• The Crow
• The Crow 2: The City of Angels
• The Crow 3: Salvation
• The Crow 4: The Wicked Prayer
• The Crow 5: The Crucible of Vengeance
• The Crow 6: The Deadly Rooftop Solo
• The Crow 7: The Deadly Dance of the Crow
• The Crow 8: The Eldritch Bedfellows Of The Crow
• The Crow 9: The Reluctant Crow Of The Crow
• The Crow 10: Belinda (The Lady Crow)
• The Crow 11: Crowbot 2K
• The Crow 12: The Rooftop Death Solo Of The Crow
• The Crow 13: The Twilight Crow Harvest
• The Crow 14: The Raven Calls
• The Crow 15: Return Of The Murdercrow
• The Crow 16: The Hollow Sadness Of Bedlam
• The Crow 17: You Never Really Thought The Crow Was Dead, But Here Is Irrefutable Proof That He Is Not
• The Crow 18: The Dirge-Wallow Trumpet
• The Crow 19: The Emotional Sadness Of Bedlam
• The Crow 20: :’(
• The Crow 21: Gundam Wing Crow
• The Crow 22: The Briskest Justice
• The Crow 23: My Guitar Solo Just Became Sentient And It, Too, Wept
• The Crow 24: The Crow Below
• The Crow 25: Groovy Crow Adventure
• The Crow 26: The Revenant’s Bazaar
• The Crow 27: The Raven Called Again, I Told Him You Were Out
• The Crow 28: The Asylum Is Full Of Crows, Can We Do Something About It
• The Crow 29: Mint Julips
• The Crow 30: Clumsy Crow’s Milk-Slip Adventures
• The Crow 31: Poor Crow
• The Crow 32: It’s No Secret, I’m a Crow
• The Crow 33: Congratulations, You Have Unlocked Schoolgirl Crow
• The Crow 34: Rooftop Guitar Solo Death
• The Crow 35: Hungry O’Clock At The Crow Shack Diner
• The Crow 36: These Foolish Crows Remind Me Of Crows
• The Crow 37: A Thoroughly Indispensable Crow
• The Crow 38: My Crow Went In Your Garden, Can I Have Him Back Please
• The Crow 39: Hold On, Wait, This Is Not My Crow, How Many Crows Do You Have In Your Garden
• The Crow 40: C.R.O.W.
• The Crow 41: Rainbow Crow Strikes Again
• The Crow 42: Shut Up, I’m The Crow
• The Crow 43: On The Wings of a Prayer, To Satan
• The Crow 44: Take It On The Beak
• The Crow 45: The Desolation Of The Loneliest Isolation
• The Crow 46: Your Massive Crow Sig Is Fucking up The Site Layout
• The Crow 47: I Am Neither Animal, Vegetable, Nor Mineral: I Am Crow
• The Crow 48: Crow Is Not Animal, Shut Up
• The Crow 49: Like a Crow
• The Crow 50: Shush Dude, The Crow’s On The Roof, He’s Playing A Deadly Guitar Solo Immediately Pre-Kicking Some Ass
• The Crow 51: Not Unlike A Crow
• The Crow 52: Modern Crow’s Internet Adventures
• The Crow 53: The Circus Comes To Town (And The Ringmaster Is Either The Crow Or The Main Villain, Therein Lies The Twist)
• The Crow 54: The Gigantic Jewel Heist Caper
• The Crow 55: And Then Enid Blyton Appeared To Me (As a Crow)
• The Crow 56: Non-Erotic Confessions of a Crow
• The Crow 57: Tower Of Crows Trying To Get Into The Cinema
• The Crow 58: Tenderly, My Sweet Crow, We Shall Drift Through Death
• The Crow 59: I Can’t, I’m Allergic
• The Crow 60: The Crow Leaves It Until The Last Minute To Fly Off
• The Crow 61: One-Sided Interview With a Crow
• The Crow 62: Not Literally A Crow
• The Crow 63: What The Fuck, You Killed My Girlfriend - The Second I Stop Mourning You Are So Dead
• The Crow 64: The Ghastlycrumb Bloodclart
• Chapter 65 Of The Crow
• The Crow 66: One-Way Trip To Titterville On The Haha Boat
• The Crow 67: The Crow Investigates That New Chocolate Factory
• The Crow 68: Do I Look Like I Want A Lemonade Top, Why Would You Even Ask That? Life Must Be An Endless Enquiry Into An Infinite Number Of Unlikely Possibilities For You, No Wonder You Work In A Bar Yes I Know It’s Harsh But You Really Just Pissed Me Off
• The Crow 69: Caw Blimey rofl
• The Crow 70: The Crow Has Just Signed In
• The Crow 71: The Crow Is Busy and May Not Reply

