Buzz! Off

Great! It’s Christmas again. There’s nothing quite like spending quality time with family and friends to forget about the woes and realities of the real world (kicking George Osborne in the shins can wait to the New Year) whilst tucking into shit loads of food and booze. This year is the little man’s first Christmas and whilst I can’t wait to see him open all his presents (sadly Star Wars Lego is not suitable for a one-year old) there are other Christmas matters that need attending to that are of far greater importance. Like revenge…

Let me explain. For the last few years Christmas has been spent round the parents-in-law. Father-in-law provides the real Ale, which makes the piss-water of lager ever more obvious; mother-in-law cooks a mean turkey to keep us all plump and fat; and the remainder of the family are left to watch the Christmas Dr Who special and to play games during the Queen’s speech. Usually, the gaming involves the well-known mechanisms of Trivial Pursuit and Pictionary, but two years ago, whilst browsing this place I had a serious moment of genius:

http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/playstation-3-game/buzz-quiz-world-ps3/

I’ve got a PS3; Buzz! could be a winner in bringing about extra-curricular family joy and festive cheer to all. And it did. With four players knocking heads together in deadly quizzical combat it brought forth frenzied button mashing, gamesmanship and the odd bit of friendly banter. The endeavour was a hugely entertaining success. Mostly because I was freaking untouchable. No one could get close my fastest finger first. Not even my brother who, truth be told, is a bit of a gaming savant, has defeated me on Buzz! in the intervening period as yet (which I hope still seriously pisses him off). My avatar of the Dark Lord ruled supreme. Jason Donovan continually bowed down and worshipped my amazing skills. Everything was right with the world.

Until the day it happened. I was finally defeated on Buzz! last Christmas by my sister-in-law, who continually likes to remind me of the fact by posting photos of my defeat on Facebook! This would be okay if the Chrimbo tree in the photo didn’t look like it was laughing at me or if my conqueror had defeated me with any kind of discernable talent. The final round, however, consisted entirely of button bashing on sis-in-law’s part in the hope of attaining the right answer as the platforms our avatars were standing on slowly fell towards a bottomless pit of doom and defeat. Except sis-in-law’s platform was gradually starting to go upwards with every answer she managed to correctly ascertain before the other contestants, whilst mine continued to plummet. What in the blue hell? This non-tactic of frantically bashing the buzzer to get the answer right was working. Working, dammit! And before I could accidentally trip over and press the reset button, sis had been victorious. Endless mugging for the rest of the year has since followed.

So, this period of festive cheer is time for revenge and for the status quo to be re-established, as I magnificently reclaim my Buzz! throne. This year I won’t be distracted by the late arrival of the little tinker (due Christmas Eve my arse) and the enforced sobriety, which obviously provided an advantage in your derisory victory. The blue touch paper is lit. The gauntlet has been thrown down. I’ll bring the PS3 and a big bag of awesome; sis, you just attempt to bring it. Sadly, all you’ll be able to do is watch on forlornly as your wretched avatar is crushed into a gormless pulp as my superior quiz skills and answer response outwit your inferior button bashing.  

Re-match?

Bear necessities...

Everyone had a favourite cuddly when they were a tinker. Don’t attempt to deny it you soulless goon! The typical teddy bear (or close alternative) was way better than an invisible friend – mostly because they actually existed and didn’t talk back – and were much easier to take to bed and snuggle up to than the stabbing plastic of the Millennium Falcon. My own personal bear was actually a dog cuddly with big floppy ears, which had a top layer of fur you could unzip and remove to reveal a garish pink and black horizontal striped pyjama number underneath. Despite his colour-blindness and piss-poor taste in bed-wear, he was an exceptional listener (teddy bears have to be when you’re a highly demanding attention-seeking niblet) and pretty much went everywhere with me. I can’t remember that damn dog’s name for shit (‘Poppy’ suggested my hippocampus a minute ago – which can’t possibly be true seeing as I’m a gruff man, RAHR!) but just like all of you and your own bear of choice, he was my buddy, my snugly and, most importantly, my protector.

Yes, protector. It’s amazing how, as grown-ups, we quickly forget about all the freaking monsters under the bed, the jism monkeys in the closet and the skunk pussies hanging around outside the bedroom window waiting to pounce on the easily terrified child. When our irritable little ones are having the night terrors or the nap-time creeps we like to think we’re saving the day once we enter their bedroom to give them a big hug; but the truth is bear has already skull fucked the dribbling snot-creature that was looking to feast on the tinker’s soul whilst we were all busy watching The Only Way Is Essex. Don’t deny it. You love The Only Way Is Essex! With his protector job done, bear simply returns to his role of snugly, waiting for the next foul beast to attempt to encroach on his best friend’s room. Mostly so he can knee-cap the muddy-funster…

