I'm exhausted, physically and mentally. I think mostly mentally, but that in turn is making me feel physically exhausted. The world just seems to be such a frustratingly relentless parade of shit at the moment that just existing is tiring. So although it's not even 10pm at the time of writing, I think I might just go to bed after this.
Unlike times gone by, I can thankfully say that it's not really my life that has gone to shit as such, but I'm not sure that's any great comfort. At least if there is something wrong in my life — and plenty of things are, don't get me wrong — it's possible to take action and do something about it.
But when you feel like the entire world is just collectively going insane, and there's fuck all you can do about it? That's exhausting. Whether it's the constant enshittification of today's services, the ever-increasing cost of living or the utterly stupid obsession with AI — all three of which are related to varying degrees, I'd say — it just feels like the world is moving in an unhealthy direction, and no matter how much you say "hang on a minute" there's nothing that you, as one person, can do.
I won't lie, I'm a little concerned for my pals in America right now, because they seem to be staring down a bit of a no-win situation when it comes to the upcoming presidential elections. On the one side, you have Trump, who is just an outright fucking maniac, and on the other, you have Biden, whose age is starting to make people question his suitability for the role. Given the choice, it seems like picking the old man is the sensible thing to do, but America never seems to make things that simple. After all, they already elected Trump into office once; while most people would probably agree that was a terrible idea, I have a strange feeling that it might happen again.
And while I feel a certain sense of solidarity with others online expressing similar concerns about the immediate and medium-term future, I also feel very alone. Ever since COVID hit, I've felt completely isolated aside from being with my wife, and it's done a real number on my self-confidence and self-esteem. I feel like I could do with some sort of support network when I'm feeling like this, and I just don't have one. Worse, I don't really know how to go about putting one together — or indeed reassembling one that I maybe once had.
I always used to think that as you grew older and became more of an "adult" that things would fall into place and become more straightforward. And perhaps they did for previous generations. But for me, right now, each passing year just feels worse and worse, like a sense of comfort and stability is just slipping further and further away. The world has been a place that I don't feel like I quite fit into for as long as I can remember. And in recent years, that feeling has only been becoming more and more pronounced with everything that's been happening.
If only it was possible to just completely disconnect from the bad things in the world, and spend your time surrounded by people who care about you, and whom you care about too. I guess I should feel lucky that I have my wife and cats, at the very least; some people don't even have that.
I'd apologise for the maudlin post, but I made it clear back when I started all this shenanigans again that it was going to be a form of "therapy" for me. And that means getting this stuff off my chest once in a while. I'm sure you understand. Perhaps you even feel the same way. I unfortunately cannot offer any advice or comfort if so, but know, at least, that you are not the only one feeling that way. Not, I suspect, by a long shot.
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A lot has been made about the supposed proliferation of "fake news" and, regrettably, because discussion about it started around the time of Trump's last ascendancy (and to quite a significant degree from the Trump camp), not everyone takes the concept entirely seriously. But it's definitely something that happens, and it's making the Web less and less useful.
Earlier today, a member of a Discord I'm in posted a link to the following tweet:
The screenshots are of Windows Defender supposedly finding a plain text file containing nothing but the text "This content is no longer available." to be a piece of malware — specifically a Trojan called Casdet!rfn. Obviously a plain text file is not malware, so this is ridiculous, and thus Microsoft must have made a silly mistake and we can all laugh at them, ho ho ho.
I tried it.
Windows Defender did not find it to be malware.
I Googled it and found several outlets reporting on this "story", including some that really should know better (looking at you, Tom's Hardware) — and not one of them had seemingly put in the minimal amount of effort required to verify that this was actually a thing. In other words, none of them had done what I did above: recreate the situation by composing a blank text file, putting the words "This content is no longer available." in it and then scanning it with Windows Defender. A two-minute job, tops.
No, instead the most rigour anyone put in was to look at the replies to the Twitter post, which are fairly slim in number, making me wonder exactly how this misinformation had spread in the first place. The tweet in question has nearly 700,000 views, though only 800 of whatever the Muskrat is calling "Retweets" this week, suggesting the majority of its minor virality has come about through situations exactly like the one I describe above: people sharing it via means other than Twitter.
Now, I don't blame the chap on Discord. He was just sharing something he thought was funny. I don't even blame the original Tweeter, because it's entirely possible that this was true once and it was quietly fixed in a Windows update. But I do blame all these people, and Google.
