John Walker's Electronic House

I love a singer who loathes his fans.

From the AV Club’s interview with Maynard James Keenan of Tool:

AVC: Do you feel out of touch with your audience?

MJK: For the most part, I have no idea who those people are—especially when we’re traveling through Europe. And it’s not all our fault; it’s a whole series of events. [You play] heavy music, and your record company, which has never owned an album anything like what you’re doing, immediately markets you to the obvious stinky kid with the dreadlocks and the B.O. and the urine on his shoes because he’s been sleeping in his own filth in a festival in the middle of the rain. They basically market right to that guy. And then you realize the only people showing up to your shows are those primates—these weird, cretin people… Then, let’s say you’re at a coffee shop, and you’ve got a friend sitting next to you, and you’ve been reading some Noam Chomsky, or you’re reading The Onion, and you look over and see a bunch of kids [who] look like they could be made of cheese, because there are flies everywhere. And you go, “Hey, you want to go where they’re going?” and everybody goes, “Fuck no.” And they’re wearing Tool shirts. Why would you want to go there? Why would anybody other than those kids wanna go see Tool if that’s our representative in that area? So it ends up being a no-win situation. Of course, that’s a completely extreme example.

In an extraordinary, and entirely out of character display of common sense, Fox are ditching both the O.J. interview and book. We shall never find out how O.J. would have murdered his victims if he’d murdered them and if they’d been his victims. And hopefully the good news will continue, and he’ll catch on fire.

There are certain things to be expected when spending a weekend away with my friends Nick and Victoria. There will be arguments. Nick will explain someone’s job to them. And most of all, grammar will be corrected. It’s always a good time.

Informed that Nictoria had found a guest house in the Cotswolds with a 2-for-1 offer on rooms, the luxury to which they have become accustomed suddenly seemed affordable to me. It was then discovered that I’m already in the Cotswolds. As indeed is most of the bottom half of England it would appear. More specifically, we were to be staying in the impossibly quaint sounding Bourton-on-the-Water. Quickly pouring over Google maps, we saw that this could only be an ideal place to stay, with neighbouring villages named Upper Slaughter and so forth. Smack bang in the middle of Middle England, like some sort of middle class Hobbits we set forth to find their magical rings.

Arriving on the coldest Friday evening in the Earth’s recorded history, Nictoria picked me up from a Hornby train station, and guided by the light of their GPS we made our way to the weeny village. The guest house was lovely. A hotel crossed with a B&B, and posh beyond reason. Heading for dinner, we were sat in the small lounge by a warm log fire, where we were given menus and offered grown-up sounding drinks. Nictoria calmly browsed the menu, while I quietly attempted to prevent my eyes popping out on stalks at the prices. A main meal, just the one course: £18. Cough, splutter. Of course, the portions were tiny. It tasted delicious, really very splendid. But goodness me, it had better had.

The evening was spent relaxing in the guest house, a glass of rum in one hand, my DS in the other. Victoria had also brought her own, leaving Nick feeling isolated by his ludicrous stance on all modern videogames. Which was just.

The shocking truth.

Saturday 4th featured two main goals: visit the model village, and find a fireworks display for the evening. There was also a plan to go for a walk to visit the Slaughters, for no reason other than that they’ve a funny name. Thankfully breakfast was included in the price of the rooms, because my Switch card was frozen at that point thanks to the evil Romanian vampire thieves. Of course, a cooked breakfast can only be eaten with a healthy portion of ketchup, but in accordance with the Ketchup & Poshness Rules, getting some required declaring oneself a wretched pleb.

A ketchup aside. I’ve noticed that the amount of ketchup available is inversely proportional to the poshness of the restaurant. Go to, say, Burger King, and you can grab infinite fistfuls of those ridiculous half-teaspoon sachets, letting your disgusting slop reach 12 degrees below room temperature by the time you’ve squeezed a decent portion out. Then say a pub for a meal. A regular pub will have a squeezy bottle available for each table. A slightly posh pub will provide a brown china dish from 1974 with two half-teaspoon sachets of ketchup, one of brown sauce, one mustard, two mayonaisse, and twenty-three of horseradish sauce. This can be countered by asking for “a couple more sachets of ketchup”, whereupon in an impotent act of aggressiveness, the bar-person will back up to your table in a fork-lift truck dumping a mountain of them beside you. Once you’re in a restaurant proper, but still low-end, ketchup will brought to the table shortly after the meals arrive, on a tray containing dishes of various sauces. Here you can determine the ranked position of the eatery by whether the dish is given to you for the duration of your meal, or if you’re given a six second window to spoon as much of it onto your plate as you can while the waiter stares at you in disgust for taking more than one drop. And then there’s the places where asking for ketchup can only be preceeded by a grovelling apology, wherein you demonstrate that you’re a ghastly Eliza Doolittle, brought into the respectable establishment as some sort of socialogical experiment. Here the ketchup will be brought to your table by a furious individual who will titrate 0.01ml onto the side of your plate, while muttering oaths under their breath.

The morning was to be for walking, Victoria equipped with a guidebook and the only sense of direction between the three of us. Which doesn’t quite explain how we walked up and down the same stretch of pavement three times before finding our starting position. Along the way we were honoured to discover the “most beautiful secret” the Cotswolds had to offer. An empty field behind a wall.

Reaching Upper Slaughter, we popped into a beautiful, small church, I think mostly so Nictoria could mock me for a bit. While Nick was loudly complaining that the lectern Bible was open to the Old Testament (Daniel), a lady overheard us and came over to speak. She was, she explained, the wife of the warden, and we chatted for a bit. We had heard about one particular fireworks display somewhere nearby, and asked her if she knew how to get there. We were immediately told that we were to do no such thing, but instead to attend the Upper Slaughter display, which was, as all the rest seemed to claim, the biggest in the area. It was, however, the only one to which we’d received a personal invitation, so that was to be our festivity.

