Category: General

Moon on a stick

In an odd twist of 90’s nostalgia fate, I had the opportunity to see (and, indeed, briefly chat to) both Stewart Lee and Richard Herring live in Dublin in the past couple of weeks… older readers on this side of the pond may remember they used to be a double act in the BBC TV shows Fist of Fun and This Morning with Richard Not Judy (some of which are archived on Stewart’s website). More recently, Stewart Lee co-wrote Jerry Springer– The Opera.

Enjoyed both their gigs, but Stewart Lee was probably a bit more to my rib-tickling taste. Then again, he is the 41st best stand up ever.

28 Weeks Later

Just back from a nearly-free preview screening of same. Hadn’t seen the first one, so didn’t really know what to expect.Not a lot, as it turned out; a mildy diverting (if utterly linear) gorefest with some big explosions and a lot of early-morning shooting around London to make it look deserted. And one of the most obvious “we’re going to make a third one” endings I’ve seen in a while.

Came back out to my car to find that somebody had stolen the magnetic ISPCC ribbon from the back, presumably to stick on their own. Only in Ireland…

Happy Birthday, Speccy

No, it’s not my own birthday today, but the 25th birthday of the groundbreaking ZX Spectrum.

I still remember the excitement as the bundled Horizons tape threw up a proper loading screen (rather than the psychedelic loading squiggles I’d grown used to on the ZX81), and later presented me with Thro’ the Wall, a full colour Breakout clone. Which was written entirely in BASIC of course, complete with neat squashy visual effect as the ball hit the paddle… turned out to be nothing more clever than swapping UDGs when the ball hit row 21, but half the fun in those days was finding out things like that so you could do it yourself. If only making computers do things were still that easy…

Way too many favourite games from the Spectrum era to list here (feel free to add your own), but suffice it to say I still play many of them via FUSE on my PowerBook! Thanks for the memories, Clive.

Holiday catchup

So, first blog of 2007… bliadhna mhath ur, and all that.

It was a fairly quiet break for us this year, at least in terms of travelling and seeing family– we did neither, apart from a one-night spa break up the road at the Johnstownhouse Marriot in Enfield. (The food there really is gorgeous.)

We were out and about around town a bit though… went to see Jason Byrne on December 23rd, and we took in Casino Royale, Flushed Away, Happy Feet and Deja Vu at the cinema (mostly for free– thanks Curly!)

Work-wise, I’m trying out a Sun Ray 2 at home for the first time this week… the technology is certainly impressive, although it remains to be seen whether it’ll oust my laptop as my working-at-home tool of choice. It would probably be more useful if I had one on my desk at work as well, to get the full benefit of session mobility– maybe it’s time to retire my old Ultra 10….