ambivalent - enjoying themselves but somehow a little disappointed. One said "you can tell there's a recession on". If only all recessions could be so spectacular!

On a related note I had an interesting chat with one Icelander, who'd said I might be "surprised" by the roof itself - because there was no guard rail. Walk too far and you'll fall off. So don't walk too far. Similarly the stairs up to the roof go past the (completely unguarded) lift control mechanism. We're talking big grindy gears at face height. The chap I was talking to (who'd spent many years living in England) suggested Iceland just has a different attitude towards health and safety - he pointed out the Gulfoss waterfall had no guard rail either until a tourist fell to his death about 5 years ago. Something to bear in mind when we visit next week!

As the fireworks slowed, and the cold started to bite, people gradually started making their champagne-soaked way past the grindy-geared lift back down the stairs to the lobby. Russell, Mikey and myself decided to stay out - the fireworks were still ludicrously impressive by our standards. We wandered around the roof and found a very drunk Norwegian couple. The husband mainly stood in the background, laughing at his wife, who was very loud and very entertaining. We were shortly joined by an Icelander who kept lighting flares in his mouth, which was an interesting sight. There was much cheers-ing - I enquired what the Icelandic for "happy new year" was and quickly regretted it, so we settled on "skál" ("cheers", in case you hadn't worked it out - oh, and it's pronounced kind of like "scowl"). Various toasts were proposed by the Norwegian woman - to the people of Iceland, to the people of England, to Barack Obama. For some reason at this point the Icelander decided to recount a tale about losing his virginity at the age of fifteen to an Italian whore. I raised my glass: "To the whores of Italy!".

"Skál!"