#oneaday Day 707: My neighbours might be racists

A while back, our next-door neighbours put up a flagpole in their front garden. Not long afterwards, there was a Union Flag flying from it. I realise that this sort of thing is fairly commonplace in the US (albeit with a Stars and Stripes instead of a Union Flag, obviously) and is intended to denote patriotism, but unfortunately, here in the UK, a private individual doing such a thing in the middle of what is essentially a council estate, particularly at a time when there is no international football on the telly, often means only one thing: they might just be a teensy bit racist.

the flag of united kingdom — Photo by Peter Muscutt on Pexels.com

Granted, this is marginally less likely with a Union flag than with a St. George's Cross, the England flag, but it is still something that causes me concern.

Not long after this flagpole was put up, my wife said that when she had been outside, the Union Flag had been replaced with a rainbow Pride flag. Not long after that, the flagpole was relocated to my neighbours' back garden, which leads me to believe that the flying of the Pride flag was not their choice.

Last night, I happened to be out in the garden and I saw there was something else on the new flag besides just the usual Union of crosses. I waited for it to flap around so I could see it, and I made out the words "RESTORE BRITAIN".

My heart sank. Any time people talk about "restoring" a country, it is inevitable that what they actually mean is "get all the non-white people out of here". I thought it was a Reform UK slogan or something, but no, it turns out Restore Britain is its own thing, arguably even more hateful than Reform. I present to you selected highlights from their website, which I am not linking to because I've already had to sully my Internet history with it; I don't want to have to put you through it also:

For 30 years, this country has been run into the ground by an establishment that does not care about the interests and concerns of ordinary British people.

Mass immigration, economic collapse, woke ideology, and the relentless creep of radical Islam – everywhere you look, this country is in decline, and has been for a long time.

It took just one paragraph before mentions of "mass immigration", "woke ideology" and "radical Islam". At least one thing you cannot accuse Restore Britain of is subtlety.

Reverse Mass Migration.
Mass immigration has been a disaster for Britain. It has left us poorer, less safe, and less culturally and socially cohesive. By 2030 native British births will account for fewer than 50% of total births in Britain. By 2070, native Brits will be an absolute minority.

Dipping into their "policies" page, it's not long before we get to some Great Replacement Theory nonsense, unsurprisingly. Naturally, these "millions" of "mass immigrants" must be deported.

Use Tents, Not Hotels
Establish modular, tent-based holding facilities for so-called “asylum seekers”. These will comply with basic humanitarian standards (e.g. shelter, sanitation, medical triage), but will be deliberately austere and designed for short-term containment.

Ah yes. When I think "basic humanitarian standards", I also immediately think of the word "containment".

Make Energy Cheap, Reliable and Scalable.
Energy is the lifeblood of any developed first-world economy. First and foremost, then, it should be cheap, reliable and scalable. If that means investment in fossil fuels, so be it.

None of those woke renewables! Solar energy turned Barry's son transgender, don't you know?!

Ban the Burqa. Both the burqa and the niqab are fundamentally un-British and have no place on our high streets. Countries across Europe, including France, Belgium and Austria, have already banned the burqa.

You knew it was coming.

Sex is Biological.
Biological sex is not a social construct. It is a fixed trait, determined by genetics and encoded in every cell of the human body.

Men and women are morally equal, but not physically identical. These differences must be acknowledged, respected, and allowed to inform law-making.

Men must not be permitted to enter women-only spaces, including lavatories, prisons, and sporting contests. Anything less puts women and girls at risk.

Objective truth, not ideology, must guide governance.

In view of these principles, the Gender Recognition Act must be repealed. The state must no longer issue legal documents that permit individuals to change their sex in law. Biological sex will be recognised as immutable and recorded accordingly.

And this one.

Make Britain Safe Again.
No-nonsense policing that does what it needs to do.

Widespread stop and search back.

Accusations of racism will stop nothing, up to and including strict sentences for anyone caught carrying a knife.

I like that in this one, they're like "yeah, we know this is racist, and we don't care".

Launch an Independent Inquiry into COVID-19 Vaccines.
We would establish a truly independent inquiry into the safety, rollout, and long-term effects of the COVID-19 vaccines, especially on young people and those coerced into taking them.

Yep, they're anti-vaxxers, too. It's amazing that this one party appears to be ticking absolutely every box for being a fucking awful human being.

