The player of games

Games are great.

Seriously, games can be fantastically good fun, intelligent, clever, witty and educational.

Stop looking at me like that. I'm on the level. I know that there is this misconception among a certain sub-section of society that games are for children or geeks and that there is something wrong with a man in his thirties still playing about with "toys".

Nothing could be further from the truth, and in fact this kind of thinking just highlights an inbuilt prejudice and lack of an open mind. More seriously there are those that lay evils of the modern world squarely at the feet of "video" games, the latest in a long line of hand-washing, responsibility-avoiding, blame-throwing nonsense that has always been with us.
The same mindset that hated rock and roll in the fifties, freedom of expression in the sixties, heavy metal in the seventies and Video "nasties" in the eighties is slow to react, but diligent in its total disregard for the truth.
So we see the same old lack of personal responsibility, again and again: Little Jimmy wasn't out joy-riding because some evil game designer put the idea in his head, life just isn't as simple as that. Anyone who takes their cues from an exaggerated and fictional game has deeper problems than being susceptible to suggestion. If you can't blame Jimmy himself then I suggest that the parents, or even the messed up society you live in may be a more realistic next step than a group of software engineers that designed an entertainment product that Jimmy happened to like.

Who would we blame if he got the idea from say, a book? Would we lambaste Thomas Harris as "evil" and "a danger to society" if some deranged psycho decided to act out scenes from his books? Of course not. Our marvellous red-top tabloids would label him (or her) a MONSTER or a TWISTED BEAST, because we recognise fiction as harmless escapism and there would obviously have to be something wrong with you to copy it....?

Hold on here just a second. If Jimmy plays a game, for example the ever demonised Grand Theft Auto series, he has to *choose* to make his character to commit these acts. There are some rewards for stealing cars or running people over but it is *possible* to play the game quite happily without ever committing a crime. Also there are consequences to be weighed up that balance the rewards and make it more of a puzzle, a game, that the pointless kill crazy rampage we are told to expect.
However if I read a Stephen King book or watch the movie SAW the whole experience is on rails- if I want to progress the story then I am forced to witness decapitations, violent rapes and explicit murders and I have no choice in the matter whatsoever.
However I can show mercy in my game or even play the hero and it is all a matter of my choice.
All those Daily Mail readers crawling all over Rockstar and going on about "EVIL GAMING DISGRACE" need to wake up and look at the shit they've been shovelling. The danger would be that they would just try to ban everything else as well, we're not dealing with rational souls here.

Games hold an ESRB rating similar to films these days and I cannot stress this enough: games are NOT all for children. Games are a perfectly valid form of entertainment for all ages. They can tackle adult issues, and not just violent ones: they tell stories, some overblown and silly, some touching and powerful, some open ended and unfinished. They have a far wider canvas that the more linear media, they allow free will, or at least the illusion of free will and, maybe most importantly, they encourage people to think in different ways and to explore the worlds they create. How cool is that? They don't replace books and flims, they do something different again, and the market is changing to reflect this.

Since the Nintendo Wii came out I have spoken to many friends and acquaintances that have bought one "for the kids" or after trying one out, people who avoided Playstations like the plague. The Wii seems to have cracked the prevailing attitude in a way that the other formats are still struggling with. Maybe it is because it is typically Nintendo- functional and fun, with an emphasis on the gameplay being instantly accessible and the rewards thrilling and visceral. Maybe it is the interface itself- you feel like you are actually doing the do, a strike in bowling is skill, a rally in tennis feels like an achievement. Whatever it is, you are looking at the future. People are picking games up as a serious alternative, a valid entertainment medium for everyone. There is nothing you can do about it.

"Hardcore" gamers like myself play for a couple hours a night, on average. Before you comment on that I'd like you to know I don't watch TV at all, while most of you will think nothing of beating your brains out with Big Brother or the Mockneys of Albert square for at least as long. "Casual" gamers maybe hit it an hour a night, give or take. Most people my age now fall at least into the casual bracket, we grew up with games and games grew up with us. We've come a long way from Frogger and the Galaxians of our childhood.

Yes games have changed, we still get the sports games, the shooters, the adventures but the bias towards the "geeky" themes of Science Fiction and Fantasy is slowly balancing out with more games plumbing more traditional themes. There are still oddball things, but do you know what the all time best selling game of all time is? The SIMS. A game where you design and live out the mundane little lives of mundane little people, a bit like electro-enders or Cyberneighbours. It has sold hundreds of millions of copies with never ending expansions and a sequel. Not a ray gun or Orc in sight.

