John Walker's Electronic House

Well, would you look at this.

It’s home.

After a bit of flittering back and forth, this is it. Settled.

If for any reason you bookmark this blog, please chisel this address into your screen, and remove any others. Destroy them. They are lies. We’re here to stay.

I’ve brought across posts from the previous place that I think are worth archiving, apart from the Mitch Benn stuff because that all takes place in the comments, and it’s far too much hassle to cobble that back together. Otherwise, nothing has changed. I’m still really keen to get tips for the trip to France. Don’t forget, for any helpful information, a negligible amount of the gold will be yours.

Oh, and I think people should engage in my newly invented game of Suburban Errorism. Get nonsense signs into your local shop’s window, and send photos. There are enough people reading this now for this to work well. It could be beautiful.

Enormous thanks – the sort of thanks requiring planning permission – to Richard Cobbett for building this for me. He’s a hero. The calender, the links, the layout – all so good. Post rude messages on his blog… sorry, “online journal”.

And post nice comments here, to say how fabulous it is, and to say hello.

Stupid people are far better organised.

This fills me with great dread. As I drove back and forth the Bristol this week, I noticed more and more of these hideous UKIP posters and stickers all over the place. On the same journey, I’ve seen nothing for any other political parties, but for an open-topped New Labour bus shedding dangerous balloons all over Bristol’s already-dangerous-enough behemothic roads. How is this the case? How is it that the xenophobic, nationalistic hate-mongers are able to blanket advertise themselves, while the FAR richer major parties haven’t a sign to be seen? Advertising works, and this scares me very much.

However, this isn’t the only Stupidity Sign that’s been crammed into my face the last few days. The last thing anyone needs with this ludicrous miserable humidity (for goodness sakes, there was a major astronomical event this morning, and the Sun failed to be hidden behind the purple thunder clouds and inexplicable black acrid plumes of smoke expected for such occasions), is to see car after car sporting these pathetic plastic ‘England’ flags.

The Comic Relief meme of having plastic noses adorn the front bumpers of cars was fairly wretched. “I’ve given money to Comic Relief! Look! SEE!”. However, this latest money-for-no-one virus reaches new levels of tedious pointlessness.

I don’t care that you are supporting England. It doesn’t matter to me, nor anyone else in the universe. It will make no difference to the result of the football matches, it will provide no encouragement to the players in the team. It is a ridiculous, meaningless exercise in vacuous flag waving emptiness. The notion of supporting a team serves to add a level of enjoyment to one’s experience when watching a game. It has no other purpose. While people may use language and behave in a way that suggests otherwise, you share no part in the victory of the winning team. You merely celebrate a satisfactory conclusion to your emotional input. Attaching a semiotic stick to the door frame of your car can in no way enhance this. It is merely an exercise in shouting at other people.

People may wear the t-shirt of a favourite band to demonstrate their appreciation in a public form. I am not suggesting that an outward expression of support is necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. I am suggesting that decorating your car with a dozen cheap plastic St. George’s crosses is an act of public grossness.

Hang on. But this is England’s flag. Shouldn’t English people be free to fly it as much as they wish? Sure, it’s become associated with hooliganism and the BNP like to chuck it around, but can’t we reclaim it for what it used to mean? This is the flag of St. George, a heroic figure…

Ah, St. George. That famous English hero… No, wait, he was from Nicomedia, in present-day Turkey. Oops. So presumably, were St. George to attempt to visit Glastonbury today, he’d not get past immigration control on account of looking a bit Middle Eastern.

He seems to have been a pretty good guy – martyred in the 4th century (a beheading for him) for protesting against persecution. In, er, the Middle East. However, his adoption by England has not a great deal to be proud of. His patronage occurred during those glorious days of the Crusades, under the vile leadership of Richard I. His emblem, the red cross on a white background intended to be a sign of his martyrdom, became a symbol worn by England’s invading armies in 13th and 14th centuries. The martyr’s red cross, earned by George for fighting against his oppressors, became the banner of the oppression England spread around the world.