Not only for reporting on this without doing the absolute bare minimum of fact-checking, but for not correcting these stories if indeed it was once true and now is no longer correct.
Either way, the result is the same: a lot of misinformation gets spread very easily, often by people who have no ill intent. It's not the fault of the people who share this stuff — although I personally would check any sort of claim like this before resharing it myself — but it absolutely is the fault of outlets authoritatively sharing this as "news" without doing any sort of research beyond looking at a few Twitter posts.
Sadly, this is what "news" is these days. Get a good hook for a story that might be the slightest bit clickable and/or shareable, then write it up (with at least 600 words for SEO purposes, of course) and just make some shit up in the middle if you need to. Doesn't matter if the story is true or not; by the time people have clicked or shared, the article has done its job, and it doesn't matter if anyone twigs that it's bollocks or not.
In some respects, I'm sad that I'm no longer working the games journalism beat. But in others, I know that if I was still a newshound, I'd likely be gently encouraged into this sort of odious practice in order to get the numbers up.
I had more integrity and rigour when I was covering stuff for GamePro and USgamer. I'd find stories, research them myself and report on them only when I was good and sure that there actually was a story there. And I didn't have to make a big deal out of doing that at the time, because that was the expectation for someone working a News Editor position.
Now? Engagement above all. Who cares if something is true? Numbers go big, suits stay happy. Fuck the actual audience who might want the publications they read to be reliable and trustworthy; they are, after all, the least important part of the whole equation these days.
If you're looking for the Web as it once was, then I'm sorry to inform you that This content is no longer available.
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Is 30 days a milestone? I guess you can look at it that way, depending on if you consider nice round numbers a milestone. You can also look at 30 days as "about a month", too, so I guess it's significant from that respect. It's a long way off the 2,541 daily posts from last time around, of course, but that all started with baby steps, too. And then it just kept going.
Now and again I like to hit the "Random Post" button on this site to jump to one of the myriad posts in the archives. I often find myself surprised how often it throws up the same things, given how many of them there are, but computerised randomisation is, as we hopefully all know by now, imperfect.
That gives me an idea for today's post. I'll hit Random a few times and see what I think of what shows up. Are you ready? Then let's begin.
First up, Day 693 from first time around, and a post named Endings. In it, I contemplated the fact that I had just finished L.A. Noire, a game that I enjoyed a lot at the time but which I have forgotten almost everything about since. I pontificated on particularly effective endings that had stuck with me over the years — particularly downer endings. And Conker's Bad Fur Day was one that stuck with me, due to it coming after all the foul-mouthed ridiculousness that had come before.
I still agree with this. Conker's Bad Fur Day ends absolutely perfectly. It's a huge bummer in a lot of ways, of course, what with our hero losing his true love, but it also provides something of a sense of "reality catching up with him". The strange journey that Conker goes on over the course of Conker's Bad Fur Day starts silly and cartoonish, but gets darker and darker as you progress through things. By the last few sequences in the game, things are still silly, but there's a definite sobering undercurrent. The World War II-inspired sequence may have you fighting against teddy bears, but it's still World War II, and a lot of people get hurt and die.
The ending of Conker's Bad Fur Day is as much a signal to the player as it is to Conker. "Wake up," it says. "The time for play is over. Now it's time to get back to the grim reality of life." Sobering, to be sure.
Next up, post 850 from first time around, entitled Diablolical [sic]. In it, I lay out how I'd been having a good time with the then-newly released Diablo III, and that I didn't have as much of a problem with it being "always online" as the rest of the Internet seemed to. And that's because I recognised that Diablo III, far more than its predecessors, was actually an MMO. A well-disguised one, yes, but still an MMO.
I actually stand by this assessment, though my opinion on Diablo III itself has soured somewhat for a variety of reasons. Firstly, after playing it a bunch, I realised that its setting and unrelenting grimness was just plain boring to me. The world of Diablo is a world in which there is no hope; one in which you defeat the Big Bad of the hour and there's inevitably an even bigger bad lurking just around the corner. And once you've beaten all the Big Bads, they all come back, because that's what Big Bads do in Diablo-land.