In the afternoon Victoria was determined that we must visit the village’s model village, and so after holding my breath for about twenty minutes in a wretched-smelling perfumery, we set off to discover our next super-quaint destination.

Model villages are excellent. Built from the same stone as the village itself, scale is damned in the recreation. It did allow Nick to demonstrate his ferocious side.

The best bit of the model village was certainly the village model village’s model village. I’m pleased to report that there was within the village model village’s model village’s model village. But very sadly, there was no village model village’s model village’s model village’s model village, which was inexplicable, as there was clearly room for one.

The evening’s fireworks display was humblingly impressive. Humbling as Nick and I were making bets over how long the professed “half hour display” would last. The over-under was at 10 minutes, and the display came in at 21. It proved once more that public displays, whether on the scale of a city display, or a small local display such as this one, are infinitely better than the idiotic private back-garden money wastes that this ridiculous country still endorses.

Ooooooooooooooooo.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

And then it was time for bed.

Why would they call the very prettiest thing to have appeared in games for over five hundred years, “Nail The Trick Mode”? It should be called, “Glistening Dew On A Spring Morning Mode”, or “Kari Off Of Mythbusters Mode”. Not Nail The Trick. The idiots.

It’s just sublime. It’s breathtaking. You’re riding your skateboard through the huge city, and then at any moment, you click both analogue sticks, and you’re in. It’s bullet time, it’s slo-mo, it’s the high-def filming of a kingfisher diving into a pond. It makes you just stare and stare, and then inevitably crash into a railing, bail, and smear your face halfway down the street. But all so beautifully. Glistening Dew Mode, as we’ll be calling it, is one of the most rewarding and enthralling devices I’ve ever seen, and I’m in love with it. And so is everyone else who’s walked past while I’ve been playing.

Hooray – a decent game for the 360!

“Nick, do some somersaults!”
“I’m not doing any somersaults.”
“Why not!? You look like you’d be great at it!”
“(Why do I look like I’d be great at somersaults!?)”

For those who are new to Phoenix Wright, perhaps the most sensible thing is to quickly hop over and read last year’s review. I know that seems terribly lazy, but it’s that, or a horribly repetitive follow-up. And I’m terribly lazy. But don’t worry, I’ll also do that clever journalisty thing of cunningly making reference, in the very next sentence.

New Phoenix Wright review! Hooray!

HALF BIRD, HALF MACHINE… ALL BABY CHICK EATER!

More soon.

I’m sat in a madly posh hotel in the Cotswolds, writing on my DS in the lounge, using the new browser. As if I didn’t aready love this machine enough. It truly is the best thing ever. And I got the hotel room super-cheap. Off to see a model village, and then local fireworks.

Make that £480.

Some complete bastard in Romania has spent today robbing me.

Romania!

The bank called, saying there were some suspicious transactions taking place on my debit card, and they wanted to check them with me. A delightful gentlemen ignored all my questions and told me that he would suspend the card, and that I should wait two to three working days before enquiring further. “But will I get my money back?!” I blustered. “I am unable to answer that…” he replied in broken English, reeling off something I couldn’t understand about why he couldn’t reply. “Ok, I understand,” I said, “But what is the normal procedure?” “I’m unable to answer that…” “No, I just want to know, what is the usual procedure in these cases? How do I go about getting my money back?” “I’m unable to answer that…”

I decided to phone the number on the back of my debit card for enquiries. A machine voice told me that if I entered my bank details, my call would be answered more quickly. I did so, and was promptly told my account balance by an old machine lady, then dumped to the default menu. Odd. I tried the Stolen Card number, which is ingeniously also printed on the card. Choosing the option that I didn’t want Card Guard, I was told that if I entered my bank details, my call would be answered more quickly. I did so, and was promptly told my account balance by an old machine lady, then dumped to the default menu. Annoying. I tried again, this time picking options that had to lead to a human. She said to me, “I will put you through to the fraud department,” and I waited on hold until a familiar machine voice told me if I entered my bank details, my call would be answered more quickly. I didn’t. I’ll try Card Guard, I thought, on a whim. A kind man shared my concern about the initial call, and the refusal to answer questions, and indeed the lack of a security check before he told me my entire account details. He gave me a direct number for the fraud department. A bit too direct, as it took me through to a private line for banks only, which made the lady cross. She promised to put me through… to the credit card fraud line, who were annoyed that I’d want to discuss a debit card. They put me through… to a mumbling Indian lady trapped at the bottom of a well with only a tin can and a length of string. Even more entertainingly, I was hearing her live, while she appeared to have a two second delay on all I said. This made for some fun times! But despite her imprisonment, she was a kindly soul who bothered to answer any questions I had. She even told me in which country the money was being withdrawn, and then asked some seemingly vital questions before the fraud investigation would go ahead. Thanks first guy! You’re a massive cock! Thank goodness for the nice well-bound lady.

Will I get my £240 back? WHO KNOWS? Stay tuned for more exciting instalments in the tale of How John Was Robbed By Romania. Check your statements, folks.

You might be a long follower of the Dragon Quest Heroes series – you know, in that really foul manner where you make sure everyone knows it in as smug a way as possible. “Well, this clearly isn’t a patch on the Japanese-only Dragon Quest Heroes XVIII for the never-released Sega Catacomb, and frankly who are you to pass comment on anything in my awesome presence.” Do be quiet. No one likes you.

As it happens, Rocket Slime is a sequel to a Japanese-only release, which itself was a spin-off from the main series. But that doesn’t matter, because you’re not playing all of gaming history, you’re playing this game, and it’s rather a lot of fun.

Happy fun times on DS again.