It was at this stage that the stopped using numbers in the film titles. To some, this marked a watershed drop in quality, but they remain well-loved classics amongst anyone who truly knows what it is to love a crow.

72. Ross Perot vs The Crow
73. Save The Last Crow For Me And My Crow
74. International Crow Patrol
75. The Crow Enters A Nightclub And Delivers What He Believes To Be Brisk Justice
76. The Crow Is Humbled, And Forced To Concede He Wasn’t In Possession Of The Full Facts
77. The Profound Madness Of The Infinitely Recursive Crow
78. Pocket Crow and the Milky-Faced Baker
79. As The Crow Flies In A Straight Line, So Do I (I Am The Crow btw)
80. The Crow Encounters an Obstacle
81. That’s The Crow, Right There
82. Could You Point Him Out To The Crows Assembled Here Today?
83. I Have No Fingers, Just Feathers On My Wings
84. Indulge Me This Once, For The Benefit Of The Courtroom
85. By Using My Feathers?
86. Yes, Sir, Point To The Crow Who Did This Terrible Deed By Using Your Feathers
87. OK I’ll Try
88. The Wild Fanning Of Your Wings Has Just Sealed The Conviction Of Everyone In This Courtroom
89. This Is Just The Kind Of Brisk Justice I Have Become Accustomed To, As The Crow
90. Disappointing Ghost Train
91. Crow Me A River (Of Crows)
92. Acting Beyond His Physical Capabilities, The Crow Becomes Briefly Incapacitated, And Is Buoyed Only By The Thought Of The Terrible Revenge He Will Wreak On Those That Have Brought Him To This
93. Shake a Tail Feather Ms Crow
94. The Long Wide Crow
95. The Crow Is As Big As The Moon, His Legs Are Long, His Feet Are Belgium(s)
96. Oh, It’s A Pair of Lovely Crow Earrings, How Did You Know
97. Phil H. Crow
98. The Crow Finds Happiness And It Lasts Forever
99. Crow Crow The Crow CROW Crow Of CROW CROW: crow
100. Cheeky Joe Crow vs The Wifebeaters

Thanks Steve Hogarty, you are a bigger and darker hero than any crow you care to mention (don’t tell The Crow I said that)

EMAIL ME IF YOU’VE SHIT YOURSELF PLEASE, I WANT TO TALK TO YOU

I went home last weekend, to catch up with the folks. My dad is the reason I still laugh at farts, shit, piss and “all that”. Well, my mum has her part in it, too - if she hadn’t tutted and rolled her eyes, my dad wouldn’t have lifted his leg, done a meaty fart and winked at me and my brother in an attempt to make us love him the best.

I was brought up in a pub, and in the first years of coin-ops, they were embraced by nearly everyone. I was four years old, and I’d have to wait for middle-aged fucking men for a go on the Space Invaders. Meeting up with my family usually involves trotting out all the old competivity; how I’d get out of bed, steal money from the till to play Space Invaders at three in the morning, how mum was best at Pac-Man, dad was best at Missile Command, and how I became the compulsive king of Robotron 2084 after one of the mischeivous elderly pub customers lied to me that there was a “last level” where you fought Robot Ron. My revenge has been to outlive him.

Anyway, the point was this; between our usual conversations about who was the best at Vanguard, Scramble and Zaxxon (me), a story I’d very nearly forgotten cropped up, and it had nothing to do with videogames at all. It was this.