Secondly, it's hard to get the various revelations about working conditions at Blizzard Entertainment out of my head. I'm not about to go on a big crusade about it or anything, but given that the Diablo series is already one I'd been feeling a bit "ehhh" about since the very beginning, knowing that some of the staff at the developer are shitheads makes it a lot easier to just go "fuck it" and never play anything from them again… particularly as all of their last few releases have some combination of loot boxes, battle passes or predatory "free-to-play" monetisation. So yeah, fuck Blizzard and fuck Diablo. Diablo III is still an MMO, though.
Next up, an earlier post: number 303, from 2010, in which I ponder the nature of Panic Stations. Specifically, through some exceedingly heavy-handed masking, I outline the things that cause me a sense of irrational anxiety, even when I know they're not anything really worth getting het up about. 2010 was before I'd really sought any sort of help for mental health, and well before I'd been diagnosed with either anxiety or Asperger's, but I still recognised anxious feelings in myself — and my brain's tendency to blow things out of proportion.
This post is one I should probably return to now and again to remind myself not to get so wound up about stupid things.
Finally for today, an even earlier post from 2010: number 57, Look into the Eyes, in which I talk about the Derren Brown show my ex-wife (who was, at that point, just my wife) and I had been to see at the Mayflower theatre in Southampton. I really enjoyed that show, and both of us had a lot of time for Derren Brown. I feel like we don't see much of him these days; I wonder what happened to him? Looking on Wikipedia, it seems he's still active, but I guess the changing nature of how we look at media these days makes him less visible — I don't watch "TV" any more, for example, and that tended to be where I saw him the most.
All right, that's enough looking back for one day. My cat has just been sick and the other cat is eating it. I think that's as good a cue as any to just go to bed.
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I had one of those dreams that it's difficult to wake up from this morning. It was a variation on a dream I quite commonly have, which involves being back in some form of education, knowing that I'm not doing something I should be doing, and not being able to make myself sort that situation out.
The most common form this dream takes sees me back at secondary school, knowing that the school's music groups (typically the orchestra and concert band) are rehearsing and that I should be there, but I am not going. My old music teacher Mr. Murrall is standing outside the music block looking disapprovingly at me standing some distance away, often with my friends from the time, but I can't bring myself to admit that I've made a mistake, and that I should go along and resolve the situation.
Last night was a little bit different, as it revolved around university. I had just moved into a new flat — not any of the flats I actually lived in during my time at university, but something my mind dreamed up — and was settling in, but I realised I had no idea when term started or if I should have been going to any lectures. Any time I thought "I should look up when term starts", I was distracted from doing so, and I became more and more convinced over time that I was missing significant parts of my course. But, again, I couldn't correct the situation.
Education-related dreams are, unsurprisingly, usually interpreted as being something to do with learning, and variations on the theme such as those which I describe above are usually tied to various forms of anxiety — often imposter syndrome.
If I'm being honest, I can tell where some of those thoughts are probably coming from. The recurring dream about not showing up to orchestra rehearsals is likely due to how I'm aware I don't make nearly enough time to practice music these days, and should probably do something about that. I think I want a new piano, though; our current one is fine apart from a few seriously dodgy notes in the octave below middle C, and unfortunately those notes appear to be some of the most frequently occurring in almost everything I want to play! New pianos are expensive, though, so you can probably see where some of that anxiety comes from.
As for the imposter syndrome side of things, I've definitely felt that before. I'm not sure I'm feeling it a lot right now, because in my current position I feel like I'm valued and that I contribute something meaningful — although thinking about it, there are still aspects of the daily work life that do cause me anxiety, such as having to deal with the social media side of things. But I've definitely felt it in the past; feelings that I "don't deserve" to be where I am, or that I'm worried someone will "find out" something about me that I don't want to be found out — exactly what, I'm never sure, because I don't have anything particularly shameful to hide.
I suspect, as someone with a natural undercurrent of anxiety flowing through me at most times, I will never be completely free of these dreams. I actually don't mind them all that much, as they sometimes have an interesting, nostalgic element to them. I do wish my dream self could break free of whatever is holding him down and resolve the problems at the core of those situations, though… that way I could just enjoy being back at school or university!
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In theory, the opportunity for developers to respond to user reviews on storefronts such as Steam, Google Play and the like should be a good thing. It should provide the opportunity for the developer in question to open a dialogue with a customer — be they satisfied or dissatisfied — and help move things in a positive direction in one way or another.