Ever since, the mark has been synonymous with the invasion of other nations in the name of “Christian mission”. It’s hard to find a single good thing to say about it. The Counter Reformation repopularised the myth of his dragon killing ways (Killing dragons, for goodness sakes. Cheers, Pretend George, thanks for killing off our best mythological creature. Maybe he’s responsible for the woeful lack of unicorns as well), as the church began invading areas of Africa, India and the Americas that had previously been dismissed as being populated by dragons. And so on and on, and on.

It would seem that the adoption of this literal semiotic flag by hooligans and extreme right-wing parties is only appropriate. How fitting that they should choose to present their blind hatred with this red cross, as that’s all it’s represented for the last 1700 years. England has no use for this flag. Perhaps if Turkey were to stop mass-slaughtering the Kurds living in their country, they could reappropriate the symbol for its long-forgotten meaning. However, as they are currently oppressing the world’s largest ethnic group without a homeland, it would seem a little inappropriate there as well.

But ranting requires a suggestion for positive action if it’s to be more than shouting at the wind. And this is my suggestion:

Get European flags, as tacky and plastic as you wish, and attach them to your cars. Subvert this senseless meme, in as peaceful a way as is possible. This forthcoming sporting event is the UEFA European Championship. So let’s satirise it in the best way possible – let’s support everyone taking part. And let’s stand against the UKIP where the major political parties aren’t. Let’s get organised.

I wasn’t going to mention this on here. It seemed cheap somehow. But it’s now gained the sort of novelty value worthy of a mention.

I’ve put some very rare freebie Baldur’s Gate II paraphernalia onto eBay, to see if it can go to a home that will love it in the manner only appropriate for obscure specialist novelty items. That I may profit from this endevour is purely one of those strange acts of providence with which I cannot hope to argue.

A Baldur’s Gate II Premium Golden Ale and Tankard

The reason I mention it: The lovely Jon Hicks (which reminds me, I should probably have mentioned, I’m soon to become Jonty’s housemate – more soon) sent word of the auction to a website called Blue’s News, which has linked to it as part of its “Auctions of the Day” section.

In the last four hours, the auction has received 968 hits. NINE HUNDRED AND SIXTY EIGHT. And four bids.

In conclusion, readers of Blue’s News are cheapskates and should learn to recognise a good, if potentially poisonous, bargain when they see one. The fools.

I have a plan.

This summer, I am going to discover the treasure of the Knights Templar.

Now, I’m aware that a lot of people have made this claim before, and others even go so far as to deny that the treasure exists (the wrongfaced fools), but they have all made one mistake: They’ve given it some thought beforehand.

I intend to go in blind and ignorant. For is it not those who don’t deserve things that usually get them? I will deliberately attempt to engineer such circumstances for myself. And I believe that doing this on purpose only further increases my chances, as I throw arrogance into the mix.

Rather than actually doing any research for myself, I’ve managed to combine laziness with arrogance, and emailed the Godfather of adventure games, Charles Cecil. He’s something of an authority on the subject, and has much better things to do than bother with my silly questions. So now I know where to go, most especially here.

.

I believe that all holiday destinations should be described as “unassailable”.

I really am intending to do this. If I can find a cheap enough way to get to the South of France, and a cheap enough way to stay there, then it will all be go. I suppose I really shouldn’t be worrying about the costs, what with how rich I’ll be on return. But that has the faint hint of planning ahead about it, and I don’t want to let that slip in.

If anyone has any very useful information about the Route des Cathars, Carcasonne and Colliours, especially good places to stay (anything from youth hostels and upwards), please let me know. I will share a small amount of gold with anyone who helps.

Here is an important thing: When you go for a bike ride, go uphill first.

I am horribly unfit. Firstly I’m overweight – not grotesquely so, but enough that when I see my reflection in a shop window, I double-take and think, “that can’t possibly be my belly,” before the crushing realisation that it is. I have man-boobies.

Unfortunately, because getting fat(ter) is a gradual process, it sneaks up on you. That’s almost true. Whenever I visit my parents, my mum tends to greet me with a cry of, “Look at the SIZE of you.” But in-between times, it sneaks up on me. But what’s really made me feel like the Blubberwhale King has been climbing flights of stairs. If I’m in the position of having to go up a couple of floors, I’ll trot my way quite happily, until I reach the floor I’m stopping at, and find that I’m having a heart attack. This proves inconvenient on a regular basis.