SUMMER, 2000: THE BUNKERS HILL INN

A few years back, I ran a real ale pub with my dad. My dad, for all his faults, is a great landlord - he keeps good beer, clean floors, and has pegged up enough years of keeping an orderly house to get to earn the respect of most punters. He also lets staff have a drink. Tight as a rubberised heron’s arsehole with the heating, but the drinks flew around like Japanese hornets.

This led to a growing Baileys/Brandy habit for me, and an inability to walk past a row of optics without playing them like an upturned organ. We’re a family of drinkers, so I reckon watching me slump around the bar pouring myself drinks - in the belief that if I had my back to everyone, they wouldn’t know what I was doing - must have made the old man puff out his chest and boast “that’s my lad”.

By now, you’re probably imagining that I’m going to get drunk, go into the cellar, fall asleep and shit myself in the Carling. But I didn’t, so there.

The Friday it happened, I certainly felt like I was going to shit myself, but it never got to the panicky last phase of the brown angel’s kiss. The only outward sign of urgency, as I struggled to effortlessly breeze into the bar, was that I cantered like a fat horse into the disabled toilets, rather than going upstairs.

Now, our pub didn’t have a soil pipe running from the downstairs toilet, so there was a Saniflo macerator pump to mash up the stools and pipe them gently into the sinkwater. In brief, there was a machine that mashed my already-wet shit into a filthy cordial.
I’m not sure about the maintenance arrangements with these things. We’d had it about two years. That sounds like maybe we should have had a routine inspection, but like I said - my dad’s generous in many ways, but when it comes to paying through the nose for a so-called prefessional to check, say, the connection of a rubber tube from a macerator pump to the disposal pipe - that just wouldn’t be a priority.

You’re probably imagining how it happened a bit more accurately, now. You’re probably imagining that I flushed the toilet, the rubber pipe disconnected, and the pump flung my own hangover shits directly into my face.

Close!

I first heard my dad screaming when I was preparing the upstairs bar for the night, and ran downstairs to find a confused-looking minstrel waving his hands around in disgust. It turns out that seconds after I’d shut the toilet door behind me, the pipe had disconnected, leaving my dad to investigate the strange sounds coming from the disabled loo. He walked into a Burroughsian, Geigeresque vision of a flapping brown tube whipping itself to death around the shit-covered cubicle, just in time for the last, drying coughs to sputter over his clothes. I’d be doing the man a disservice if I didn’t mention that he’d taken a good amount in the face, too.

It was a long time ago, so I can’t remember how hard I laughed. But it was fucking hard, and once my dad had rinsed his face, he laughed too. Then went home to change his clothes.

This left me to deal with the start of a busy Friday afternoon on my own. And when everyone asked where my dad was, I’d laugh. Because we both worked there every Friday lunch, everyone asked, and by the time he’d got back, I was crying with joy. After letting him know that none of the regulars knew what had happened, I retired to the cellar for five minutes to collect myself. Collecting myself involved hugging a barrel and giving thanks to Jesus.

If you’ve never shit all over your dad, I thoroughly recommend it.

If you’ve got any similar stories of shitting yourself, let me know - I’m looking to ressurect Tales of the Smear. It’s been far, too, long.

Hello. Nothing’s happened to me in the last two months. Sorry about that.

I’m writing in the daytime, writing in the evenings, and when it comes to keeping the blog, I just weep dry syllables. I’ve been that pumped for prose that I no longer even think in words, and I have to hold up speech bubbles with a drawing of what I want to say. This isn’t much fun when you’re drawing tampons and the woman behind the counter at Boots keeps giving you sticks of dynamite. Thanks, I’m sure my younger cousins will love their chastity being blown across Nottingham, along with their guts and livers, you stupid cow. Operate in the context of your surroundings, for fucks’s sake.

I just wrote this, if it’s any consolation.

It’s over at the PC Zone Blog, where I am legally forced to post now. Watch, as I try to write about computer games in a way that pays as little attention to computer games as possible.

Anyway, I’m just here to say I’m shit, I know it, and if you’re so cool why don’t you come around and suck my nuts. Or just put your email in there, and I’ll let you know when I’m back. I’m a real person, and not some kind of weird spamwheel.