How it actually works, meanwhile, is quite different. Because most developers, it seems, can't be bothered to do anything other than a stock response to everyone, even when it's woefully inappropriate to do so.
I'd like to share with you a review I wrote recently, in which I found a "teleprompter" app for Android (this one, if you're curious, which was recommended by one of the bajillion SEO-baiting "best teleprompter apps for mobile" articles festering on the modern Web) but was dismayed to discover it was asking for an extortionate subscription fee rather than a flat price. I am pretty vehemently against subscription fees for simple, single-purpose apps, particularly when they don't have an online component, and I made this clear in my review.
Not unreasonable, I don't think. Now let's look at the developer's response:
Now this is an excellent developer response. "You think the monthly subscription is too expensive, so why not use the more expensive annual one" is a ballsy move, to be sure. "You don't like monthly subscriptions, but it's okay because you can cancel any time and lose access to the app you paid for" is also high up my list of "stupid things to say".
More than that, it's just plain bollocks. This comment is symptomatic of a widespread issue with all manner of software today, whether they be single-purpose mobile apps or more elaborate services. And that issue is that everyone seems to see a perpetual need to "introduce new features".
I'll remind you that when I came across this app I was looking for something that did one thing and one thing only: provide a "teleprompter" facility that I can use on my phone. To elaborate, that means provide the ability to display some text on the phone's screen while the camera is recording, allowing me to make "eye contact" with the camera while reading from a script.
This app does that already. It does not need any new features. It is already fit for purpose, aside from the subscription fee. Therefore it does not need additional development or new features to be introduced. (Especially not a "Rewrite your script with AI!" feature, which it proudly boasts.) Perhaps a compatibility update every now and then to ensure it works with whatever current version of Android has been loaded onto my phone without telling me this week. But that does not warrant a fee of five quid a month or even twenty quid a year.
As I said, I would have quite happily paid a fiver up front for the app, and that's being extraordinarily generous in the mobile space, given that most people don't like paying more than 79p for anything.
The stock response from "Phil" about "introducing new features" and "continuing to improve the app" didn't convince me in any way that the subscription fee was worth paying, and I suspect he knew that as he copy-pasted the words into the response box. So why did he bother posting it at all? Just so the fact he "responds to feedback", even if it is with utterly stupid suggestions, is visible to anyone browsing the page and not looking too closely?
A few minutes later, I found another teleprompter app that does just charge once and then doesn't bother you again. So I bought it without a moment's hesitation. Don't stand for exploitative, predatory subscription models, particularly on mobile where it's extremely easy to forget about them. And support those folks who are actually providing a good, useful piece of software without trying to fleece you.
And Phil? Eat a thousand cocks.
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As I type this, the results for the General Election in this country are being announced. It looks likely that Labour are going to win a landslide victory, giving the Conservatives a seriously bloody nose in the process, but it also looks like the Reform party are going to make a few gains along the way, too.
I'm not going to pretend to know enough about politics to provide any more in-depth commentary than that, but I am relieved that we are at least looking likely to have a change of government. The last 14 years have been pretty rough for the UK, and some change is what we need. The question is, of course, whether the incoming new government are willing to do anything noteworthy or, as is probably more likely, they will continue to let things just tick along and gradually slide further and further into enshittification.
The rise of Reform is a little worrying, though I suspect their gains will be less noteworthy than the somewhat exaggerated hyperbole suggests. We've already heard some Reform representatives on the BBC's coverage of the election complaining about "woke nonsense" without actually saying what they believe "woke nonsense" to be, and very carefully taking care to not say that they hate immigrants and transgender people.
The BBC has been pulling its punches a bit, though. It looked like the Reform candidate was going to be questioned on the "woke nonsense" line, but the presenters pulled back after she pretty much ignored the question. There was also some confrontation of "vile" comments made by some Reform candidates, but those weren't pursued either. It's a little frustrating to see coverage that is just on the cusp of doing some interesting journalism, but then pulling back in the name of… what? Impartiality? Perhaps.
Looking into it, it appears that the BBC did actually do some journalism into this back when it happened. And yeah, there is some pretty bad stuff in there. Naturally, Reform leader Nigel Farage claimed that the comments were being "taken out of context", but there's really only so many contexts in which you can take someone complaining about "the cultural feminisation of the west", as Bexhill and Battle candidate Ian Gribbin did, and none of them are particularly complimentary. Same for Ynys Mon candidate Emmett Jenner's obviously transphobic comments from 2018, though he claims his now-deleted Twitter account was a "parody". (Of what, he didn't say.)