So something in my brain has snapped, and decided: it’s time to do at least something. I found myself, quite involuntarily, pumping up the tyres on my bike. The bike that has remained on the same spot on my roof (well, the shop’s roof, and my bit of it) for a year. I’d forgotten that it has two different types of tyres, and so needs two different pumps, and I could only find one. (The other one, it turned out, was clipped to frame of the bike, which seems a ridiculous place to put it). So I drove to the place I was planning to cycle to, borrowed a bike pump while I was there, and drove back. Pumped the tyre up. Stood back. Looked at the bike and realised I now didn’t have a reason to ride it. Failure.

So yesterday I defiantly rode it to a meeting in the village, despite the rain. An incredible 500 metres or so.

Which brings us to this afternoon. Tonight I’m taking my younger youth group on a walk. I thought it would be a very good idea to take my bike to check the route, remember where we were going. Genius. The rough route would take us down the valley, along near the canal, and then back up again. And so down the hill I cycled. I was going incredible speeds, 50, 60 thousand miles an hour. And when I got to the bottom, I was thinking, “I live in the most incredible place! Why have I wasted living in such a beautiful area?” I wasn’t going to stop there. The road doubles back on itself, leading to a weir and a nice riverside pub. I know this, because I have driven there.

So I hurtled along, faster and faster, flies and my eyes becoming as one, and then at the end of the road, where it sloped up quite steeply, I didn’t get off – I just pumped my way up. I WAS VICTORIOUS. I had a celebratory glass of Coke in the pub, which the nice lady gave me for 10p cheaper as I was just short with the change in my pocket. I felt remarkably good, sat at wooden outdoor table, overlooking the river, surrounded by green in every direction. (Except for up).

There’s no real need to go on, is there? I thought the sensiblest thing to do would be to go up the bridle path that cuts a straight line all the way up the hill, rather than the meandering, weaving path of the roads. For the fun of it, I thought I’d see how far I could cycle up it. About a metre. But that’s not because I’m the rubbish King Blubberwhale, but because this path is just shy of vertical. I wasn’t entirely sure why the myriad stones and rocks weren’t all rolling their way to the bottom. About halfway up, my bike became a sort of two-wheeled zimmer-frame. Two thirds of the way I up I made a solemn life-oath that I would never, ever cycle to the bottom of that hill again.

At the top, I realised I had no idea where I was. Which was only bad because it meant I didn’t know how much at the bottom of the world I still was. Correctly picking right bore me out onto a familiar road, at the bottom of a horrible hill, but at least close to home. I didn’t cycle the hill – I didn’t have the strength. But I did ride the last five minutes home from the top.

The thought that dominated, when “never do this again” gave it room, was “I cannot believe I thought this would be a good idea before going on a walk tonight.” I have no idea if I’ll survive, or if I will have to be dragged by twenty twelve year olds, all singing “KING BLUBBERWHALE IS DEAD!” before a celebratory dance.

However, getting back I realise that I am in fact just the slightly overweight King of All Things Good and Decent, and that it might be fun to see if the route gets easier through repeating.

I might be mad now.

Today I finally made some use of this sunshine we appear to be having.

Fresh hair cut and purpled, I left my curtain encrusted hovel for exterior exposure, and lunch with Kieron and Jim in a pub ‘garden’. This was followed by some wanton sitting on grass in the middle of the afternoon.

This feels right. Obviously, sitting around in the sunshine when everyone else is at work feels right – how can it be wrong? But I mean, this feels like the right way around for me at the moment. I allowed a brief glimmer of guilt to flash through me, knowing that others on my course were probably doing some sort of youth work paperwork rubbish, or writing journals, or somesuch worthy activity far more impressive than sitting in the park and talking about Thief. But then I remembered that I’d finished work at 4am this morning, and yet gotten up before 10. Work, see. Reviewing some rubbish RPG thing for Format. And then moreso – Wednesday is my day off! Because come Sunday, I’ll be working from 9.30am until 9pm. Admittedly with a gap in the afternoon, but that shall be inevitably filled with writing journals. On a day that isn’t my day off. This is the way my brain has always intended to work – late at night, with day time for goofing around.