Of course the second best selling (PC) game is the opposite - World of Warcraft. A multi player online role playing game, a game type commonly abbreviated to MMORPG, with a current player base of over 8 million players worldwide. Let me put that number in perspective for you- 3 million more people than live in Scotland and approximately the same number as live in Switzerland. No shit. And that is just the number that are subscribed RIGHT NOW. I've played it for over a year now and I love it. I have learned teamwork skills that I have then applied in real life, I've got the crack with people from all over Europe - from Israel to Sweden, I've performed acts of utter selfless altruism for complete strangers and duelled good friends in a variety of pirate gear. Most of all it is a place, with identity, flavour and mood, and the love of its creators is evident in every polygon. It's a wide and endless experience, but it isn't for everyone and is best taken in moderation: it can eat your life if you let it. But then so can going to the pub every night, for far less gain and much more money.

So yeah, games are great. But don't believe me, go try it out for yourself.

Mey I feed the animals?

Recently my son and I went on one of these family days out to somewhere exciting, and we decided to go to the (late) Queen mums old "house" which just happens to be down the road from us in Mey. I've lived in the North for over 8 years now and I've never felt the urge while the old coot was alive (I'm no royalist). So now she was safely under 6 feet of sod, and the pre-requisite time has past to ensure she hasn't come back as a vampire or zombie or such, I'd though I'd risk it with the boy.

Hey there were animals to be seen! As it turns out, very similar animals to those in the fields not 100m from my front door, but as I said before, exciting day out. Stay with me here.

So anyway we check out the shop first and sure enough it has the expected overpriced tat, I am mildly shocked to see what seem to be vials of the old dear's pee on a shelf but confirm that this is actually just vials of special whisky. But I visibly have my doubts so am herded by boy and relations to the door and told to go forth and see animals with my son.

So we amble down and are confronted with the mother of all "don't feed the animals" signs, and I'm on the floor laughing. I can see the MIL (Mother In Law) and the FIL (go on, guess) are less than impressed until they clock it too.

I wonder what was going through the mind of the person who wrote this- I mean as far as they were concerned this sign was perfectly fit for purpose. The first thing they though anyone would be driven to do to the collection of mangy sheep and odd looking goats that were uncomfortably milling about in the middle of what could generously be described as a paddock is kiss them. It doesn't specify the status of tongues but I have a working theory on that. Skip down a couple more and the though has penetrated that if people want to kiss the animals, and cant (they are not allowed over the fence after all) , maybe their pent up frustration will lead to teasing and chasing them! Gadzooks!

I'm not sure why, if you can't get near them, that you should refrain from touching your face. Maybe they have a morbid fear of face touching or something so I poke at my nose and rub my chin but the gently ruminating beasts don't seem to be much more perturbed than when I arrived. Indeed they seem to be more worried about my son who is shouting "bacon!" at the pigs after being led astray by.....well, me.

There does seem to be a theme here, and I begin to wonder if maybe this sort of thing is common in Mey or whether maybe the old bat herself (God love her) wrote the sign. Someone who has lived for over ninety years with her lifestyle is going to have some seriously skewed ideas about what us mere commoners regard as a good time.

"I wonder" she may indeed have wondered "how we can stop all the riff-raff climbing the fences and shagging the goats. Hmmm. Hamish! Bring my easel!"

It's as likely as anything else.

As I stood there pondering all of this I realise I have broken the last instruction and my darling child is commanding “Silly” ducks into their pond at stick length.

What the hell, I think, climb the fence and proceed to get stuck into Debs the Cheviot sheep. In for a penny, in for a pound.

The sound of the sound of music

Music is very important to me.

No, revise that, music is utterly important to me. It is my drug of choice, my addiction. I need it constantly running in the background or the world feels empty and colourless. When I'm not near a source of music then I hear it in my head, hum it under my breath, sing to myself without even realising I'm doing it. Often people comment that I seem very happy when they hear this (normally at work when they couldn't be further from the truth) and I find it odd that the important factor is that I am singing, not what I am singing.