There was an interesting point made on the BBC's coverage, though, which is that there are quite possibly some voters out there who genuinely have no idea that Reform candidates have said some truly horrible things in the past, and simply voted for Reform as a "protest vote". These days, I'm inclined to say that there's not a lot of excuse for not knowing the true colours of various public figures, even if you're not on social media, but I guess it is possible, particularly among the older generation.
But anyway. I'm not going to stay up and watch too much more of the coverage, but I do find it quite interesting for a little while. It's going to be going on for about 10 hours, though, so we won't have an absolutely final answer on what's happening to the country until tomorrow morning. The exit polls would seem pretty damning for the Conservative government, though, and I am 100% fine with that. We'll just have to wait and see what that really means.
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Look at this bastard little icon. You probably see it every day right now. Hell, I see it every time I pop open the WordPress toolbar, because Automattic, makers of WordPress and Jetpack (back-end technology that helps WordPress sites do what they do) are cramming it in absolutely fucking everywhere, just like every other tech company is right now. No-one asked for this, no-one wants it, no-one is happy with the results it produces.
And yet, look at that bastard little icon. Such promise it carries in its little sparkly starbursts! The suggestion that magic is about to happen! The implication that, were you just to click that bastard little icon, creativity will be magically produced from nothing, allowing you to truly express yourself without any of that pesky "thinking"! You will truly be once and for all free!
As a creative type, naturally I object to generative AI being jammed in everywhere that it doesn't belong. I'll admit to having found some uses of it potentially interesting — music generation is intriguing, feeling like a step onwards from a program we used to have on the Atari ST called "Band In A Box" — but whatever use case I come across, it's hard to shake the feeling that its only real use is to enable laziness, and to prevent having to pay a real person for doing the creative work that is their specialism. (The actual computing and environmental cost of such tech doesn't matter to AI zealots, of course.)
That's not to say there's no money in AI, mind; no, by golly, the big tech companies are falling over themselves to hoover up investor cash right now, and every big generative AI site features some sort of predatory monetisation system, usually involving "credits" that obfuscate how much you're actually paying, and/or "monthly" subscriptions that are actually charged annually, because apparently that's just a thing you can lie about now and no-one calls you on it.
I think one of the clearest signals I've felt that AI bullshit has gone too far is its encroachment into pornography. It's now easier than ever to produce "deepfake" pornography featuring people who have not consented to appear in pornographic material. Of course, AI-generated slop has plenty of telltale signs, still, but the fact this stuff exists at all was already cause for concern even before it was easy to produce it.
On top of that, sites that were once about posting collections of erotic art and animations from artists, movies, anime series and video games are now overflowing with AI-generated swill; a cursory glance at e-hentai's front page earlier revealed a multitude of galleries tagged with "[AI Generated]", making them virtually worthless. Of course, e-hentai and sites like it already skirt the borders of morality by often including artwork artists intend to be kept behind Patreon, skeb or Fantia paywalls — but many of these galleries seem to suggest that there are a significant number of individuals out there attempting to position themselves as "artists" when all they are, in fact, doing is plugging prompts into an AI model that doesn't chastise them in a patronising way when requesting erotic material.
I'm sick of it. I'm sick of Jetpack emailing me to join an AI "webinar", I'm sick of ClickUp, the productivity tool we use at work, constantly spamming me about some AI feature I don't care about, I'm sick of the breathless zealotry from the cryptobros who have found the next big thing to latch onto before it all inevitably comes tumbling down in burning wreckage… and I'm sick of the uneasiness that I'm sure anyone in a vaguely creative field is feeling right now.
And I'm not sure it's going to go away for a while. Big Tech seems determined to make "AI" a thing. And while I'm not averse to actual, helpful uses of it — which I'm yet to see a convincingly working example of that can't be better fulfilled by other, existing methods — I think we all know that with the people we have in charge, those actual, helpful uses are inevitably going to take a back seat to ways of screwing poor old Joe Public and his friend Struggling Artist out of their hard-earned money more than anything else.
(Aside: I tried running this article through Jetpack's stupid "AI Assistant" to "get suggestions on how to enhance my post to better engage my audience", and the thing just crashed. Good show!)