Restore the Right to Self-defence.
Law-abiding citizens must have the full legal right to use reasonable force – including lethal force if necessary – to protect their home, family, and property from illegal intruders without fear of prosecution.

But hey! You can kill a burglar, particularly if they're a brown person.

Repeal the Online Safety Act.
Platforms hosting lawful content must be shielded from government pressure to censor. We would require transparency in content moderation and prohibit state-directed takedowns of legal speech.

The Online Safety Act law threatens the integrity of investigative journalism, whistleblowing, and political debate.

Fears of liability lead to over-moderation, driving smaller players out of the market and empowering Big Tech.

For balance's sake, I will note that they do have a point here, albeit for all the wrong reasons. The Online Safety Act simply doesn't work. These fuckheads think it was introduced to "censor" them "just asking questions" and all that shit. But no. It was just a shit idea.

You can hopefully see now why I feel a little concerned about my next-door neighbours proudly flying a flag for this fucking hateful group of shitheads.

Honestly, at one point I felt a bit bad for stereotyping the guy (and I suspect the flagpole is almost entirely the guy's handiwork) based on the amount he seemingly drank, and how often I hear him yelling obscenities at his wife and kids. But unfortunately it seems like I might have been correct.

So that's fun!

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 706: The Garlean Territorial Anthem goes with everything

One extremely private habit that I have developed which I have not really admitted to anyone before is a tendency to sing stupid shit when I am in the house by myself. By "stupid shit" I usually mean "narrating what I am doing at the time to the tune of something unrelated". And, over the years of doing this — it's an uncontrollable impulse at this point — I have determined that The Garlean Territorial Anthem for Gyr Abania and Surrounding States: The Measure of our Reach from Final Fantasy XIV is absolutely ideal to put stupid words to.

If you are unfamiliar with this stirring piece of music, here is the original:

The original lyrics run thus:

Beyond majestic mountains
Across the emerald dale
On march the ivory standard
United we prevail

From distant shores of Othard
To lakes of Aldenard
The light of mighty Garlemald
For e'er our guiding star

It continues in similarly "patriotic but built on stolen land" fashion after that. It's a whole thing. What you can hopefully tell from listening to the above, however, is that it's a song with a relatively simple melody line, and fairly simple rhythms. This makes it absolutely ideal for use when you are singing about something stupid and/or disgusting.

Please feel free to replay the above video, while singing the below words to it.

I'm going to take a dump now
I'm going to have a shit
I'm going to shoot poo out my arse
And fill the toilet up

I'm going to take a shit now
I'm going to have a dump
The poo will come right out my bum
And God, it really stinks

I laugh in the face of rhyming schemes. But there's something innately satisfying about having a big ol' dump and bellowing that at the top of your lungs in a deep baritone. I recommend you try it. Even if you have a high voice. I suspect a glass-shattering, vibrato-filled soprano will also fit the bill nicely.

I don't remember exactly when I discovered that The Garlean Territorial Anthem for Gyr Abania and Surrounding States: The Measure of our Reach was ideal for this purpose, but I find it very difficult to stop myself from doing this any time I am in the house by myself. I don't even have to actually be taking a shit to want to sing it. It just sort of comes out. There are other versions of the lyrics, too, mostly relating to bodily functions and/or ablutions, but I will keep those to myself. A girl's got to have a bit of mystery.

Naturally I do not do this when anyone else is present, because I would be absolutely mortified if anyone heard what I was doing and the words I was singing. And not just because I've always been rather self-conscious about my singing voice. I also generally make sure the windows are shut.

In fact, I'm not entirely sure why I'm admitting this right now. I just thought you might find it amusing.

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#oneaday Day 703: Peepo!

I finished a rewatch of Peep Show the other day, confirming for myself that I had indeed never watched it right to the end. Now I have, and I came away from it with some thoughts that I wanted to share, so that's what I'm going to do today.

Peep Show, for the unfamiliar, is a Channel 4 comedy show starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb, written by Sam Bain, Jesse Armstrong and Andrew O'Connor, with occasional contributions from Mitchell and Webb themselves. It's the show that put Mitchell and Webb on the comedy map for many people, and is noteworthy for its main gimmick of being shot entirely in "first-person" from the perspective of the various characters, including the occasional ability to hear their thoughts — hence the name. We're getting to "peep" into the most intimate parts of their lives, including their private thoughts, in a way that simply isn't possible in "reality".

