1805: Christmas is Over

Well, it's the evening of Sunday December 28, and I'm counting down the hours until I have to get up at some ungodly hour in the morning and trudge all the way to work. (Okay, I drive most of it, but there's still an honest-to-goodness half-hour trudge at the other end, which I'm really not relishing in the current cold weather.)

The Christmas break has been nice, and the fact I'd spent the previous few months at work, away from home (as opposed to working from home as I was previously) has made me appreciate it somewhat more. I've enjoyed the time off, I've enjoyed having the opportunity to just relax without the pressure to "do" anything, and I've enjoyed having the time to indulge in some favourite games, TV shows and anime without time commitments.

I finished the Hanzou story in Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus today — that's one of the four stories in the game. I enjoyed it a lot; gameplay-wise, it's a significant improvement on the first game thanks to its jump to 3D, and its narrative is interesting. Throughout the course of the story, we learn some new things about the main cast as well as get introduced to the newcomers in this particular installment: the girls of the Gessen shinobi school, and the new members of the Hebijou school that Homura and her gang hailed from in the original game before being exiled following the events at Burst's finale.

My initial reaction to the Hanzou story was that I was slightly disappointed there weren't more of the visual novel sequences giving background on the girls and how they were feeling about various things — but on balance, I think there was a good amount. The game didn't try to do too much: it introduced one major plot/background point per character through several of these sequences peppered throughout the course of the entire narrative arc, and the rest of the story was delivered through snappy but enjoyable talking-heads sequences that were just about characters talking to one another, not narration. It worked well, and it teased just enough information about the Gessen girls to make me want to find out more about them: fortunately, I can now do just that by playing through their story, followed by Hebijou and finally Homura and her friends in the Crimson Squad.

I also, as we saw yesterday, made a start on Final Fantasy. I'll be writing more about that as I make more progress through it, though with my intended creative writing project in January this will likely be over on the Squadron of Shame forums rather than here.

I've also watched some anime for the first time in what feels like months; I've been continuing with the farming-themed series Silver Spoon, which was recommended to me by some anime-loving friends, and I've been reminded what a good show it is. It has an enjoyably understated plot about a teen boy feeling somewhat out of his depth in an agricultural academy, and some appealing, entertaining characters who occasionally reference recognisable anime tropes without being defined by them. There's one character in particular who looks like he would be more at home in a series like Dragon Ball Z, for example, so seeing him mucking out cows and working with chickens is rather entertaining, to say the least!

Anyway. Early-ish night for me tonight due to the aforementioned Danger of Work bell tolling, so I'll sign off there and simply say I hope you all had as restful and pleasant a Christmas as I had, and are looking forward to a good new year.

1802: Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to one and all! I hope you had a thoroughly pleasant and restful day — or, depending on your timezone, are still currently having a thoroughly pleasant and restful day. Andie and I spend ours over at her mother's house, and it was a fairly traditional family Christmas all round — get up late (I must confess that this wouldn't fly in my parents' house, since my mother insists we all get up early to open presents; out of all of us, she has always been the one who has actually managed to hold on to Christmas enthusiasm), eat food, eat more food, open presents, sit back and ponder how much food has been eaten, maybe pick at a bit more food (particularly that which has been acquired as a present, such as those boxes of chocolates and Danish butter cookies that you only ever seem to see around Christmas time) and then gradually sink in to perusing your presents in more detail, perhaps accompanied by some appropriately rubbish Christmas TV.

Neither Andie nor I watch much TV generally these days: we typically watch the things we want to watch at our own pace via on-demand services. As such, it was actually a semi-interesting experience to catch some real-time TV, and watch some of the sort of things that we'd probably never choose to watch deliberately.

First up was Professor Branestawm, a name which I recognised from my youth, but which I couldn't remember a whole lot about. If I remember correctly, the character was the star of a series of children's books, but the actual content of them hadn't stuck in my mind all that much. As I watched the new BBC adaptation, starring Harry Hill in the title role (and incorporating numerous other respected names like Charlie Higson, David Mitchell and numerous others), it came back to me, though; they were some enjoyably silly and distinctively British stories that retain their "children's story" feel even to this day (though inevitably, someone had to go and find the "social outsider" angle of the wacky professor problematic, joyless arses that modern entertainment journos are). The adaptation itself was a lot of fun: the cast was excellent, Hill played the title role with aplomb, and the whole thing didn't outstay its welcome, in fact arguably being over a little too quickly if anything.