So fuck that bastard little icon. Take your magic sparkles and jam them right up your robotic arse. The only things allowed to sparkle like that are fairies and ponies, and AI is neither of those things. So into the trash it goes, so far as I'm concerned.
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I put half a pound on this week. This is not, in the grand scheme of things, a huge amount of weight, but I am a little disappointed and not at all surprised. I have not been particularly rigorous about taking care to be sensible with what I eat, and that somewhat laissez-faire attitude is being reflected in a lack of positive results.
All you can do in this situation, though, is hold up your hands, admit you made a mistake (or a few) and try to right the ship from hereon. What has already happened can't be changed; what's important is what you do next and what you learn from that mistake.
I've already started taking positive steps with the exercise. I made it out of the door and to the pool for a decent length swim this morning, after what was a surprisingly good night's sleep. I woke up a lot of times, but every time it was because I was convinced it was 7am and time to get up, only to get the very pleasant surprise when I looked at my bedside clock and discovered that "time to get up" was still several hours away.
What I need to do is focus on some of the things that Slimming World talks about in the sessions, rather than just nodding along. Probably the key thing I need to focus on is "triggers" — in the slimming sense, these are the things that aren't the greatest for you which you eat then immediately want more of. They are one of the biggest barriers to weight loss, because they are the things that are most likely to send you catastrophically "off plan".
In many respects it's like an addiction. I have some experience of dealing with people who have struggled through addiction to substances more harmful than food — thankfully, those addictions appear to be in the past for the people concerned — but I recognise some of the same behaviours in myself when I "lapse". A desire to make myself "feel better" through the thing that is the source of a lot of my troubles; an inability to stop once I've started that "self-medication" process; the mental association between feeling like I "deserve" something that is bad for me for [insert justification here].
Part of my trouble is not having what I think of as "safety nets" in place — and the fact I'm somewhat inclined to think negatively of those safety nets. My immediate reaction to seemingly obvious advice like "don't eat a bag of sweets, have a piece of fruit instead" is that this is an absolutely laughable statement, even though I know fruit can be perfectly satisfying and even delicious. I need to get out of that mindset — and to have those pieces of fruit readily to hand so I can start making positive associations with them.
There are countless other examples, but there are days when it just all feels like work. And it is work; work with tangible benefits over the long term. It's those long-term benefits I need to keep my focus on, because it's short-term factors — i.e. the way I'm feeling right now — that is causing me difficulties.
I don't need advice or anything. I know what I need to do, and putting it down on "paper" will likely go at least a little way towards fixing some of those things a bit further forward in my mind. I know I can do this — I've done it once before — so I just have to knuckle down and actually do it.
For now, though, bed. Without biscuits.
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Right! Yes. I was going to talk about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, wasn't I. Okay, let's do that.
I love Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but I had a bit of a curious introduction to it. I grew up watching the endless reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation on BBC2 at 6pm; that tended to coincide with family dinner time, so we'd often watch it on the kitchen TV while having our food. When Deep Space Nine launched in 1995, though, I feel like our family were initially a bit resistant to it. It was, after all, very different from what had been, at that point, the only two prior Star Trek series; for one thing, there was very little actual "trekking", what with it being all set in one location, and the tone was very different from the optimistic nature of The Next Generation.
I kind of drifted away from it because of this; I personally hadn't really found anything to dislike about it, but the fact my parents didn't seem to enjoy it as much meant that I didn't derive quite so much pleasure from it if it happened to be on around dinner time. (And of all the Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine is arguably the one least appropriate for dinnertime viewing — not because it's particularly gory or anything, but simply because its rather bleak tone and uncompromising look at certain less glamorous aspects of life among the stars made it more of a "primetime evening" sort of show.)
I watched the odd episode here and there, but I didn't keep up with it. That all changed, however, when I spent a couple of weeks in London with my brother for my Year 10 work experience placement. Rather than be placed in the boring old local industrial area like most of my peers, I made arrangements to do my work experience in the PC Zone offices, since my brother was editor there at the time. I had a thoroughly enjoyable time, but that's probably a story for another day.
No, the thing I particularly remember from that trip, besides my time in the office, was some discussion over Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's fourth season — which had recently started being broadcast on Sky satellite TV at the time, as I recall; the BBC's reruns were a few seasons behind — and was just starting to come out on VHS cassette. I heard such enthusiasm for the new episodes from my brother and his peers that I wanted to find out a bit more about it for myself. So one lunchtime, I took a trip to the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street, which was within walking distance from the Zone offices on Bolsover Street, and picked up video "4.1: The Way of the Warrior". And I watched that feature-length episode that evening on my brother's TV.