From the beginning, Peep Show sets itself up as a show where its two main characters are heavily, heavily flawed. Mitchell's Mark Corrigan character is stuffy, socially anxious, nerdy and, at times, rather arrogant, while Webb's Jeremy Usborne is also arrogant, albeit in a different way, self-obsessed, selfish, unambitious and, at times, borderline deluded about the possible directions his life could go in.

Early in the series, one could argue that Mark is somewhat set up to be the "protagonist" of sorts, since much of the ongoing storylines follow his attempts to woo his work colleague, Sophie. As time goes on, though, the show becomes more generally about how both Mark and Jeremy find themselves on their own separate pathways towards self-destruction, each coming at the concept from a different direction. Mark approaches it from the angle of repeatedly fucking up the genuinely good things that happen in his life, while Jeremy's obsession with drugs, alcohol and sex to the almost complete exclusion of building a "normal" adult life makes his trajectory clear pretty early on.

In many ways, Mark and Jeremy are polar opposites, but they are also a lot more similar than they would care to admit. And, as the show progresses, one comes to realise that perhaps the "El Dude Brothers" perhaps aren't as close friends as they thought they were; indeed, the very last line of the show comes from Mark, looking at Jeremy, reflecting on the many trials and tribulations they have both faced — and inflicted on one another — and thinking "I simply must get rid of him". The implication, of course, is that Mark will never be able to get rid of Jeremy — not because the pair of them are incredibly close friends, but because they're stuck with one another, thanks to each other's most awful tendencies having rubbed off on each other to an exceedingly unhealthy degree.

Thus one could probably say that Peep Show is about toxic masculinity. And indeed there are plenty of examples of that throughout the show, with the main ones being Mark's erstwhile boss, Alan Johnson, who is an obnoxious "alpha male" business leader type — although later shown to have enjoyed success primarily through luck and charisma rather than actual talent — and Jeremy's friend "Super Hans", who in many ways is far more fucked up than Mark or Jeremy will ever be — though at times he does seem to have his shit together a lot more than the pair of them.

Interestingly, though, neither Mark or Jeremy are examples of toxic masculinity in quite the same way. Jeremy likes to talk a big game and make out that he's always getting women, but we see repeatedly throughout the show that he is completely incompetent in developing close interpersonal relationships. Mark, meanwhile, has aspirations for a while of being a big balls businessman like Johnson, but over time comes to accept that he is, at heart, a fairly unremarkable person — and that that is not necessarily a bad thing.

To be sure, the pair of them do engage in behaviour that is plenty toxic, often in the name of pursuing masculinity. But a lot of the time they do this for the sake of living up to a misguided sense of "ideals" rather than because they actually feel that way. Neither of them have a clue how to navigate the challenges that life repeatedly confronts them with, and neither of them really know how to be a stereotypical "man", in terms of the unattainable ideal they both have in their minds. And this leads them both down destructive paths that ultimately bring them both to their own downfall — multiple times.

But Peep Show isn't a bleak tragedy. While I'm sure many people watching the show do feel a bit bad for Mark and Jeremy, particularly by the time the final episode rolls around, the central duo are, at their core, figures to laugh at. The show is a comedy because the situations they keep getting into are so ridiculous, but I think a lot of the humour lands because it's plausible. You can picture people you know going down some of the roads that both Mark and Jeremy fling themselves headlong down. You might even have broken off friendships with similar degrees of toxicity that the pair of them demonstrate.

It's a cautionary tale in many ways, then. Neither Mark or Jeremy are "villains" as such, nor are either of them fundamentally "bad people". But one thing Peep Show demonstrates more than anything else is that it is very easy to find yourself circling the drain if you don't make at least a bit of an effort to get your life under control — and that, as you grow older, if you don't find a good balance between "things that make your life better" and "things that make you feel good in the short term", where those two things are seemingly in conflict with one another, you will almost certainly find yourself bitter, twisted, and if not alone, then certainly stuck with someone who is bad for you, and that you will never, ever be able to get rid of.

A downer ending? Perhaps. But it was perfect for the story the show was telling. It would have been easy to give everyone on the show a "happy" ending for the final episode, but as harsh as it sounds, I'm glad they didn't get it. They got the ending that they deserved — and that has pretty much ensured I will remember the way things concluded a lot more vividly than if everything was all neatly resolved and tied up with a little bow.

