I took delivery of the new Microsoft Xbox 360 Slim yesterday. I wouldn’t normally upgrade my gear for the sake of it, but I was having so much trouble with my old Xbox connecting wirelessly to the Xbox Live service that I was hoping that this new iteration would solve my problems. It turns out I was right and it is good to get everything working properly again. Safe to say, my old Xbox is on eBay at the moment.
Do I like the new design? It’s OK, I guess. It’s very shiny, which is good. It’s also very small and I am used to the Microsoft design ethos of everything being chunky and workmanlike – whereas this new design has a more aesthetic approach to its stylings. It’s also a lot quiter and doesn’t sound like a jet engine taking off whenever you fire up a game.
Having the kids, I don’t play many games mainly because of the adult content in them. When you are a childless, you tend to blot out all the bad language and inappropriateness of computer games and TV programmes because you have no need to filter: afterall you are an adult, right? But now that Verity is speaking and is like a sponge, I’m very careful about what they see and hear: even with videogames. So my gaming has taken a second step and happens after bedtime – unless it is racing game. Verity likes to watch me racing the cars – she likes cars a lot.
But now I am surprised how much swearing and blood is in modern computer games – and I am also surprised I never really took notice before. What annoys me is that there could be a switch in these games that bleeps out the swear words and removes the blood. In Germany (so I’ve heard), it is illegal to show blood in computer games and so all blood is re-coloured as green. You also can show Nazi insignia either, so it makes WWII-based games a little problematic over there.
It is heartening when Verity asks me to “play the hedgehog game” and I get to fire up the Sega classic “Sonic the Hedgehog” for her to watch. It also reminds how computer games used to be: for all the family, inclusive and relatively harmless. Why does everything have to be so “adult” now. Even the rating of my ice hockey game is rated at 15 – so anyone under fifteen years cannot play ice hockey on the Xbox because there’s a rating for “violence”. Slamming people into the walls of the arena is regarded as too warping for little Johnny and so you shan’t enjoy the joys of whopping the virtual puck into the back of the net.
That evidence of the incredible disparity between computer game content and their actual rating. I remember once standing in Woolworths (remember them) and a teenager was being served in front of me. He was buying a copy of the latest “The Sims” game (or update or whatever) and he was asked for his age and then told he couldn’t buy the game because he wasn’t old enough. Now this kid must have been fourteen or pushing fifteen and as far as I know there’s no objectionable content in “The Sims” games – so I felt really sorry for the kid. We never had anything like that back in the days of the ZX Spectrum.
But again, video games do not make children violent. It’s parents who let their kids play video games for 14 hours a day that turn them into unempathetic automatons. If you let any child obsess about any hobby like that, you are going to end up with a troubled child. Moderation is the key!
Meanwhile, I’ve finished the first draft of “Melvin” – the story has a beginning, a middle of sorts and an end – but I need to work on it a bit. There’s something needed in the middle of the story – not padding – something extra, an extra dimension. The beginning and endings are good – but the middle, ah, the middle, the middle, the middle. I know what it needs, but I just need to do it.
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So I am two thirds into my rough draft of “Melvin” and I am up to page 51. The rate of writing has slowed somewhat because I had to do Daddy stuff today, but I reckon I can get this done by the end of the weekend if I put in a few more hours.
I have one of those weird beliefs that the perfect movie is around 90 minutes long. 87 minutes if you take off the credits. It’s the same way I believe that the perfect album is between 37 and 42 minutes in length. Human concentration can only be stretched so far and I would prefer to keep people interested rather than bore them to tears.
Of course, I could be completely wasting my time with this, but I must admit I am enjoying the feeling of the keyboard under my fingertips again. When I worked in the heady annals of Teletext, I broke three computer keyboards in four years. The power of my typing is such that I used to wear the lettering off the keys around the most popular vowels.
Look – sparks come from my fingers!
I must admit that it is good to be writing creatively again. I’ve been putting finger to keyboard and have knocked up 25 pages of my “Melvin” script so far. I’ve got the first two acts pretty much worked out in my head and the third act is coming together nicely too. I was worried that I didn’t have enough dramatic tension, but with a little help from The Missus, we worked something out.
This isn’t some great work, you know. This is just a comedy about a loser who has something really bad happen to him that would normally be a real disadvantage to some, but to him he really capitalises on it.
The film poster should be spelt with the “V” in Melvin capitalised or accentuated someway.
In the bath, a fully-formed idea for a movie script appeared in my head called “Melvin”. This is a bit alarming because I had no plans to write a movie script nor write a comedy script either – but whatever creative spark that put this idea into my head should be honoured, shouldn’t it?