And for this he gets no gratitude from the ignorant parents (except when it’s plainly obvious that an unstitched arm or a loose eye from the previous nights near death encounter at the hands of an incredibly powerful Wixard requires Mum’s handy needlework skills). He needs not that. The warm hug of his padawan everyday, for the short-time he is required (before being put in storage), is enough to justify any and all night time heroics. My boy has had his own little blue bear now for a fair while, and he loves that bear to bits. I’m sure the feeling is mutual for bear (but he refuses to speak to me – git). So, if any monsters are out there reading, little blue is waiting for you to try it on. Just don’t be surprised when he punches you in the kidney, knees you in the nuts and gouges out your eyes with a knitting needle in protecting all that is dear to him. Teddy bears rock. You have been warned!

There’s a film in that picture somewhere. Perhaps we could call it Toy Story or Monsters Inc? Sort it out Pixar! 

Chuggington Corner!

Chuggers tend to remind me of a sequence from much loved eighties flick The Monster Squad. The Wolfman makes a sudden appearance and seems to have one of the squad cornered (the fat kid, as far as I can recall, who was supposedly this flicks Chunk from The Goonies). The rest of the gang shout for him to kick the Wolfman in the nuts. Fat kid replies the Wolfman hasn’t got any nuts. They all shout out kick him in the nuts anyway (hmm, I don’t recall The Monster Squad being so pantomime) to which fat kid lands his big square foot square between where Wolfy’s plums should be. The Wolfman howls in pain allowing fat kid to make his escape.

Dodging charity muggers involves a somewhat similar gambit. Most don’t have nuts (being female) and success in avoiding their cornering tactics remains reliant on your ability to metaphorically kick their idealistic, transparent rhetoric square in the balls by breezily walking past them with little concern for their plight. Success is usually met with their howls of derision and a look that’s supposed to devour your soul as you continue unmoved down the street. Look, I said somewhat similar to The Monster Squad…

Chugging is a rather pointless endeavour. Not only does it miss the whole point around the concept of charity (giving voluntarily), it also gives chuggers a misplaced sense of self-righteousness. Just because you’ve been given a cue-card to base your preachy sermon around does not give you the right to look down upon everyone else as utter bastards. Perhaps peeps don’t have the time or inclination to talk to you about the charity you’re representing. Some may, y’know, already be particularly generous making various donations to other charitable organisations. Others, as is their prerogative, simply might not care. One thing’s for sure, cold calling on the street is more likely to lead to people giving the charity you’re working for a much wider berth in the future. Typically because chuggers are smug, charmless, insufferable, irritating tits…

Equally annoying are other methods of extraction employed by more shameful charities to help kick your guilt reflex into action. It reminds me of a time, as a piss poor student, where I was donating a fiver a month to the NSPCC from my much needed student ‘beer fund’ loan. A couple of months into providing this regular donation I received what was essentially a begging letter, clouded by emotive language and pictures, asking for a more significant contribution. I cancelled my Direct Debit immediately. The NSPCC have been struck off the list ever since, no matter their worthy agenda. In comparison I’ve never seen a chugger representing or received a contrived begging letter from the MS Society. Perhaps this is why my donation shifted to an organisation that doesn’t harangue those making a regular contribution – they’re actually grateful for the fact people are willing to give voluntarily without coercion.

And that’s what charity is about. Giving to a cause that’s meaningful to you in someway because, sadly, the average person on the street doesn’t have magic pockets stuffed with more money than they know what to do with. We can only give so much too so few. So, my annoying chugger friends, particularly the ones outside the Sainsburys and Boots opposite Holborn station (also rather inconveniently right next to my office), please give up and fuck off. You’re in the West End where everyone’s rather liberal and cool anyway, and likely already give to worthy causes. You’re preaching to people that sympathise but think your methods suck big hairy donkey balls. Let us decide for ourselves and give back the meaning of the word ‘charity’. Otherwise, we’ll start kicking you in the nuts for real…

Fulham's lucky mascot!

One of the benefits of having a work mate who’s a season ticket holder at Fulham is that he can often get cheap seats for Europa Cup fixtures. Because seriously, who in their right mind wants to be out watching crap football on a dreary, cold Thursday night? Well, me for one thing. Since the arrival of the little man I don’t get out as much and when I do it needs to be 1) when he’s in bed and 2) on the cheap, otherwise I’ll feel a little bad for cutting into my boy’s future Lego fund to sponsor my beer intake. Ten pound a ticket is obviously too good an opportunity to turn down, so last Thursday night I spent the evening in the company of Bobby Zamora, Andy Johnson, Danny Murphy, Clint Dempsey and John Arne-Risse (nice to see a couple of Liverpool legends there)…