You know what is so amazingly cool about music? It's everywhere. In the measure of someone talking, the rhythm as you walk down the road, the whispering of the trees, the hissing of the surf on shingle, the chirping and buzzing of insects on a still summers day. It lives inside us, coiled round the best parts of us and the worst, helping us hope and dream and laugh and cry and rage and hurt and hate, flows in between the cracks of these emotions and opens them up so we can understand ourselves in a deeper way.

Personally it has been a pool of hope in a dry, bitter land. A place to plunge into and wash clean of all the uncertainty and let out the emotions I have bottled up to protect myself. I've hidden between the bars of Fleetwood Mac when I've felt low, used Peter Gabriel to cry when I've needed to and couldn't, used Beethoven’s wings when I couldn't fly myself, got revved up for a night out on Smashing Pumpkins and sang Agadoo to get people to go away. I've found a release for pain in Saint Saens, a deep unfillable sorrow, laced with joy of all things in Faure. I've cherished the madness of the Bonzo dogs and stolen lines from Eels to make people laugh.

It's what draws me to poetry too (my musical track record is abysmal), that constant exploration of ourselves, the wit and interplay of emotion and intellect. The way you can capture complex, almost inexpressible notions in a short phrase (or melody).

And it keeps giving, a relationship that doesn't get sour or old or bitter, a lover that doesn't get bored when your jokes get old and bits start to sag. It is reliable, steady and deep, and there is always more than you heard, more to discover. One thing more than all the rest- it can be nothing but honest, it is what it is.

I try to keep up with all the incidental stuff, the names of the people, the songs the albums, but it's a bit superfluous in my opinion- the music is what matters. The rest is fan-boy geekdom. It's like all those people who like football but only seem to talk about the players and the managers and the stats- surely if you like the stupid game it would be the actual act of playing you'd really be interested in?

I'm overly impressed by musicians too, probably due to my total lack of musical talent. I imagine what it must be like to be able to play some pieces of music and I would love to learn but my commitment always gets stymied by a fear of failure and I am quickly demoralised when I realise I'm not the next Hendrix or Coltrane. I married a very talented musician and her brother is also incredibly, annoyingly, good, and I secretly love when they practice within earshot but they don't know I'm listening. It seems less forced and more flowing, even with mistakes, maybe because of them there are moments that would shatter your heart with joy.


It's such a glorious, stupendous gift. Such an amazing thing. And I'm totally addicted.

Be true to your school

I love Jim Morrison.

For the worst reasons. He was a drunkard druggie bitch. He was a selfish twat of a man who struggled with relationships and had a real issue with a world that refused to revolve around him.

But damn he could sing.

Not only that though. I have more than a passing respect for someone who could stay so true to themselves and their own vision that they could follow it despite the pressures of "celebrity" status. My favourite example of this was the anecdote where big Jim met Andy Warhol. Lets be entirely clear here - at the time Andy was the person to know, the key to the alternative scene, he could make or break the fledgling Doors in the same way he had added his kudos to the velvet underground only months before.
Their meeting was brief but memorable. He handed Jim a gold telephone to "God" and suggested Jim use it. Not two hours later Jim was observed giving the telephone to a tramp on the street and explaining its use. He wished the tramp good luck and carried on.

Jim was a unfaithful selfish drugged up bastard yes. He was awful to the women in his life, to the people in his life. But despite his pretentious stupidity, despite a chronic inability to empathise with the mundane he was a shining light of anti-conformism. His lyrics touched on different worlds, different planets, far away from the norms of convention, even of acceptance. "The End" with its strongly Oedipal message was a bridge too far for the sixties sensibilities and as I sit here I struggle to think of another song that has ploughed such a taboo subject over 40 years later.

Jim was true to himself. It's a shame more people are not, because if Jim is an indication of what is possible if you do then he puts us all to shame.

So I'm a Doors fan. Jim Morrison rules OK!

The low road home

I grew up in a small community.

In a small place. On a small island. In a village that is a couple of kilometres long and a couple of houses wide. The village had three shops, four pubs (at its peak) and more bed and breakfasts that you could shake a rather large stick at.
As I grew up I became aware that most people would bang on about how it was sheltered, living in a bubble, away from the real world where real things happened, where it was all harder but so much more rewarding. Most of these people had lived in this real world (so they said) and could tell me with some authority that I was better off here. While of course retaining that mystique and obvious superiority that having lived and experienced this real world brought.