Next up, today we caught an animated movie called Gnomeo and Juliet. It will probably not surprise you to discover that this was a retelling of Romeo and Juliet through the eyes of some garden gnomes, with the dispute between the Montagues and Capulets replaced by a bitter feud between the red- and blue-hatted gnomes in the gardens of two neighbours who disliked one another very much. It was an enjoyably silly affair with some nice animation and an excellent voice cast — including the masterful casting of Jason Statham as Tybalt — though I was slightly disappointed that they didn't have the guts to go through with the full tragic ending. At least it was lampshaded by a pleasingly witty statue of William Shakespeare, voiced wonderfully by the inimitable Patrick Stewart. And I guess you can't really have what is clearly a children's film ending with suicide. Probably a bad message to send to the young 'uns and all that.

Finally, we watched the Doctor Who Christmas special today. I haven't watched Doctor Who for ages; I got into it a little bit in the Christopher Ecclestone/David Tennant years and watched a few of the Matt Smith episodes — primarily for the vision of loveliness that is Karen Gillan, I must admit — but I haven't been following it closely for several years now, and haven't seen any of the Peter Capaldi episodes to date.

The episode in question was an enjoyable affair, albeit somewhat convoluted and totally ripping off Inception with the whole "dream within a dream" deal. It stood quite nicely by itself — I didn't feel like I needed to know much of the background about the characters, so even not having seen any Capaldi episodes I was able to feel like I could enjoy it on its own merits. I'm not sure it particularly made me want to jump on board the Doctor Who hype train — Capaldi's script in particular was a bit flat and uninteresting, with little of the Doctor's usual personality about it, and the tension between him and the female assistant character was entirely too predictable — but I don't feel like it wasted an hour of my life or anything; it was decent enough Christmas evening television and an appropriate enough accompaniment to biscuits and prawn rings.

Anyway. That's that. I hope you all had a suitably acceptable haul of presents to enjoy — I got a copy of the board game Betrayal at the House on the Hill, which I'm extremely excited to give a go soon, along with a bunch of other nice goodies.

And lots of food. I think we're good for snacks for the next six months or so.

Anyway. On that note, a merry Christmas to you, and to all a good night, or something.

1799: I Eat In a Lot of Italian Restaurants

I've mentioned this a few times before on these very pages, I think, but I'm not generally a fan of any sort of "reality TV", be it the utterly pointless like Big Brother, or the vapid sort of "talent" competition coupled with obviously over-scripted "drama" from stuff like The X-Factor or The Voice.

I make one exception, however, and that's The Apprentice.

I wouldn't say I'm a particularly dedicated viewer of it — out of the ten seasons to date, I certainly haven't watched all of them — but I always find it to be quite enjoyable television. It strikes a good balance between the guilty pleasure of just observing people with strong personalities clash with one another and a degree more "structure" than many of these sort of shows. There are clear tasks and objectives for the participants to strive towards — though on occasion the measurement of success is somewhat ambiguous — and, at the end of the whole process, the reward for the winner is genuinely meaningful rather than pointless. Originally it was to become Alan Sugar's apprentice — hence the name of the show — but in more recent seasons the winner has simply gone into business with Lord Sugar, with the main bulk of the "prize" being the combination of this opportunity and a substantial initial investment from the big man himself.

The most recent series came to a close last night, and it once again proved to be quite enjoyable. It's also been interesting to see, over the course of the last ten years, how the business world as viewed through the lens of this TV show has changed. This year's victor Mark is set to start running an online marketing business for Lord Sugar — an entry into a crowded market, for sure, but something which Mark himself clearly believes in… and also a kind of business that really didn't exist in the way it does today back when The Apprentice first launched. (It was quite telling to see in the You're Hired! segment of the final show that a lot of people seemed genuinely to have no idea what Mark's business would involve — Internet marketing and search engine optimisation is still largely black magic to a lot of people.)

I won't pretend to know anything about business, however, so the appeal elements of the show for me largely relate to people-watching. And this year's cast was made up of a pleasingly diverse array of different characters. There was the youthful exuberance of Solomon, the eccentricity and arrogance of Sarah, the almost-unflappable nature of Katie and, of course, the bromance between Mark and Daniel. Notably, unlike many other reality shows, there was a mix of both likeable and dislikeable people in there, meaning that most people watching would probably be able to find both someone they could relate to and someone they really wanted to see suffer at the hands of Lord Sugar and his aides in the boardroom.