This is not the first time I’ve been to the Cottage. I was fortunate enough that said mate asked if I wanted to attend a few games a couple of seasons ago when Fulham marched to the final of the Europa Cup, only to miss out on lifting the trophy due to a Diego Forlan inspired Atletico Madrid. I missed the final (as it was in Hamburg) but did frequent the three preceding matches against SV Hamburg, Wolfsburg and, luckily, the unforgettable knock out encounter against Juventus. It’s not often you get to see a World Cup winning captain being completely bullied and out muscled by a previously much maligned striker. It’s also rarer to see such an extraordinary come back. The atmosphere in Fulham after that game was electric. Conveniently, it had occurred shortly after Chelsea had been knocked out of Big Cup, so the chants of ‘there’s only one team in Fulham’ were even more rousing that night. I don’t think anyone could quite believe what had happened!

Of course, Clint Dempsey's winner looks awesome, but we all know the reality that it was really a rather wanky cross...

Anyway, Wisla Krakow are no Juventus, and as Thursday’s match was still in the group stages of the competition there was not as much riding on the game. Any celebration was likely to be muted. From Fulham’s perspective of course; every Pole in South West London that turned up for the game (all of them then) would probably disagree with that assessment. The normally sedate seated Putney End, normally filled with part-time supporters (such as myself), was instead a sea of standing Krakow fans singing, chanting and thoroughly enjoying themselves. Most Fulham fans looked on bemused (or cowered depending on the root of their xenophobia) but it seemed to charge the players into frenzied activity. Before you could say “fuck me, woeful defending” it was 1-1 inside five minutes. Then Andy Johnson scored an absolute peach – a volley from a corner with the goal slightly behind him. It’s always nice to be sitting directly behind the net when a fantastic strike like that hits the back of the net. And slowly Fulham cruised to another 4-1 victory (although even that didn’t manage to quite pierce the noise and joviality of the Krakow fans). Well worth the tenner!

Anyway, the point of this post: that’s four in four. Four UEFA… sorry, Europa Cup jaunts to Craven Cottage, four pretty outstanding victories. Not a tedious game in sight, goals galore and whilst nice Uncle Roy has evolved into Kojak, the same approach to playing good passing football with the occasional hoof up to Zamora remains Fulham’s bread and butter. So I’ve been declared by my work mate and his fellow season-ticket chums as a lucky mascot. Based on my current attendance to win ratio, Fulham should win the Europa Cup this season. So, if you want to see a decent game on the cheap on a wet mid-week evening in south west London, against quality opposition, where an upset is likely, I heartily recommend visiting Craven Cottage. It’s the better option to watching the forlorn figure of Fernando Torres trudge around Stamford Bridge, miss another sitter, look up to the sky and ask where it’s all gone wrong. How much do you have to pay for that shit?

Sign me up Al-Fayed and European domination is yours... I'm lucky like that!

Stand back – I’m going to try science!

Did anyone else catch Stephen Hawking's ‘Brave New World’ on Monday? It’s the follow up to his British Genius’ programme from last year, which looked at the scientific endeavours of a host of clever bastards, and not just the well known ones either, that have helped make the world what it is today. No, not a cesspit of depravity, disorder and chaos – there is no science in banking and economics – but a world where pre-term babies have an infinitely better chance of survival than they did 30 years ago and with less chance of suffering associated developmental illnesses to boot. And when non-polluting cars driven by perpetual motion machines finally arrive it will mean that said children won’t then be killed off by the cancer-inducing smog produced by the combustion engine. Science – making us more awesome, one slow step at a time!

That’s kind of the concept with Brave New World. Looking at present scientific endeavours and unravelling their future potential benefit to humanity. Whilst it’s not quite as interesting as some of the bonkers science explored by renowned entrepreneur Cave Johnson in Portal 2 – that’s how they need to re-boot Big Brother; get the moronic participants to complete in some of his insane test chambers – it does feature some pretty remarkable stuff. A bit like Tomorrow’s World then, just much less shit, as the science in Brave New World is qualified by the testimonies of proper scientists like Hawkins, not Philipa Forrester.  

Anyway, it’s currently on 4OD at the moment and you really need to watch the following from the 32 minute mark and marvel at the mechanical legs that are helping people paralysed from the waist down to walk again.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/brave-new-world-with-stephen-hawking/4od

I’m not thoroughly versed in the science behind it, but I think it has something to do with the robotics picking up the signal from the brain that can no longer reach the individuals legs and the mechanics carrying out the brain’s instructions on their behalf. Pretty incredible, huh? It also seems to have beneficial additional effects – just the process of being able to stand upright brings pain relief from the compression of the spine when constantly sitting in a wheelchair. It just seems like an incredible piece of hardware. No evasive surgery required, just strap on a pair of these bad boys and all of a sudden mobility has been restored to those it had been taken from.