Ladybirds are the kindest of all the insects. They are not the mandible-clacking monsters that museum curators keep as pets. They’re gentle, they never forget birthdays, and if you look stressed, a ladybird will play a set of ladybird-sized pan pipes until your cares evaporate, like milk.

Why are ladybirds adorable? I shouldn’t have to tell you - this information is drilled into all of us as children. And the children agree - the same boys who throw cans of Coke at honey bees and blackmail spiders can be found in a softly lit room, allowing a ladybird to crawl up their favourite pencil.

It’s conceivable you’ve forgotten exactly why ladybirds are fucking amazing, so here’s a quick recap.

1. They are a metaphor for human aspiration. A ladybird, on your finger or pencil, will always climb to the top. (It’s a metaphor because humans wouldn’t clamber to the top of a constantly turning pencil, and also, humans aren’t ladybirds.)

2. Farmers actually buy ladybirds. They buy them in big sacks, and tip them onto their land, where they eat the aphids and till their soil with their outrageous ladybird masked balls.

3. It’s terribly unlucky to kill a ladybird. This can only mean that God loves ladybirds, because God’s in control of luck.

So, ladybirds are brilliant. Or are they?
The answer is no they are not.

I’ve got ladybirds in my room. I know it’s ladybirds for two reasons. First, I’ve taken photos of their spots as they run along my pens. The flash gets their attention, and they turn around to look at me. Giving me a little nod, as if to say “come on, pick it up, I want to run to the top”.

The second reason is that I’ve killed fucking loads (two) of them.

The Melancholy Death Of Lady Bird
The first one landed on my neck without me even noticing it. It must have landed on my T-shirt, and started climbing to the top of me - like a difficult pencil. At the time, I was killing gorillas in World of Warcraft (see also: lack of recent posts), and after fireballing enough to learn how to levitate, I took a couple of seconds to scratch all the bits that needed scratching. A flutter, fzzt and smear later, and I had ladybird guts all over on my neck.

THIS ISN’T SO FUCKING CUTE NOW IS IT

To Lose Two Ladybirds Is Beginning To Look Like Carelessness
I caught the second one after a shower. I threw my towel towards my bed, and the second I loosened my grip, I saw a ladybird basking in the growing shadow of my soggy afterwash. I didn’t want more guts on my towel, so I lunged to grab it. This un-coordinated action knocked a can of Red Bull and a small stack of CDs off my desk, and whipped the ladybird to death.

Naked, suprised, and weapon in hand, I felt like the worst kind of locker-room bully. What kind of monster would towel-whip a ladybird? What kind of naked monster would do that?

My Truce With The Unknowable Menace
Since then, I’ve decided to leave them be. I don’t have what ladybirds want, and I don’t know what they’re scared of. If I was living in a cartoon, I’d try leaving a trail of aphids to the garden. But if life were a cartoon, they’d be attracted to the delicious traces of Lemon Source shampoo on my pillow. I don’t have to tell you how these things work; you’ve all swapped signposts around to get your pursuers to drive into a canyon. But even thinking this way means I’ve now imagined resting my head on a pillow-slip filled with hundreds of ladybirds. I’ve imagined it thirty times since starting this paragraph. It’s like a fucking ladybird has crawled into my ear, and it’s steering my brain.

…

This morning, I felt something fall onto my back, and I jerked to my feet. Having an unquantifiable number of ladybirds in the room where I dream - mainly about ladybirds - isn’t helping. I looked around. Nothing. Then I looked up, in that slow way that people usually look up when a Godzilla has just stamped on their car. And I saw a ladybird, sitting on my lightshade. Was it… throwing things at me? I can’t bring myself to quite believe it was squeezing off some eggs into my hair, but something definitely dropped from above, from where that ladybird was sitting.

That kind of shit in a trucebreaker, you big spotty bitch, and remember that I’m millions of times heavier than you are. And remember what I did to your friends. I killed them by accident; if I put my mind to it, I could be your fucking scourge.

RIP SALLY YOU WERE A LADYBIRD OF THE OLD SCHOOL

I just found the best email I have ever written in a professional capacity. Do you want to read a bit of it? I fucking know you do.