It's disappointing to hear that Nick will be leaving the show after this series, but I thought it wouldn't quite be the same after Margaret left, too, so I'm sure it will adapt in next year's installment.

By far the best thing about this 10th year anniversary of the show, however, is that there's a brand-new Cassetteboy video in the same vein as the one at the beginning of this post — and so, what better way to sign off than with that very video? Enjoy!

1797: Holiday Season

It was my last day of work before the Christmas holidays today, and I am very ready for a break.

Once again my mind is drawn to the fact that Christmas has become a less enjoyable, less meaningful event in my life with each passing year. The day itself normally ends up being fun — at least the part up to and including opening presents and eating lunch, after which comes the slightly uncomfortable part where no-one's quite sure if it's socially acceptable to go off and play with their respective presents — but that excitement that I'm sure used to be there is no longer present.

Perhaps it's to do with the fact I tend not to send cards any more. I haven't done for several years, largely because it seems like a whole lot of hassle for not a lot of gain. Or is that even true? It's certainly nice to receive a card from people who have made the effort — particularly those who are overseas, who oddly seem to make far more of an effort than my friends closer to home — but I haven't felt the motivation to write any of my own cards for years now, and I don't tend to receive all that many either. (I'm not sure many people do any more, to be honest, though I could be horribly mistaken and actually be some sort of social pariah, which isn't beyond the realm of possibility.)

Cards used to be an exciting time, though, particularly back at school. I'd get one of those big bumper packs of cards, mentally sort them from "best" to "worst" (and within "best", into "funny" and "vaguely romantic; suitable for people I fancy") and set about writing a significant number of them over the course of an evening or two. I'd then proceed to hand them out, either by hand or using the "post" service that the school sometimes ran around Christmas time, and then wait to get some in return. Then there came that magical moment where I'd open a card, see that someone I quite wanted to get off with had written "love" (perhaps with kisses) instead of just "from" and I'd get all excited, my mind firmly in denial as to the fact that they'd probably written it in everyone's cards, not just mine. I'd ensure, if I hadn't sent them one already, that they got one of my "best" cards in exchange.

I don't know. Maybe I'm missing a trick here. Cards are often cited as a good opportunity to remind people you care about (or at least think about occasionally) that you still exist. With the fact that I've been feeling a little bit isolated over the course of the last — few months? Few years? Certainly a while now — perhaps it would be in my interest to use cards to try and reach out to a few people I haven't seen for a while.

Or perhaps it's a futile gesture, encouraged as a means of card manufacturers to squeeze more and more money out of us every year as we're convinced that we have some sort of obligation to send small rectangles of cardboard to as many people as possible around this time of year, when in fact all we want to do is be left alone in a bit of peace and quiet to enjoy our turkey and presents.

One or the other. Either way, I'm happy it's the holidays, and hopefully the Christmas period will be a restful, relaxing time for everyone.

1796: Read Me a Story

Since I was getting really quite frustrated with my daily commute to and from work — there is no good time of the day where you can set out and head back without getting caught in a traffic jam with seemingly no cause — I decided to try something a bit different with my audio entertainment for said journey.

Rather than listening to the radio, with its same five adverts and playlist of approximately twelve songs, or the same albums on my phone over and over again, I decided to listen to some audiobooks.

I've listened to audiobooks a few times over the years, most recently when I was in the habit (that I should probably get back into) of taking a long walk most days. They provide a good accompaniment to tedious activities like walking or driving, and I've found they've had a positive effect on my mood overall, even when the M27 is at its most frustrating. The fact that I can tune out the fact I'm moving at approximately 15mph on a road designed to be travelled along at 70mph+ and instead concentrate on an unfolding narrative is pleasurable, and getting to spend more time immersing myself in a story becomes nice rather than frustrating.

The audiobooks I've been listening to most recently belong to a genre I haven't read a lot of in the past: crime fiction. I can't remember how I first came on to the Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell, but I've been enjoying them so far: I'm currently about a third of the way through the third book.