I know Steve D will be groaning, slapping his forehead, and planning to slap mine in a couple of weeks (his 13 year old daughter Miriam has asked me to be her godfather at her baptism – very proud). But it’s in moderation. 4am is exceptional. 2.30am is normal, and quite acceptable, thankyouverymuch.

That youth groups take place in the evenings seems ideal for this pattern, but that other people exist in the daytimes does not make for a helpful planning side to all this. Ever moreso, I find myself thinking in the direction of eschewing full time youth work once I’m qualified, and instead sticking to voluntary stuff, in order that I can continue my gratuitous lifestyle. And hopefully take on more work without fear of clashes with college, essays, journals, meetings, weekends away, having to stay overnight in Bristol half the week, and on and on and on and on and indeed on. Oh, you poor folks, you don’t need to know this.

Lunch included the inevitable portion of Mocking John for Being a Christian. This is all done within the realms of friendly banter… I tell myself. I am an object of curiosity, for that at least. Anyway, this lead on to Jim’s formation of an entirely new religion and deity, Horace the Endless Bear. In an act that may possibly conflict with my current faith, I have found myself pledging, in the event of surviving a nuclear holocaust, to promote this religion alone to the few that still live.

And finally, it became very important that I do this:

In the shop window of the Spar below my house.

So this is what the previous post was meant to be about – the being inspired yet uninspired thing.

I have an idea for a radio comedy programme that I think is good, and might work. Problem is, I’ve no one to write it with, and I’ve always figured I’m one half of an effective writing team.

This matches up with my theory about marriage – I figure that I’m one half of a very effective team for surviving life. Trouble is, my teammate seems missing.

So all I’m after is a comedy writing wife. That’s all.

However, I will settle for a comedy writing fake wife, if absolutely necessary. So what I’m looking for is someone who listens to Radio 4 all day long, every day, despite hating most of its output. If you don’t listen to Radio 4 all day long despite hating most of its output, then that probably sounds quite a weird thing to do, and even more weird to expect someone else to do it too. However, if you’re the person whose brain (and potential marital status) I’m looking for, then you’ll entirely understand what I mean. Oh, and you need to want to write comedy too.

My hopes aren’t exactly super-high that anything will come of this appeal. Comedy writing partners are only found by mistake or at an Oxbridge college. The latter is a little unlikely, and I’m bored of waiting for the former, so at least I gave this a go.

Email me if you’re interested.

This evening I am a complicated combination of inspired, and entirely uninspired.

I’m also feeling that strange awareness of having the strangest audience for this blog. People either read this because I am the bloke who writes the budget reviews in a PC games magazine, or because they know me in real life. I think the overlap of this particular Venn diagram is a little on the small side.

I mention this because it creates a confusing dichotomy in my brain about what I want to write here. Sometimes I want to moan about being single or something, but then I think: oh no, there are strangers reading, strangers who might think I am some sort of love god, and how can I disillusion them? No. No, I don’t ever really think that. But I do feel troubled about discussing the finer minutia of my morbid life.

Sometimes I want to moan about my degree, and where I am with my youth work qualifications. I’ve got less than a month to have all my fieldwork stuff in, and I’m ages behind on it all, due to being very lazy indeed. But I have to get it all sorted because otherwise I’ll have wasted an enormous amount of the last two years. Not the actual youth work itself – that is what it is, independent of this silly degree. It’s just that the degree leeches off the youth work, trying to make it all official and important and qualified and journalled and rubberstamped. The wasted time will have been all the stupid journals I have written, and all the tedious ‘small group’ meetings I’ve attended, and the endless forms and meetings and dilemmas and confrontations. Blimey, that’s a bit sad – my motivation to finish is so the crappy times at least went towards something. I expect I’m just moping. I’m sure I’ll have more enthusiasm soon. Perhaps I’ll find it again after Deadline Day, June 11th. (That reminds me – when Kieron Gillen used to do Gamer’s game commissions, they included the line, “And by ‘deadline’, we mean exactly that. The line which, if you cross, you will be made dead.”)