I broke it down like this, because there's only so many times I can watch things eating shit while talking to myself in a shouty German accent...
04 : Dog with bucket
07: Rabbit with ball
09: Monkey eating own shit
13: Boy kissing bird
16: Deer attacking child
20: Monkeys climbing woman
24: Rabbit fucking ball
26: Boy and llama
30: Pony fucking horse
33: Sheep attacking child
36: Cat attacking self
37: Dog weaning a goat
43: Goat pulling child
46: Dog eating cornflakes
48: Dog attacking soft toy
50: Monkey fucking a cat
54: Dog dancing with woman
57: Dog dragging arse along floor

I would have liked a better climax, but that would have been tampering with the truth. My other middle names are “Willy” and “Tickler”.

SCENE ONE: CARDIFF

GWEN
Hello Jack, I found this in a spaceship. It has made my tits huge.

JACK
Watch out, it’s got monsters in it!

THEY FUCK UNTIL GWEN GLOWS

GWEN
WHAT IS HAPPENING MY TITS ARE HATCHING

JACK
I’m just that good, baby. [he smokes a cigarette which also hatches]

SCENE TWO : STILL CARDIFF

OWEN
Can I have a fag please?

JACK
That’s what I say half the time - I’m totally bisexual. How do you like them apples?

OWEN
It genuinely means nothing to me.

JACK
Right, whatever bitch, I’m off to stand on top of St Paul’s Cathedral. Laters.

SCENE THREE: ABOVE CARDIFF

TOSH
I think I fancy Owen.

JACK
Girls and boys having sex is boring and for children. Do something adult for blimey’s sake.

TOSH
Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggg *trump*

JACK
Haha! You totally farted. Welcome back to the team. You didn’t follow through did you? That would be super-gross forever IDST

OWEN
Quick! There’s a monster made out of bras on the roof!

JACK
BUT THAT’S WHERE I LIKE TO STAND

SCENE FOUR: ALTERNATE CARDIFF

Two monsters come through a Welsh rift. They look a bit adult / sexy and like they can possess humans / take human form and have sex.

JACK
Hi there! I’m nonchalant as fuck, me.

ALIENS
You are not like the others Captain Jack Harkness, it’s like yow ded or sommat.

JACK BITES HIS BOTTOM LIP AND RUNS OFF BLUBBING INTO A DOOR. TOSH WALKS IN AND DOESN’T REALISE THERE’S ALIENS

TOSH
Jack, my fanny itches. I think it’s probably aliens. Gasp! Aliens!

ALIENS
Don’t blame us like. You probably got barnacles from doing it with a space whale, you mucky boot.

TOSH
YOU CAN READ MINDS?

BARNACLE
Me too! Let’s all think about cocks.

EVERYONE ROLLS AROUND ON THE FLOOR IN SOFT FOCUS

SCENE FIVE: SPACE CARDIFF

JACK
Thank GOD they were allergic to human semen!

OWEN
And I’ve got some left over for when they come back!

JACK
I’ll put that into stor… where did all the spunk go? There was seven gallons of spunk right here.

GWEN BURPS. JACK PUTS HIS HANDS ON HIS HIPS AND PUFFS HIS CHEEKS OUT. TOSH LAUGHS AND GWEN BURPS AGAIN.

THE END OR IS IT ETC

Russell T Davies CAN I HAVE TEN THOUSAND FUCKING POUNDS PLEASE or what

Welcome to my website. You’ve probably arrived here from Google - where this post has managed to get onto the front page for a search for “cock pics”. I imagine this isn’t the first place you’ve looked for cock pics, so please - take a break from your cock pic hunt and post a short description of your cock in the comments. Imagine how sexy that would be. I’ll start!

“My cock is an angry red nubbin, that flies into a spitting rage when shown any kind of affection. It is crooked - a remarkable achievement for something so lacking in length - and one large vein dominates the south face of my otherwise featureless mound, like a lazy boil. If it were a celebrity, my cock would be Walter Matthau.”

Also, be a love and send your favourite cock pics to haynonnymus at the gmail, dotcom and I’ll send you sixty pound.