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#oneaday Day 700: A non-comprehensive, casual review of the sugar-free Red Bull Editions

I have now tried, I think, all the "Red Bull Editions" in their sugar-free forms. (EDIT: no I haven't, but I've started now, so I'll finish.) So I thought, in celebration of 700 days of meaningless word vomit (for the third time!) I would provide my unsolicited thoughts on each of them. Let us begin.

Yes, I know these are German. It was the best image of the range that I could find.

Coconut and Berry: The Coconut Edition

This is the one I tried today, and the one I was probably most skeptical about, as I'm never sure about coconut flavour things — plus "coconut and berry" sounded like an odd combination.

I was pleasantly surprised that this had quite a nice flavour. The coconut wasn't overpowering and neither was the berry flavour (blueberry, specifically, apparently) — it was a nice balance and an unusual but enjoyable taste. I did find it had that rather cloying mouthfeel that many sugar-free drinks have, though, so it took me quite a while to get through the whole can.

I'm not sure I'll have this one again, but I didn't hate it. A tentative recommendation.

Grapefruit and Blossom: The Lilac Edition

I was also a bit unsure about this one; I generally detest anything that has "floral" notes and have done ever since I had my first unwelcome taste of Rose flavoured Turkish Delight many years ago. As such, I was concerned that this would be more "Blossom" and less "Grapefruit", but thankfully it was the other way around; this was mostly just a nice, refreshing grapefruit flavour drink, with the edge taken off a bit by a pleasantly fragrant finish.

Out of all the ones I've tried, I think this one was my favourite.

Fuji Apple and Ginger: The Apple Edition

There seems to be a sort of half-arsed Japanese theme to some of these "Editions"; there's a "Cherry Sakura" one available in the full-sugar variant, but that doesn't appear to have a sugar-free version. Anyway, I wasn't sure about this one because of the presence of ginger; ginger is something that I like when it's forming part of a compound flavour (like in a nice curry, say) but if I can taste it by itself, I find it a tad "soapy" and unpleasant.

Thankfully, much like the Lilac Edition, the latter of the two ingredients was pushed somewhat to the background, leaving the apple flavour to shine with just a pleasant warmth to finish with. It was a considerably more pleasant taste than I was expecting, and will likely try this one again — my hesitance over the ginger element meant that I only had a sip of my wife's one of these rather than a full can.

White Peach: The Peach Edition

It's peach flavour. Peach flavour is good, if a tad unremarkable. This was decent, but I don't think there's that much reason to pick it over a Peachy Keen or Full Throttle Monster (which I'm convinced are the same flavour anyway). If you're getting it as part of a Meal Deal (and you know you are), you can probably get a bigger can of Monster for the same price.

Iced Vanilla Berry: The Ice Edition

I had no idea what to expect from this one. What I ended up getting was a fairly pleasant fruity drink that had a slight, not-unpleasant lingering nasal presence afterwards. Apparently eucalyptus is involved somewhere. Like the other Editions, though, the more "unusual" flavours aren't overpowering, though, so what you basically have here is a fruity, berry flavoured drink that might clear out your sinuses a bit. I didn't get much of the vanilla at all.

Forest Fruits: The Pink Edition

Probably the "safest" of all the Editions flavours, this was completely unremarkable in almost every way. It tasted like cheap supermarket red squash with a bit of fizz in it. That's not a bad thing, but it's also not worth paying three quid a can for.

What did I miss?

Apparently there are "Blue", "Green", "Ruby" and "Summer" ones out there that I haven't tried yet. Of these, the one I feel I'm least inclined to like is the "Green" one, which promises "Curuba-Elderflower". I don't even know what that is. I also don't anticipate being a big fan of the "Ruby" one, which promises "Spiced Pear". I'm not a huge fan of pear flavour, nor am I fan of spiced fruit, so this doesn't seem like it is particularly designed with my tastes in mind.

The "Summer" one, meanwhile, promises a citrus flavour, which is an evergreen — although also the possibility of being an unremarkable, uninteresting flavour. I'm keen to try that one, though. I'm also intrigued by the "Blue" one, too; I don't know what a "Juneberry" is, but I anticipate that one will taste like blue. You know very well what that means.