Not my copy; this is from a listing on eBay. I won't lie, it is tempting to grab this for old time's sake.
I was blown away; this was damned good TV, though I was quite conscious that I had clearly missed some rather important story beats somewhere along the way. Who were the Dominion? Why was Sisko now a captain, not a Commander? Why was he bald and bearded? Who was Kassidy Yates? What was up with the Klingons being all weird, after years of them being "no longer the bad guy" in The Next Generation?
I was confused, but enthralled nonetheless; after I got home, I started collecting the VHS cassettes from season 4 onwards. In retrospect, this was an enormous waste of money and space, since each tape only included two episodes and cost about £14.99, but as a teenager living out in the country, I didn't have much else to spend my money on at the time other than video games. I built up quite a collection, and also, on someone's recommendation, picked up the "3.1" volume "The Search", which helped me understand a bit better who The Dominion actually were.
After some time, though, I drifted away from Deep Space Nine again. As before, it wasn't that I disliked what I was seeing, but there were other factors at play — perhaps most notably the dawn of DVD as a distribution medium. By the time I got to university, DVD players were becoming much more accessible, and I was excited by all the movies I could now watch in what was, at the time, spectacularly good picture quality. I think at that point, collecting VHS tapes started to feel a bit less desirable — particularly since, as a student, I was living in a relatively limited amount of space.
As I recall, it took quite some time for all the Star Treks up to that point — The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager — to make it to DVD, and I just sort of got out of the habit of watching them. There was always a little voice at the back of my mind, though, that said "one day, you should watch all of Deep Space Nine and Voyager". (I had, by this point, seen all of The Next Generation multiple times.)
I never quite got around to doing that. I started watching Star Trek on US Netflix for a while, but got fed up with having to use a VPN to do so, since they weren't on UK Netflix at the time. Then I pretty much fell out of the habit of watching long-form TV and movies altogether; I much preferred the more active sense of entertainment I was getting from video games.
Cutting out many intervening years in which nothing of any real relevance to this story occurred, for my birthday this year I was fortunate enough to receive a box set of Deep Space Nine from my brother, who, true to what he had always said, left a note saying "it's still the best one". And so, having set up my now-mostly dormant PS4 (my PS5 plays all my PS4 games now) in the bedroom, I decided to start watching an episode or two before going to sleep of an evening.
As I type this, I'm about two-thirds of the way through Season 3, and I am absolutely loving the show. It shows its age in some ways — an episode set in "the future" of the time when it was broadcast turned out to be 2024, for example — but it's definitely got it where it counts. Strong characters, excellent acting, compelling storylines, and above all, plenty of variety.
I'm not sure why my parents and I ever thought Deep Space Nine was "boring". Because it absolutely is not, even in the first three seasons, which are commonly regarded as "the bit before it gets really good". Some shows are epic in scale, while others are tight, character-driven pieces — and beneath it all, there's a sense of coherence that The Next Generation didn't really nail until its later seasons. This latter point is perhaps best exemplified by how, for quite some time, the best way to get The Next Generation VHS videos was not on an episode-by-episode basis, but in box sets that were each themed around a particular element of the show, such as Data, Q or the Borg. (I had several of these; they were cool display pieces as well as being pretty good value!)
The Data box set. Again, not my copy; this image is from fan wiki Memory Alpha. The back of the box opened up to reveal three VHS cassettes, with their cases designed to look like the positronic circuits inside Data's head.
Deep Space Nine is from that point where American television really seemed to latch on to the fact that audiences enjoy serialised stories. Sure, it's a risk — with heavily serialised shows, you run the risk of alienating anyone who isn't on board from the start — but Deep Space Nine manages to remain mostly accessible throughout, as shown by my jumping in at The Way of the Warrior all those years ago, while truly rewarding those who are in it for the long haul.
It's been a real pleasure to return to a series that, in retrospect, I've always liked a great deal. I feel I'm getting more out of it now than I did when I was younger — and this time, this time, I'm going to make it all the way to the end. I'm just a little sad that I never did so before several of the cast members passed away. But their memory shall live on.