I should mention some of the stuff I’m doing for PC Format. In the issue in the shops at the moment – the one with the stupid rubbish photo of a girl licking a graphics card, irony apparently – I have a four page feature all about file sharing and stuff. It’s quite good. It’s good enough that it annoyed Macrovision (people responsible for the copy protection on CDs and games) so much that they wanted to tell me off… by taking me out for lunch. How media-whore is that?! So this at once proved that there is indeed such a thing as a free lunch, and in fact one that gets you more paid work as a result of it. They sure showed me.

But there’s other stuff too. As a result of that article, I’m supposed to be writing a monthly half page thing about file sharing and the RIAA and suchlike. Though I got myself in some trouble with that today. I made a comment about some senior editor bloke I don’t know in my copy, and he – erk – read it. I wasn’t rude or anything, I just said that I’d ignored something he’d said to do in the commission because it didn’t work. He sent me a cross email. I imagine I’ll be killed to death tomorrow for that.

But better, I have a monthly page now of writing about weird websites. It’s not the most original idea, but I don’t think it needs to be. It’s a place to link to whatever websites have made me laugh or be impressed that month, and to look back on an old dead site that was once great. It’s fun to write, so I’m really pleased to have that.

Plus, this month I got to realise an ambition that I’ve had for ages – I got to write about toilets in PC games.

For the last few years, it’s been something of a running, er, joke, that I’ve pitched the idea of a feature about toilets in PC games. Obviously no one has ever said yes, because it’s a rubbish idea that just amuses me to say out loud, but would probably be the worst thing ever if I had to do it. But, the perfect compromise was realised. Alec at Format commissioned a single page of it. I’m really pleased with the result – I’ve managed to get some really good genuine developer quotes, and put together a really deadpan (though completely ridiculous) page. I don’t want to spoil any of the jokes or names of developers here, so if you’re the only person who’ll care about this, you’ve got just over a month to wait. I’ve also got a few pages about Sid Meier in the PCF out in a few days.

Interesting – the thing this entry was going to be about hasn’t come up. I’ll write that next, just above. However, instead, I think I’ve decided to be a bit more open and honest on this blog, whenever I get around to updating it. Who cares what strangers think? Well, I do, but let’s ignore that.

All hail Mark Danks, and his file converting ways.

For those luddites incapable of a non-evil file format, here are the HILARIOUS clips of me, in mp3.

Star performance

Honour call

Ah-ha!

Proof of my radio comedy prowess has surfaced.

I’ve recently found the Lee & Herring Radio 1 Show floating about on the magical internet, from way back in 1994/5.

And finally a nagging teenage memory of having phoned into some show or other has been solved. For ages I thought it was The Armando Iannucci Radio 1 show, but no such me-ness was to be found within. All cleared up now.

If you care, and you do, my decade old 17 year old voice can be heard below:

My very voice

and

My glory

I was 17, ok.

They are ogg files. This is not a mysterious audio format from the Hidden Realms. It’s perfectly normal. The fact that Windows Media Player and Real Player seem unable to play them is not proof that oggs are obscure – it’s proof that Windows Media Player and Real Player are utter rubbish. Winamp 5 can play with them with no problems at all, unless you are Kieron, and hence the enemy of all technology.

If anyone has the ability to turn ogg into mp3, then email them to me – I’ll smile down upon you from Comedy Heaven forever more. And just because it will make Stuart Campbell quiet his whiny mouth.

If there’s anyone who reads this blog who doesn’t like Boothby Graffoe and his cavalcade of misery, and hence have the good sense to want to hear Lee & Herring’s non-Fist of Fun Radio 1 stuff, then it would seem that you are interested in the illegal pirating of the BBC’s intellectual property, despite their never attempting to release the series commercially, nor ever repeating it after 1996. You dirty, evil, thieving pirate scum. Email me for details. Even Mitch Benn.