Anyway, my conclusions from all this is that they are, of course, extortionate when purchased by themselves, but if you can get them as part of a Meal Deal they're worth taking a punt on if you fancy something a little bit different. I think my favourite is the Lilac one, closely followed by the Apple. I'd probably rank the Coconut one the lowest, though it was still drinkable — and the Peach and Pink ones are just a bit boring. But sometimes you want boring, don't you?

So that's that. I'm off to go play Final Fantasy XI.

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#oneaday Day 694: The joy of hyperfixations

I've done a lot of work on my Secret Creative Project over the course of the last few days. I am feeling a strong amount of Autistic Hyperfixation Energy on it right now — even if I do often have to juggle this with the equally autistic tendencies to fiddle around with the bits I've already created over and over rather than continuing to make new bits.

Thus far the project is standing at 16,826 words. I anticipate that by the time I finish this — which will be a pretty long time from now — that number will be in the high six digits at the very least. There's a lot of work still to do, but I feel good about this; I feel like this is a worthwhile undertaking, and one that I'm enjoying doing.

It's not something I plan to make any money from; it's not something I plan to plaster ads all over; it's not something I'm doing to "be famous" or anything like that. It's just a project based on something I enjoy that I think will help others to enjoy said thing as much as I do. Plus it's an excuse for me to dive down some thoroughly interesting research rabbit-holes.

Doing this is reminding me that I love writing, particularly about the things I'm passionate about. (Go on then; I'll give you a little hint as to what the project is about: it is, perhaps unsurprisingly, about games.) I love the little journeys that bits of research take you on; I love trying to craft a narrative from those nuggets of information you find; I love trying to get my enthusiasm across in a way that is hopefully enjoyable for the reader to engage with.

I don't know if I'll ever finish this. I would certainly like to, and while I'm feeling the strong Autistic Hyperfixation Energy, I intend to keep taking advantage of it as much as possible. I reached what I consider to be the first major milestone in the project this evening… out of many milestones along the way, yes, but a significant one, nonetheless. It feels like finally cresting a particularly steep hill, so I am going to "reward" myself with some nice relaxing time tomorrow. I haven't played Pragmata for a few days and need to get back on that, but this has been taking priority while I've been feeling very much in the mood for it.

On that note, though, it's after midnight, and I think I should probably get some sleep now.

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#oneaday Day 692: Another hyper-specific product recommendation

I think it's about time I used my platform here, such as it is, to make another hyper-specific product recommendation, based on something that I, Pete Davison, 45 years of age yesterday, have recently Bought And Thought Was Kind Of All Right.

The product today is Clearasil's Rapid Action Pads. They look like this:

If the name "Clearasil" is familiar, it's because you probably know them for their numerous varieties of zit-clearance products from over the years. The brand's been around for a long time at this point, and is, I would assume, something of a Trusted Name.

I came to these pads because a few weeks back, I found myself getting a few zits around my mouth, so I thought I should probably do something about them beyond simply attempting to pop them and then doing stifled screams when I was reminded, through bitter experience, that popping zits that are on or near your lips is excruciatingly painful.

My initial intent was to go out and find a product I used to use as a teenager known as "Oxy Duo Pads", but I wasn't convinced that Oxy anything was a thing any more, because the last time I had even thought about these things was more than 30 years ago. As it happens, when I searched for "Oxy Duo Pads" on Amazon, these Clearasil things are the first thing that came up — although a brief Google reveals that Oxy is apparently still a thing if you know where to get them.

Anyway, Oxy Duo Pads were little fabric pads that were a bit rough on one side and a bit smoother on the other side, and they were coated in the sort of stinky chemical that was unmistakably for blasting zits. The theory was that you'd rough up your skin and open the pores with the rough side, allowing all that delicious chemically goodness to seep in (and burn like fuck if you were a bit sore) then smooth things out a bit with the smooth side. In the process, you'd almost certainly realise that your face was a lot more dirty than you thought it was.

These Clearasil pads are essentially the same thing, without the "Duo" part — in other words, they pretty much just have what was the "rough" side from the Oxy product. They still smell unmistakably like some sort of flesh-burning chemical, and they're still pretty danged good at not only getting the filth off one's face, but also discouraging zits from coming back.

However, that's not the reason I want to recommend them. I want to recommend them for an added bonus feature I discovered after just a couple of days of using them.