Okay, so the first girl shown is not completely versed in the use of these robo-legs (to be fair she’s only been using them for a couple of months), but the second girl featured powers through and whilst full mobility is not completely restored, it still remains an incredible feat of science. The final bonus is that the drive of this motion is all generated by the mechanics of the device, meaning the individual using them provides no effort to generate movement and, consequently, suffers no fatigue from their use. Utterly remarkable! And then they show a reel of what these things can do when utilised by the able-bodied. They’re like a more compact version of the power-loaders from Aliens. You can pick up 200lbs with next to no effort. It’s probably one of the single coolest things I’ve ever seen. Why? Because they’re like the freaking power-loaders from Aliens!!

I just hope it’s not a hoax - the American professor narrating and the footage shown do make it seem like one of those inexplicable adverts for a gardening gadget at only £49.99 that subsequently doesn’t work. But if Hawking's has put his name against it, well, this must be the future. Just a shame it won’t last though. If you watch the segment before the robotic legs you have baby faced robot AIs being taught simple tricks by scientists and learning from them with remarkable ease. The guy leading the programme proclaims that in 20 years time every household will have such robots helping with the household chores. Just in time for 2027 and judgement day. I hope the company he works for is not Cyberdyne Systems. Science, so great it has the potential to heal and destroy the world in the blink of an eye. Well, you’ve got to take the rough with the smooth, I suppose…

Decisions, decisions...

If we’ve learned anything from the current Conservative Party conference it’s that Theresa May is an idiot, their political doctrine is pandering to the more vocal right-wing loons in the party and foreigners and the poor are to blame for many of the things going wrong in the country, not the parties cack-handed ability to put their lie… sorry, words into appropriate policy. The banks, meanwhile, are back to burning fivers for chuckles, their moral compass beset somewhat by the lure of making shitloads more money at the expense of their customers. Of course, they’re completely not to blame, at all, for the economic fiasco of recent times either and anyone that says otherwise must be a Nazi. All of which makes being a public servant a right joy at the moment!

Not only do you have to contend with tools like Michael Gove making regular contradictory statements and basing his educational policy on ideology rather than the sound, credible research and data put in front of him, but you also have to suffer a pay freeze (where the bonus culture of banks has not been culled) and a large number of vacancies not being filled (meaning there’s much more work that needs doing with fewer hands). Plus, you invariably have smug-faced posho-twat Cameron regularly beam that we would not be in this mess if it wasn’t for public servants. Sigh! These things are cyclical. Give it another 10 years and when the local authorities are shown to be rather inept, there’s a lack of consistent data on things of the day that are important and need measuring and England has turned into a ghetto infested dump then they will realise their folly at turfing out civil servants and central government.

Still, I do get 30 days holiday plus an extra two-and-a-half bank holidays a year, flexible working hours (including working from home), subsidised gym membership and many other benefits from being a civil servant to make up for the considerable woe. This includes something called an instant recognition voucher. Do a good piece of work, be it simply adding code to an SQL process that makes retrieving data a good deal more efficient and anyone in the organisation can nominate you for a voucher. It’s like an instant bonus; £50 to spend at the likes of Amazon, John Lewis, Sainsburys, etc. Okay, so it’s not a lump sum of three grand in your pocket, but beggars can’t really be choosers.

Anyway, I’ve recently received a voucher – for being awesome no less – but I’m in a quandary about what to purchase with it. It will be a PC or PS3 game of course, as having children is expensive and these vouchers are now the only way to fund my gaming habit. But the question is what game? Consider the titles that have either just been released or will be released in the next month or so:

·        Deus Ex 3 – sequel to one of the most outstanding first-person shooters ever crafted, more so because of its combination with elements of role-play and an awesome plot. However, the second game in the series was shite, so caution required.

·        FIFA 2012 – Electronic Arts yearly franchise update. £50 for some new gloss but few changes under the surface. That’s how EA roll. Bastards.

·        Batman: Arkham City – Sequel to the best game of 2009. Advertised to death and potential spoilers revealed in the huge number of trailers available, but my word it does look fantastic. So long as they haven’t decided to fix the gameplay (which was not broken) this should be made of win.

·        Uncharted 3 – Sequel to the second best game of 2009 sees Indiana Jon… sorry, Nathan Drake looking for more treasure whilst undertaking dare-devil climbing antics and shooting shitloads of bad guys in bonkers plot machinations. Should rock the monkey!

·        Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Fifth game in the Morrowind series and sequel to Oblivion which was just vast. Need I say more?

That’s some supposedly top quality shit there all being primed for the Christmas schedule. I want all of them (who wouldn’t) but balls if I can choose between them. So, I’ve set up a poll to help me in this decision making process. Just pop over to the right, select the game you think I should get and in a few days I’ll order or pre-order the winner from Amazon. Help me Obi-Wan, you’re my only hope!