For the unfamiliar, the Kay Scarpetta series follows the eponymous heroine, the chief medical examiner for Virginia, and her obligatory "buddy" cop Pete Marino. The two have an enjoyable working relationship and rapport with one another, Kay being rather sensible for the most part — with occasional lapses in judgement and a tendency to attract the main villain of each book to cause some sort of dramatic final confrontation in the closing chapters — and Marino being brash, outspoken and not always entirely tactful.

The stories are interesting when compared to other crime fiction I've encountered — be it in books, on TV, in games or in movies — in that the main focus isn't on the police investigation, the work of an agent on the case or a private investigator. Rather, Kay is essentially a civilian, albeit one with access to information about the corpses that show up in each novel that the public would probably rather not know about. This doesn't stop her ending up embroiled deep in the mysteries, however, and indeed it's usually her actions that, if they don't outright solve the case altogether, certainly put into motion a chain of events that draws the main villain out of hiding (and usually into Kay's bedroom) in order to be caught and/or killed.

They're formulaic and somewhat predictable at times, in other words, but they're filled with interesting characters, and the narrator for the audiobook versions, one Lorelei King, does an admirable job at putting on unique voices for the different characters — even if all her "male" voices tend to end up sounding terribly serious about everything they say… or perhaps this is a side-effect of Cornwell's male characters?

Anyway. I'm enjoying the experience of listening to audiobooks, and I've been enjoying discovering a series of entertaining crime novels in the process. There's plenty more where that came from, too, so I should be kept reasonably sane on my journeys to and from work for the immediate future, at least…

1791: Future Press

I was browsing Twitter earlier when I came across the following quote, retweeted by someone I follow.

"If you're a writer writing about video games, I recommend you get your face in front of a camera to prepare for the future."

My initial reaction to this was a fairly straightforward "fuck that", but then I contemplated it a bit further.

I still don't agree with the premise. The written word is a powerful medium and to unequivocally declare, as some people do, that its days are very much numbered is to show that you're extremely blinkered. Yes, there is a large audience out there who enjoy video-based content, but they're just one group who occupy the somewhat younger end of the spectrum. And while this is an important group to court — particularly as they're one of the key demographics for the video game industry — this doesn't somehow mean that all the 30-40 year olds who have grown up with computer and video games since their inception are immediately irrelevant. What it should really mean is that content should be provided to cater to these different audiences, who have very different wants, needs and expectations from media relating to their favourite things.

I'm not sure how representative an example of a 33-year old gamer I am, but personally speaking, I'm not a big fan of video-based content for the most part. I can't stand Let's Plays, for example — I'd rather play the game myself, and there's no way I'm going to watch someone play The Binding of Isaac or Minecraft for literally hundreds of episodes — and I'm not a fan of the numerous variations on the "angry dude shouting about something" formula that proves quite popular.

Exceptions for me are things like TotalBiscuit's "WTF Is…" series, in which he spends 20-30 minutes giving a good overview of a diverse array of PC games, including everything from the options available in the menu to how the game itself actually works; Yahtzee's "Zero Punctuation" series, which doesn't rely on game footage at all and is instead actually more of a well-written comedy series that happens to explore specific games as its central premise; and Extra Credits' (usually) intelligent discussions of all manners of game culture. These are all carried by strong personalities and well-written content, and for me represent the best that video game videos (you heard) have to offer.

Thing is, though, I'm not always in the mood to sit down and watch a video — particularly longer stuff like TotalBiscuit's 20-30-minute affairs. I'm not always in a particularly ideal situation to watch a video, either; perhaps I'm on my phone in an area of poor signal or in an environment where I can't put sound on — in both those cases, this makes video almost completely useless as a medium of delivery, whereas text is absolutely fine in both scenarios.

Despite all this, though, I can sort of see why more and more people are turning to these video content producers. The overall quality of video games writing is rapidly going down the pan, to my eyes, and it's at least partly due to the continuing reliance on the clickbait advertising model. The need for page views has lead to many individual writers (and even publications) jumping aboard the insidious and obnoxious "social justice" train, stirring up pointless Daily Mail-style moral panics and controversies at every turn under the guise of cultural criticism. Long-form pieces such as those that Polygon used to be renowned for clearly don't draw in readers in the same numbers as a table-thumping opinion piece about how terrible it is that you can kill prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto V — and, by the way, let's just recall that the games press a few years ago was quick to quite rightly point and laugh at any mainstream publications that pulled this still exceedingly stupid line of criticism — and thus we get more and more of these perpetually outraged pieces driving frustrated readers away from sites and towards personalities who don't subscribe to these ridiculous, borderline hysterical viewpoints.