For most of my life, I've suffered with dry skin, particularly on my face. It's possibly some sort of genetic thing, as my Dad has always had it, too, particularly around his nose. I had resigned myself to it just being sort of there all the time, and having to put up with, in the words of Alan Partridge, "my pillow [being] like a flapjack" when I woke up of a morning.

Two days of using these damn things, and the skin on my face was clear, soft and not peeling or sore even a little bit. Sure, that first day made me feel like I was voluntarily inflicting serious chemical burns on myself, but after the second day, I noticed a difference. And, using them every day since then, I haven't had even a hint of dry or sore skin on my face.

I believe the reason for this is that the Clearasil pads include something called salicylic acid. This is something that I've seen among my wife's numerous skincare products on the bathroom windowsill, but never thought to even ask what it was for. It turns out that it basically strips the top layer off your skin, which is not as horrifying as it sounds. The net effect, it seems, is that the outer layer, which was all dry and crispy and horrible, is removed, leaving soft, fresh, new skin underneath. And I believe you are unlikely to whittle your own face down to the skull while using this stuff, because we all grow new skin on a pretty regular basis. Also it's apparently vaguely related to aspirin, and taking it orally is inadvisable. Thanks, Wikipedia.

Anyway, if you, like me, have ever suffered with a face that seems to want to come off at the most inconvenient times, it seems the answer is to regularly douse it in a form of acid that, in itself, will also cause your face to come off, but in a more useful and less messy way than when your face wants to do it itself.

I guess I have a "skincare routine" now, such as it is.

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#oneaday Day 691: It is my birthday

It is my birthday. I am 45 years of age today. I have had a reasonably nice day — I took the whole beginning of this week off — but to be honest I didn't achieve what I initially thought I was going to achieve in this time off. I thought I was going to make some videos, but it turns out I have not done that. Instead, I have made some headway on a Mystery Creative Project I teased a while back.

I'm still not going to tell you what it is, because my aim for it is to finish it before unleashing it on the world, rather than doing it piecemeal. My reasoning for this is that… well, I have prior experience. At one point a while back, I started doing a website whose long-term intention was to go through every cartridge available for the Philips G7000 "Videopac" computer and write something about all of them. I stalled on that project for various reasons, and at some point a WordPress update broke my layout on the page and I haven't been able to summon up the mental fortitude to go and fix it. As such, it's just sort of sitting there in a broken, unfinished state, and will likely continue to do so.

My thinking is that if I work on this thing a bit at a time, trying to knock off a little bit of it every day, I'll have something impressive to show off when it's complete. (Once it's "complete", it will continue to evolve by virtue of what it is, but there will definitely be a moment when it reaches "version 1.0" status and I am happy to reveal it.) Conversely, if I were to launch what I've done now, people might just go "huh, cool", realise there's not all that much to it yet and then never think about it ever again.

So that's my plan. And I've made a good dent in starting this whole project over the course of the last few days. Starting these things is always one of the toughest bits, because you keep thinking of little bits and pieces you might want to do to refine the experience — and if these revelations come too late, it can be a bit of a faff to implement them. Thankfully, I'm happy with the situation I've got things into now, and I can now focus on the real meat of the overall project.

Make no mistake, though, this project is going to be a lot of work. There is somewhere in the region of 800 "little jobs" to do in the name of putting the whole thing together, and so far I have completed (counts) nine. Still, every journey begins with a single step and all that, and now I've got started, I feel like I can bang out a bit of this whole thing each day until it is all done. And it is something that I think will feel good when it is finished.

I apologise for being vague about all this, but hopefully you understand my reasoning for it. I want the grand unveiling of this thing, whenever that might end up being at some indefinite point in the future, to be a worthwhile and meaningful event for those it is relevant to. And I feel like teasing it too early will be counterproductive to that. So this is the approach I'm taking. And this probably won't be the last time I mention it in such vague terms. But you'll see… eventually. Hopefully, anyway.

On that note, I'm off to take a break from this self-inflicted "work" and enjoy the rest of my birthday before I have to go back to work tomorrow.

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#oneaday Day 690: I bought The Beano for the first time in more than 30 years

I was in Marks and Spencers earlier — yes, yes, something something middle class — and I happened to see that they had copies of The Beano on sale in the small newsstand near the tills. I've noticed this before, but never picked one up. Today, I decided to finally satisfy a longstanding curiosity and answer the question: "what is The Beano like, more than thirty years after I last read it?"