Q. I RECKON I WANT TO BE A GAMES JOURNALIST

A. And who can blame you? Being a Games Journalist is the finest thing the human soul can aspire to, but I’ll warn you right now; demand is so high that you are going to have to “get in the fucking queue”.

The responsibilities are sometimes crushing. Other journalists (lower case - cf “hey, it’s the Roman gods” and “Hi, I’m God”) are constantly asking us what it’s like, and we have to pretend it’s not quite as amazing as it is, just to be polite. Here are just a few letters from lower-case journalists I’ve had to deal with this week.

Hey Log,
I’m going to a party tonight and Julie Burchill told me it was fancy dress. I got excited and told Kate Adie, only to find out that Julie was lying to make me look stupid. Now I’m in a race against time to intercept Kate Adie before she arrives at the party dressed as Go-Go Yubari. Is this important enough for me to use the BBC helicopter?
Yours,
Tony Parsons

Answer: Fuck yes. You literally cannot afford to waste time in Games Journalism. The deadlines are so aggressive and unwavering that it’s like defusing a bomb in a convent. More often than not we are compelled to send in our copy by helicopter or witchcraft.

Shit Log quick man this is urgent,
I’m about to hand in some article about dangerous dogs and I’m not sure I’ve got any of the facts right. Dogs are those things with four knees that bend the same way, right?
Come on man I’m outside the editor’s office as we speak,
Simon Hoggart

Answer: Hey Simon, chill the fuck up. Remember: whatever he says to you, it can’t change the fact the you wrote an article, so kudos to you. If anyone says you’re wrong, simply look them in the face and say “if you know so much about dangerous dogs, elephants, or whatever it is my article is about, where’s your article? Oh I forgot, you don’t have one”

Hey Log,
What’s Poco Loco like on the PSP?
Georgina Littlejohn

Answer: I have no idea what you are talking about. 43% of that wasn’t even words.

Q. CAN YOU NAME ALL THE GAMES JOURNALISTS JUST OFF THE TOP OF YOUR HEAD OR IS IT A SECRET

A. No problem - we Games Journalists aren’t shy. Attempts to feign humility are useless; our excellence is so dazzlingly obvious that pretending to be anything less than amazing is an insult to your intelligence. So let me tell you about my two favourite Games Journalists of like all time.

This is Steve Ptarmigan. Steve isn’t working in the field so much these days; in fact, he ascended bodily into heaven after giving 99% to Lunar Jetman’s graphics.

Jeff was most famous for the picture on the left, which was his visual response to every single game he reviewed. He used this drawing of his face to convey anger, excitement, disappointment and even arousal; in fact, Steve Ptarmigan was the very first person to suggest that good games were sexually arousing. It’s so common to wax orgasmic nowadays, that heart-wrenchingly emotional poetry is the only acceptable method of reviewing a game. (<50% = Heartbreaking Soliloquy, >50% = Randy Limerick). Take this 1998 poem that Bathtime Mahoney wrote in response to the Otacon ending of Metal Gear Solid.

Trapped in Shadow Moses, you got pretty injured.
I bought you twenty roses, I fought a cyborg ninja.
Now just gimme the sweet stuff, Emmerich,
Open up your honey pot, Hal,
Between my legs I can tuck my dick,
I can be your slotless gal 93%

Memorable quotes from my most recent reviews include “My nuts span around so fast that I’m not even joking this time 84%” (Dark Messiah) and “After downing an enemy Luftwaffe, I slid onto my back and use the weight of my legs to hump my own chin 52%” (Wings Over Europe).

Lady Marmalade’s famous review of Sinistar, in which they hid behind each other and screamed for six minutes, was to kick off a crazy new era in radical feminist Games Journalism. Older readers will remember Christina Aguilera’s spectular Namco petition, when she barnacled herself onto Namco HQ with the suction of her vagina, and whaled on the windows with her fists until they made a Pac-Man she could properly identify with. Similarly, Lil Kim was so taken with the communication system in Captain Blood she has the symbols for “WANT GIVE YOU GENETIC HELP” tattooed on her fibula.