But it shouldn't have to be a case of one or the other. There should be a range of different opinions and writing styles; those of us who enjoy the written word shouldn't be pushed away from it in the direction of video by the fact that all these issues are only ever explored from one single sociopolitical perspective. That's what's happening, though, and unfortunately I don't see it getting any better any time soon.

I'm glad I got out of the games press when I did. I don't want to sit in front of a camera — I don't look good on camera: I'm fat, I have bad hair, I'm perpetually unkempt (even when I try to be… kempt), I have terrible dress sense, I have dry skin on my face that flares up when I'm stressed and, moreover, I find it terribly difficult to act naturally when being stared down by a camera — and, on the writing side, I have absolutely no desire to become a source of further moral panics or fuel the perpetual outrage machine. So there doesn't really feel like there's a place for me anyway.

It's sad, really; there's a clear gap in the market here for some old-school media — magazines! — of the ilk we had in the '80s, '90s and early '00s, but no-one seems to actually want to fill it. I can't be the only one hungry for this sort of thing, can I?

1788: Sleepless

I am tired. Really tired.

Like, falling asleep at inappropriate moments tired. Well, maybe not quite full-on falling asleep, but I was most certainly at serious risk of it while sitting at my desk earlier.

It was that kind of tired where you think you'll just close your eyes for a moment and refresh yourself, then "wake up" a couple of seconds later, hoping that no-one noticed you were drifting off.

It's a frustrating kind of tired because it's not a kind of tired you can easily get over. A cup of coffee doesn't shift it, and it always tends to come early in the day when you can't really get away with a nap… Particularly if you're at work.

Fortunately I'm now at home, in bed, having watched The Apprentice, and am now ready to go to sleep. And I'm terribly sorry to not write anything more interesting at this point, but as I believe I may have mentioned earlier, I am very tired.

So I'm going to go to sleep at last. Good night!

1786: That Monday Feeling

It was Jim Davis' comic creation fat cat Garfield that made me aware of the world's dislike of Mondays during my formative years, but as time has passed I've come to appreciate the chubby orange one's worldview. Particularly when your Monday goes as badly as mine has.

I thought I was over the bum-AIDS I'd been afflicted with for the last few days of last week and part of the weekend, and indeed most of the day passed without incident. On the way home, however, I was in a fair amount of pain and — again, I'm sorry to be sharing such revolting imagery when you may well be having your dinner or midnight snack — had to rush straight to the toilet when I got home for a fairly explosive session.

Of course, the return of bum-AIDS wasn't quite enough to make my Monday a misery. Oh no; this morning our toilet decided to stop flushing, so even with full knowledge of the fact that I wouldn't be able to easily dispose of my… product, I was sat there, disgusting myself, not wanting to contemplate the destruction I had left in my wake nor how I was going to set about making things right again. (Our interim solution until we fix the problem — which looks like a problem with the syphon, for any aspiring plumbers out there — is simply to throw buckets of water down the toilet. Retro.)

Of course, the return of bum-AIDS and our toilet failing to do anything resembling flushing normally wasn't quite enough to make my Monday a misery. Oh no; my headphones broke, too. To be fair, they were only a cheap £10 JVC pair I picked up from Tesco several years ago, but they were comfortable, sounded good and had served me well for quite some time. Inexplicably, they chose to completely break as I removed them from my head as I arrived at work today, however; not just a simple "something popping out of where it should be, easily fixed" break, either — this was a proper big chunk breaking off and promptly disappearing somewhere on the floor, not that it would have done me much good to retrieve it anyway.

Of course, the return of bum-AIDS, our toilet failing to do anything resembling flushing and my headphones breaking wasn't quite enough to make my Monday a misery. Oh no; the lanyard that holds my work ID card and keys broke, too. I don't even know how this happened, but again, a bit just fell off, disappeared and was consequently unfixable. (Fortunately, I happened to have a spare.)

Of course, the return of bum-AIDS… are you getting the picture yet? The rubbishness just kept coming and coming and coming until by the time I got home and had finished my business I was left feeling utterly defeated by the day.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better. But right now, I'm not holding my breath. Except when I walk past the toilet.