I used to read The Beano pretty much every week. I had Beano annuals most years for Christmas, and when I was lucky, I'd get a Bash Street Kids or Dennis the Menace annual to go along with it. My parents used to read The Beano when they were kids, too; they have some pretty old Beano annuals knocking around somewhere, and probably (hopefully?) still all my old ones, too.

I liked The Beano because it was straightforwardly funny, and it was something that I could share my amusement about with my family. We all particularly enjoyed Calamity James, a comic strip about an unlucky boy that always featured an absurd amount of background detail that was often more hilarious than the actual happenings in the strip — plus at least one smelly sock in every single full-page strip.

I wasn't sure what to expect from a copy of The Beano in 2026. Would it be filled with impenetrable Young Person Slang? I wasn't sure it would be, as although it was kid-friendly when I was young, I don't remember it being too tryhard about trying to "sound like" us. The thing I was most expecting was that it would be childish humour that I simply wouldn't find funny — but then I remembered that I still find burps and farts hilarious, and felt that even if it was childish, it would probably be about my level.

So I dove in while enjoying a sandwich. And I enjoyed it! It even elicited some genuine out-loud laughs on multiple occasions. There are, as you might expect, quite a lot of changes that have happened in the intervening 30+ years, but a lot of things have stayed the same, too. So let's look at a few highlights.

Dennis the Menace is still the cover star, though his strip no longer adorns the front and back covers — there's a more conventional "magazine-style" cover on the front now, though there's still a strip on the back for the "Make Me A Menace" feature, where readers can send a photo of themselves in and be featured in a comic strip.

I highlighted these first frames because I thought they were a good visual gag. The strip, which ran for four pages in total — so much longer than in his cover-mounted days — told the story of how Dennis refused to cut his hair until Beanotown United won three games in a row, and this caused his hair to grow so long that it became sentient and started eating people. Thoroughly silly, and exactly the sort of thing I would have expected to see in The Beano back in the day.

Calamity James is, unfortunately, a shadow of its former self. It's clearly done by a different artist now, and it's only a three-panel strip alongside fellow Beano veteran Billy Whizz and newcomer Addams Family wannabes Number 13. All the wonderful background detail and silly visual gags are gone — no more smelly sock! — but I'm pleased they kept James looking like a slightly deranged pencil. The gag is, I have to admit, mildly funny, too, though it does rely on an awareness of stupid modern trends like "6-7" and thus would probably be impenetrable to my parents at this point.

One of the biggest changes since I read The Beano as a kid is the addition of quite a few non-white characters, including some who have their own strip, such as in Har Har's Joke Shop here. Doubtless this made the "anti-woke" people furious at some point in the past, but it's a sensible change for the comic to make, as it reflects the multicultural nature of our society while at the same time highlighting how people having differently coloured skin doesn't mean they suddenly become completely alien types of person; the non-white characters in The Beano fit right in with all the usual mayhem without being picked out as being something "unusual" — which is a good message to send to kids.

This idea continues with the changes to The Bash Street Kids. While all the old cast are there, a couple have had name changes in the name of sensitivity — Spotty is now Scotty, and Fatty is now Freddy, though Plug (as in "plug-ugly") is still as he was. New additions to the crew include Cuthbert (the chief "softy" from older Dennis the Menace cartoons, though I wonder if he's been retired from that role in the name of not promoting bullying) along with Harsha from Har Har's Joke Shop and apparent newcomers Mahira, Stevie and Khadija, all non-white characters of various descriptions.

This was a good gag. I'm pleased to see The Beano come down on the anti-AI side of things. I find that oddly reassuring.

Elsewhere, the comic is apparently in the process of serialising Bananaman's origin story. I was just explaining to some baffled Americans about Bananaman the other day, and it turns out he's still relevant, apparently. I would never have expected that.

Perhaps most reassuring of all, though, is The Beano's willingness to include a full-on fart gag. Oddly enough, despite being plenty mischievous back in the day, I don't recall ever seeing Beano characters burping and farting, except perhaps sometimes in the background of Calamity James strips. This little beauty from newcomer Rubi's Screwtop Science, featuring a lead character in a wheelchair, gave me a good giggle, though…

…as did the fact the comic apparently April Fooled people by suggesting you could scratch and sniff Minnie the Minx farting in a prior issue. I love this because I feel like there's a whole bunch of layers to this gag, some of which only the grown-ups will get. I'll leave them to your imagination.