Sadly, Pink and Mya were expelled from Games Journalism, after they were tricked into admitting that they’d never played Gorf. It was a shame, but come on – you’ll be telling me they haven’t memorised both sets of moves for the Chess level in Dragon’s Lair, next. This is BASIC GAMES JOURNALISM.

That is all the Games Journalists I can think of at the minute, but if you spot any more then please do send them in and I’ll update this… well, I suppose it’s an encyclopaedia, really.

Q. ARE THERE ANY RULES OF GAMES JOURNALISM OR CAN I JUST MAKE IT UP AS I GO ALONG OR WHAT

A. Games Journalism is amazingly difficult (most scientists reckon it’s mathematically impossible / miraculous), but everyone agrees that the hardest thing about it is the percentages. Here’s the system I use; in time, you’ll probably make your own up with the numbers in the wrong order or something dumb like that.

Once you’ve got the hang of percentages, you’ve got to learn the initials of all games, and the shorthand for the most common percentages. We’re constantly saying things like “Wow, Gamer slapped GRAW with a beefy Turlington”, just to remind everyone else how difficult our job is.

Q. IS THAT IT THEN

A. Yeah, but I’ll sign off with the three things I’ve learned in my nine long months in Games Journalism.

1. If someone says “I liked that game” and you gave it a bad score, say “well on a superficial level it did have some merits, but it lacked the substance, nuance and finesse that I, a Games Journalist, require”
2. If someone says that a game you scored highly was rubbish, simply make up some incredile plot twists and groundbreaking set-pieces that might have happened in the game. When they look confused, say “did you not get to that level? It really picked up around then”.
3. If someone takes issue with something you wrote - perhaps you said a game was real-time strategy, when in fact it was a point-and-click adventure - refer them to your editor. Then put your finger under your nose, claim to be your editor, and tell them to fuck the fuck right off.

I hope you have fun becoming and being a Games Journalist. And remember; if you get asked a riddle in which one person always lies, and the other person always tells the truth, the answer always involves asking one person what the other one would say.

Also with opinions on this matter : Tom Bramwell, John Walker, The Triforce, Bill Harris, Mathew Kumar, Tim Edwards, Richard Cobbett, Kieron Gillen, Stuart Campbell, Affectionate Diary

OK, so my cousin Samantha is having man trouble. Naturally enough in these situations, she turned to the writer in the family, and asked me to get across her feelings in a way that would truly touch Jason’s soul.

After a series of long interviews and counselling sessions with Samantha, I had isolated a number of key points that needed to be made.

JASON IS A FUCKING BITCH
Jason is, Samantha feels, a fucking bitch. She says he treated her like a fucking bitch and that makes him a fucking bitch. She is adamant that I try to get this across in my letter to him.

SHE FUCKING HATES JASON
Jason broke her trust, because he’s always talking to other bitches about her like she’s some kind of bitch, whereas in actual fact it is Jason who is the bitch, along with all the other bitches he’s talking to. Also, he’s probably fucking the bitches with his bitch’s dick.

JASON GOES WITH THAT PATARKEN BITCH (she thinks)
Samantha wants to know how can Jason go with that Patarken bitch when she is so transparently a ho? She’s even heard that Jason told that Patarken bitch he LOVES her. To add insult to injury, he told Patarken this while Samantha was on the phone - to herself.

JASON IS AS UGLY AS HELL
Samantha wants Jason to know that she is utterly over him, and anyway, she thinks he is ugly, and a bitch, and that Patarken bitch is welcome to him because he’s so ugly anyway and she means it.

SHE HOPES BERRY BEATS JASON’S ASS
As do I, Samantha! To that end, here is the first draft of my open letter to Jason. It could do with a little tweak here and there, but I think it certainly opens the channels of commuinication. And with communication, the healing can commence.

This is the best letter in the world.
Thanks to Daz for finding it and sending it to me.

Google Spreadsheets = five minutes of excitement, inviting friends to collaborate, and watching cool stuff appear IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES. It’s like two-dimensional MSN, if you can even begin to imagine that. Without further ado, here is the menu to My Ideal Whorehouse.

Thanks, mainly to myself, because let’s face it I’m the best, but also to the good folk of Belmsford who joined in.