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Today we lost our beloved Meg, our cat who joined our family back in 2016. She was just 12 years old, but sadly she was suffering with what looked like fairly severe liver cancer and had to leave us before what we all thought "her time" should be.
Much like when we lost her playmate Ruby — who we suspect may have been her daughter, though we have no real confirmation of this — I wanted to leave a permanent record of the mark Meg made on our family and lives, and celebrate how much she was loved.
Both Ruby and Meg came from a local rescue centre. They were very much a pair; while they contrasted quite significantly in personality, it was clear that they had spent their entire lives together. As such, when we lost Ruby unexpectedly to an accident, Meg was hit hard by it. But she soldiered on, and took well to Patti, a nervous little black cat who we took in to give Meg some company, since she was clearly pining for Ruby.
I say she "took well" to Patti; the first few weeks of them being together were interesting, to say the least. Patti expressed her nervousness by launching herself at Meg at high speed, causing Meg to initially be somewhat wary of her; as time went on, though, Meg grew to at the very least tolerate her and, though she would never admit this, love her.
For Meg was a Grumpuss, you see — or at least she liked to put that impression across. I don't think she really was grumpy most of the time, but she had a face that looked like she disapproved of everything going on around her — particularly anything Patti had something to do with. But it was clear that it was just a front; any time Patti decided to hide or we had to take her to the vet or something, Meg made it very obvious that she was worrying about her.
And her caring nature applied to us, too. I loved Meg so much at least partly because she reminded me in attitude of my childhood cat Penny, who would always come and "look after" any member of the family who was suffering for one reason or another.
Meg had incredible empathy skills, and knew exactly when what you needed more than anything else was a cat to just come and sit with you. I've lost count of the number of times I was lying feeling hopeless and depressed in bed, and Meg came to come and look after me. She didn't actually do anything beyond sit with me — usually either on me, or in such a way that she was pressed up against me — but that was enough. Her presence was comforting. And now it's gone.
Meg reminded me of Penny in other ways, too, perhaps most notably in her love of "human food". She would do anything for a little piece of ham or cheese, and on more than one occasion she sat down for Christmas dinner with us as a special treat. She was always well-behaved, though; while she would certainly "beg" for things when the fridge opened, she rarely went so far as to steal things.
Except for one memorable occasion, when Andie had made some sort of sausage-based casserole stew-type thing. We forgot that we'd left the pot out overnight, and when we came down in the morning, we found half a sausage sitting on the kitchen floor, along with a noticeable hole in the (rather thick) stew mixture, suggesting that Meg had precisely picked out a single sausage from the pot without disturbing anything else, consumed enough to satisfy herself, then left the evidence behind as if to say "and what are you going to do about it?"
I have any number of stories like that I could tell about Meg. She was such a strong personality, and beloved by everyone who came to our house. She was the kind of cat who could pick out the "person who didn't like cats" from a lineup, and convert them to a cat-lover within five to ten minutes. She was more than just a pet; she was a beloved family member, and that's why losing her hurts so much.
But we had to say goodbye; it was the right thing to do. She was so sick, to the point that she wasn't eating, that it was heartbreaking to see her in such a sorry state. But at the same time, we knew that she was hanging on for our sake. We knew that she didn't want us to be sad, so even though over time it clearly got to a point where it hurt for her to do anything, she would still come and spend time with us, and she stubbornly refused to let go and leave us behind. She would sit on a cushion next to me while I played games, or she would sit on Andie in bed, or she would just hang out in the same room as us, content to be in our company.
But sometimes, no matter how much you love someone and you wish your time with them could last forever, you just have to say goodbye. And while we wish Meg could have just passed peacefully at home surrounded by the warmth of family, we couldn't bear for her to keep suffering for our sakes. I don't know how long she would have clung on out of sheer stubbornness, but we had to let her go. It was the right thing to do. And as we laid her to rest, she looked happy.
Meg, we love you and we will never forget you. We're sorry we occasionally called you Princess Professor Megatron Meowington the Third, but you brought out our childish, happy sides even during dark times. Our life was richer, more joyful and more colourful for your presence, and we hope — no, we know — you understand what an important part of our family you were. We hope you are at peace now and that, reunited with Ruby, you will continue to watch over us forevermore; in exchange, we'll keep a watchful eye on Patti for you. She misses you already.
Goodbye, Meg. You deserve eternal happiness. I hope you have found it.