All in all, I enjoyed my first look at The Beano in more than thirty years. It's nice to see how inclusive it's become, though like I say, I suspect there are certain Daily Mail-reading portions of the population who believe it's an outrage that there's a character wearing a hijab in The Bash Street Kids. Thankfully I have never run into them, and I hope I never do.

It's most reassuring to see how funny it still is, though, even as an almost-45 year old man. (45 tomorrow!) Will I keep buying The Beano? I don't know. I actually wouldn't be averse to the idea. So let's maybe have a think about that…

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#oneaday Day 687: Minibreak

I am in a hotel for the second time in one week! This time it's for non-work reasons. We're going to The Cave tomorrow to see a talk by Ian "h0ffman" Ford, a veteran of the Amiga demoscene, and an experienced porter of games to platforms they absolutely were not designed for. It should be a good time.

Anyway, it's also my birthday in a few days time, and Andie couldn't think of what to buy me as a present, so she paid for us to have a night in a nice hotel ahead of our Cave visit, rather than having to drive there early in the morning. It's about two hours' drive from us, so getting there for an 11am start would have meant getting up much earlier than we normally do on a weekend. Yes, we are still teenagers in that regard.

The hotel is nice. It's a four-star hotel, so it evidently was pretty swanky in its prime; today, it could do with a lick of paint and some repairs here and there, but it's not in bad condition. The facilities are nice — there's a great pool and spa area that we spent a bit of time in this afternoon — and the food at the restaurant we had for dinner was really tasty. Moderately pricy, but not unreasonably so, particularly considering we had three courses.

I'm looking forward to visiting The Cave again. My visit a couple of years back is a fond memory, and the place has had more work done since then, plus some new additions to the collection. h0ffman's talk should be interesting, and it will be nice to show my wife and a friend of ours what it's all about.

Anyway, I'm typing this on my phone because I didn't have the foresight to bring a keyboard with me, so I'm going to leave that there. It's after midnight anyway, so we had better sleep. I will try and remember to take some photos tomorrow!

#oneaday Day 685: Very tired

I've been absolutely exhausted all day. I feel like I got a decent night's sleep, particularly after the tiring day I had at work followed by the long drive home, but also feel like I could have done with approximately 12 hours more sleep. I actually managed to get a fair amount done today, but right now I just feel like I could shut my eyes and fall asleep right here on the sofa.

With that in mind, I'm probably going to have an early night tonight. I'd like to get back into Pragmata, which I'm enjoying a lot, but I'm also not sure my brain is up to playing anything too complex this evening. Perhaps this would be a good evening to do a bit of retro gaming, with an emphasis on something that isn't too challenging or complex to deal with.

I actually have the next two Evercade cartridges that haven't been released yet, which I'm kind of dying to talk about but can't because although I have them in my hands, we haven't even announced them yet. That will be happening soon, however, and when it does I will have plenty to enthuse about, believe me. They're not the biggest releases of the year, by any means, but they are some of my favourites.

No; I'm thinking this evening might be a good opportunity to settle down with something comfortably familiar, but which I perhaps haven't played for a while. I'm hoping in the process of typing this, something will come to mind that feels like it might be fun to spend my evening playing. Maybe Starwing? I haven't played that for a while. Last time I tried it, the MiSTer SNES core was having issues with the SuperFX chip, but I believe that's been resolved at this point, so that might be a good shout. I do love a bit of Starwing, and it is actually quite a long time since I've played it.

I'm going to get back into doing some videos soon, for those who have been wondering why it's been all quiet on that front for a while. I just haven't really felt an urge to do that for a little while, and forcing yourself to do something you're not really feeling is a sure-fire way to get yourself feeling burnt out. I won't have time to do any this coming weekend, as we're taking a trip to The Cave, but I have a few days off for my birthday at the start of next week, so I might take a day or two to record a few things over that period. Exactly what, I have no idea just yet; I have a few things in mind that I might like to explore, but haven't decided firmly on when or how to tackle them. This upcoming bit of free time might be the ideal opportunity to jump into them.

Anyway, I think I might have made a decision on what to do with my evening — although at the rate I'm going, I may well be asleep before I've got anywhere. If that's the way it goes, though, that's the way it goes!

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