There has always been a prevailing attitude there that somehow the evils of the "outside" world somehow stop at the ferry terminal on the mainland, and to a certain extent it is true.

The population is mainly in the over 50s bracket, people looking for a quiet place to get on with the next step in their lives, people fleeing the "rat race", people looking for a haven from unsatisfactory lives elsewhere, so it is little wonder that people feel this way. There is little crime, indeed the resident crime lords are petty drug peddlers flogging second rate class "C" recreational drugs to the minority youths on the island, providing an expensive but vaguely thrilling alternative to getting pissed up. Which they will do after anyway. You can't steal anything large or expensive as there are only two ways off the island and they both have a sufficiently awkward frequency as to make any kind of getaway impractical and dangerous. In short, not many nefarious deeds happen there.

Having said all of that I have lived in the "real" world since my childhood and found it no more "real" that the island. Indeed everywhere I go I find the same attitudes, mostly from people that come to a place, be it rural or urban. A kind of anti-greener grass attitude where people cling to the hope that the place they have come to is somehow is remarkably better that that the one they hail from, that people here are somehow simpleton hicks and that they have seen things that those people wouldn't believe, attacked ships on fire off the belt of Orion.....yeah yeah and the rest.

The hard truth is that everywhere is as real as the next place. Sure the problems might be different, the living might be harder depending on circumstance and opportunity but less real? The fact I might not have first hand experience of a mugging or live in an area where you wouldn't go into certain areas if you were white somehow makes my life worth less? That there is some strange glory in having been through “it all”, something that makes you so much more admirable a person? Certainly someone to look up too and take the worldly advice of?

The problems at home are nationwide problems. The main ones are alcoholism, unemployment, depression. I have lost one friend to an alcoholism related suicide, my father died painfully and slowly at 52 as his body fell apart due to his massive drinking problem. My mother is an alcoholic and I am seeing the same thing happen to her. I go home and I go out to see friends I knew ten and fifteen years ago hitting the bar like they were eighteen at a party. Every night. I see the locals in the pubs, wizened and twisted after a lifetime of the same, smile sagely at them as they live one dram at a time, taking the pitying looks without a flinch because they know, they know the score, and they are just keeping the stool warm for them. If they make it.

Sure I can walk down a street there at 3am and not get raped or set on fire. But don't you ever fucking tell me it isn't real.

The Dancer and the Sky

I found her laughing,
while the surf chased her ankles,
with the sky in her eyes,
and her hair in tight fankles,

I was caught as the tide,
fell in awe of her soft skin,
lightly kissing the sand,
caught and pulled in.

So tear up my caution,
Throw shame to the winds,
Follow through the sea,
and her rejected bounty,
If I could change,
If it was possible to rewrite the world,
and give each other starring roles,
The Wind and the Ocean,
The Sand and the Surf,
If she could change,
If she danced a different dance,
even for me,
Here on the boundary between two worlds,
I would be a broken thing,
Empty and poor.

So tear up my wishes,
I held them to my shame,
Follow through the hard truth,
And accept what shouldn't be changed.
Delighted as the rain came down,
arms thrust to the hard grey,
in benediction of her love,
asking me to stay.

In the darkest of times.

And as I turn to leave,
she catches my sleeve,
And just before our lips meet,
Her soft voice warm against my cheek,
Rain is where the land kisses the sky.
Then she stops dancing,
And we learn to fly,

Good evening and welcome to the starlight lounge....

Having struggled on with a "social network" site for some time now, and realising that I was neither social nor networking, I have finally taken the plunge and started a proper blog to allow me to concentrate on actually writing things as opposed to posting pictures and gaining "friends".

Not that I am totally against the whole social thing, but it does show up what a terrible social animal I am. All that posting and comments and adding more friends and lisiting the things you like....well for a start the things I like change daily. I don't tend to make friends quickly, or at least not what I would define as friends, however some people treat these things as a competition- how many friends have you got?

Anyway this article is a brief introduction to what I hope will become a regular proper blog, although I have problems with sticking to the spirit of that. What you can expect to see here is a mixture of bad poetry, confused rants and attempts at humour with the occasional "proper" blog articles about my extreme lifestyle (reading books, climbing trees, listening to music, eating food, drinking beer and so on).

A warning though- a lot of the things I write are straight off the top of my head. I'm making a conscious effort just now to be, ahem, normal. Do not expect this to continue.

Thank you for your attention.

Ban.