1779: A Quiet Night In After a Night Out

I've pretty much come to accept by now that I don't really "do" big social occasions. And by this I mean that I generally don't have a lot of desire to "go out" in the sense that people tend to use the non-specific phrase "go out" — that is to say, going to a pub, sitting and drinking and not really doing anything interesting or exciting.

It was my work Christmas meal this evening. Andie and I both went along and we had an enjoyable time. The food was very nice, the home-made cakes for dessert were frankly ridiculous in size (the entire cake was literally the size of an average human head, and a single slice offered roughly as much "cake" as you would get in about ten normal-sized slices anywhere else) and the entertainments laid on by two of my colleagues, who had clearly spent a significant amount of time planning the evening together, were fun.

Once all that finished, though, and we were into the "freeform" part of the evening — the part where you're supposed to lounge around, sip your drink and make small talk with the people around you — I felt absolutely no desire to stick around whatsoever, and neither did Andie, so we made our excuses, headed back home and were safely in our own house with the heating on well before 9pm.

I'll hasten to add at this point that our lack of desire to stick around for the "freeform socialising" that follows more organised and/or structured fun was nothing to do with the people we were with. On the contrary, I like my colleagues very much: I enjoy working alongside them, I have a decent relationship with them in that we can chat about stuff other than work as well as have a good old complain about whatever has gone wrong with our respective jobs (95% of the time through no fault of our own) to a sympathetic ear, and I do enjoy having the opportunity to go out and socialise with them outside the office, which can, as anyone who has worked in a large corporation will be able to attest, feel somewhat oppressive at times.

No, my desire to scarper after the meal and the activities were done was more to do with the fact that I simply don't find socialising for socialising's sake to be very fun or enjoyable. In fact, in most cases, I find it to be the exact opposite of fun and enjoyable: a feeling of anxiety starts to build up in my mind as I subconsciously count the seconds of silence that have elapsed between me and the person standing closest to me, and I start running through potential conversations in my mind before rejecting all of them on the grounds that they might make me sound like I'm "trying too hard". Ultimately, I tend to just end up sitting in a corner feeling thoroughly miserable and, frankly, why would you voluntarily put yourself through that when the door is right there?

Socialising with a purpose, though? I'm fine. I love a board game evening or an afternoon of Mario Kart with friends. I enjoy a post-performance meal after a show that we've all participated in — though it's been a good few years since one of these now. In other words, I appreciate opportunities to socialise where there are things to do — enjoyable things, that is — in lieu of unmemorable, instantly forgotten small-talk, and likewise I appreciate opportunities to socialise where there are ready-made conversational topics like "how did the show go?" or "we sure showed that giant plant monster who's boss, huh?"

I've come to accept this part of myself over the years. I just worry a bit at times that other people might not be quite so understanding.

1773: Panel Beater

It was fashionable a while back to hate on that staple of British TV, the comedy panel show. I'm not entirely sure what there was to complain about — aside from the sheer number of this type of show on our screens, of course — but I never quite fell in line with what appeared to be popular (well, Twitter) opinion.

Why? Well, because I really enjoy panel shows. They're simple, enjoyable, lightweight, eminently disposable entertainment that are perfect for vegging in front of the TV, watching over dinner or falling asleep in front of. They don't place any particular demands on the audience, though if they're a topical show they can be one means of viewing the week's happenings, albeit through a comedically skewed lens.

And some of them have been running for a very long time indeed, which is impressive in itself. Have I Got News For You is, I believe, one of the most long-running examples, but I was surprised to discover the other day that music quiz Never Mind the Buzzcocks has been running for double-digit years, too.

These shows have remained fairly true to their original format over the years, though Never Mind the Buzzcocks has degenerated into chaos in an extremely enjoyable manner as the years have passed, with the latest series fronted by Rhod Gilbert being more like a bunch of slightly drunk mates sitting around pissing about than an organised game show.

The format has given us some true greats of television in more recent years, too. Few could deny that the show now most readily associated with the plummy tones of Stephen Fry — Q.I., of course — is an absolute classic of entertaining, educational television that masterfully combines cheeky humour with genuinely interesting facts about the world we live in and the people we share it with.

I've even pondered experimenting with the format myself in the form of a video games podcast in the panel show style. I still think it has a ton of unexplored potential in non-mainstream TV spaces, and think it would be an interesting thing to do at some point. It would also require a ton of preparation, however, so I'm not sure how practical it would be to do on a regular basis. Something to ponder, though!