I don’t know whether to write it or not? Even if I write this script, what then? It was strange because I’ve even got a lead actor in mind to go with the script. Weird. Not had anything like this happen to me for a long, long, long time.
Previously, I’d written about how I’d received a letter from the local court informing me that there was to be a hearing to decide whether or not our assailant was going to be absolved of paying his £175 fine for crashing into our property. The reasoning was that our chum was now in chokey and so, for whatever reason, those who make decisions of law had come up with the spiffing idea that we could either appeal for the decision to be upheld or pursue him ourselves. Of course, I wrote strong letter for the hearing which is due to take place in the middle of this month.
So get this…I check our bank account and there’s been another £10 payment of the fine from our chum. So, one can deduce that he is at least trying to do the right thing by paying off his fine, but yet the magistrates court wants him to stop paying. While this earns our chum some kudos for taking up his responsibilities, I am at a complete loss as to why the local magistrates act in this fashion.
I just don’t get it?
But perhaps it explains why the laws of this land appear to be derailed at every opportunity. Again, without making myself sound too much like a right-wing, Daily Mail reader, I would imagine that the bleeding-heart liberals who have wriggled their way into these places of office are making such fool-hardy and destructive decisions. Or it could be a Ken Clarke and the Conservatives who seem to have done a U-turn on crime in this country and think that our streets would be a much better place for the wrong-do’ers of this land. (In this Bizarro world, it seems that the Labour Party really were the Party of law and order!!!)
But as I get older, I get more and more bamboozled by this world and what is happening around me. There’s no wonder why I take refuge in my guitar and music-making!!!
Another memory from my youth comes to an end. This time it is Frank Sidebottom (AKA Chris Sievey) who used to sport a freakish paper mache head and do amazing covers of popular songs of the time along with Little Frank. He used to appear on kids TV and radio and was a genuine cult classic.
I kind of hope that someone picks up the head and continues on – so that the legend of Sidebottom is passed on from generation to generation. But the news is absolutely bobbins.
Here’s Frank in action doing Panic (on the streets of Timperley) a tune ripped off by The Smiths:
I’m one of those terrible people who only watches football when the World Cup or the Euros are on, this is probaby because I’m native of Leyton and when I was a kid in the late 70s/early 80s to support Leyton Orient was the football equivalent of nailing your scrotum to a plank of wood. (Talking of that practice, I once had an editor who thing was doing the self-same practice and I remember him having a drunken rant about my safe sexual practices – though I strongly suspect he might have been trying to turn me to the darkside).
But I digress, I’ve been watching most of the matches during this World Cup competition because it is something to do and it is better than the majority of daytime slush they serve up to the underemployed, the retired and the homebound parent. However, this is the first competition where I’ve had little children running around the place and Verity, my nearly-three-year-old daughter has been enjoying the competition herself. I guess it all began when the Daily Mirror gave away a set of Top Trump England Player cards with the newspaper and her nan kept supplying the cards to her.
She has also developed a fascination for flags. The few locals round here displaying the George Cross have had her entranced when we’ve gone for our daily wander and she was equally delighted when The Sun gave away a free flag – this is the only real bonus of having a newspaper shop is we get dabs on all the free crap they make us stuff in the papers. Don’t worry, we do that – there’s no machine to put the supplments and free DVD’s inside – it’s muggins here who has that great duty.
We’ve been playing in the garden with a football and Verity punts the ball and exclaims: “Yes, I’ve scored a good goal!” – the same is said when she throws her blow-up “In The Night Garden” beach ball at me when we are indoors. The main problem is that whenever I turn over the football during half-time because I can’t stand listening to the pundits wafflng, I end up with madam doing a paddy.
“I want it on!” she bawls, “I want the football on”.
“But’s it is half-time,” I reply wearily, before turning the TV to the Disney Channel which usually shuts her up until the second-half starts.
It’s going to be great the next World Cup because I will be having Verity and Herbie both telling me what to do. I think that’s my main role now…and The Missus. We just fetch and carry, clean bottoms, pick up dropped toys, feed, water and drudge our way through the day. Of course, we wouldn’t change it for anything. Every day brings new joys and my only regret is not having a small army of children. However, I think The Missus would have something to say about that.
Meanwhile, being a good boy the year’s accounts are back and I had a visit from the men from the bank yesterday – the experience left me feeling a little depleted. Not because of anything they said, but because dealing with the money-lenders always brings how well your business is doing into sharp relief, especially when one of them says: “Have you tried getting a job and rejoining the 9 to 5?”
“Yes, I’ve tried that,” I replied, “I’ve tried everything.”
Oooh look – there’s Darren pissing in the wind.