An Open Goodbye

The blogosphere is undoubtedly chock-full of posts like the one I'm about to make but that doesn't make any of them less meaningful to the people involved. While the words that the writer commits to "paper" (for want of a better word) may mean nothing to casual readers or people just "passing through", the writer themself can feel better simply by the act of getting them out in the open. Yes, it is completely and utterly self-indulgent, but that's what I feel as I begin to write this, and I hope you, the reader, will understand that. Normal service will resume shortly and I'll get back to enthusing about games, using bad words and ranting about the state of the country. But for now, this.

Yesterday I received the sad news that our family's cat, who lived with my parents, died after being run over. The full meaning of these words didn't really hit me until late in the evening, and more so today when I found myself unable to face even contemplating speaking to anyone else for a good proportion of the day. I'd like to take a moment to share a few thoughts and memories in the absence of a "funeral". Some may wonder at the amount of attention being given to "just a cat", but if you think that, you've probably never owned a beloved family pet and lost them. A family pet who is loved as much as Kitty was is absolutely a member of the family, and never "just a pet".

There have been two cats in my life. The first, Penny, was, according to my parents, my nursemaid when I was very young. If I was ill, she'd sit outside my bedroom door "on guard". If I cried, she'd come and "tell" my folks. She was part of the family, right down to sitting at the table to have Christmas dinner with us – because if there was one thing she loved, it was human food.

Penny died of old age one night about eleven years ago. She knew it was going to happen. She sat down in front of our heating vent in the hallway of our house and stayed there for the evening. We said goodnight to her and went to bed, leaving her some water and food where she was. When we came down in the morning, she had passed away quietly. We said our goodbyes and buried her in the garden beneath a cat statue, where she sleeps now.

The house was quiet for a while without a cat. Very quickly, our family decided that we didn't want to be without a cat – it was just too quiet after so many years of having Penny – so we took a ride up to the local animal sanctuary to meet the candidates.

Kitty (who already knew her name, so there was no hope of ever changing that!) was a tiny little thing who was very nervous when we met her. She was cute and friendly, despite her nerves, however, so we chose her and took her home. It took time for her to come out of her shell – for the longest time, she was afraid even to go outside. Apparently, her previous home had had dogs who had terrorised the poor thing into submission. As time went on, however, she grew more confident and also grew physically from the tiny cat we had picked up from Wood Green animal shelter into a rather larger one!

She was a very friendly cat. She made an effort to make people like her – even self-professed "cat-haters". She would simply jump in their lap when they came to visit, sit there and purr until even they admitted that she wasn't that bad, after all. She would also jump in your lap for a cuddle at the most inopportune times – having dinner, attempting to write an email, reading a book… If you were in a chair and you had a lap, you were fair game.

It's a fair bet that wherever she is now (I have it on good authority that while all dogs go to heaven, all cats go to Valhalla) she's jumping in the lap of someone, rolling over and purring contentedly. I can just see her lying in a Valkyrie's lap with a big silly grin on her face.

And so this post is to say a very public goodbye to Kitty Davison. You will be missed sorely by all who knew you and loved you, and I hope Penny takes good care of you.

Rest in peace.

In praise of slow

(With apologies to Carl Honore for shamelessly liberating the title of his book, which I haven't read, but respect the sentiment behind the title.)

I sauntered to work today. Tomorrow I might amble, stroll, perambulate or, you know, walk. This is nothing unusual, you might think, but I've noticed a curious phenomenon develop over the last few years, and that is the fact that everyone seems to have somewhere more important than the place I'm going to get to, preferably much quicker than I do. As such, as I wander down the street, it's almost inevitable, even at unsociable hours in the morning, that at least one person will come charging past me – not running, because that would look panicky – but walking at at least twice the speed I do. I don't walk as slowly as, say, an elderly gentleman, but I still walk considerably slower than these people who are inevitably dressed in some sort of suit, wearing clip-cloppy shoes that immediately makes them somehow seem incredibly arrogant. Quite how shoes can be arrogant is anyone's guess, but that's what it makes me think.

Then there's London. Anyone who's ever visited London, however much you may have liked it, will have noticed how much of a hurry every damn person in that city is in. Traffic lights go amber and horns sound immediately like some sort of automatic reaction. Dare to stand slightly left-of-centre on the escalators leading down to the Underground and some greased-up City-boy businessman will make a snide comment like "Slow lane's over there, mate". Stand in a queue at Pret and you'll see at least five people who have been waiting roughly fifteen seconds storm out in seeming disgust, muttering about inefficiency. (Contrast this with my experience a few years back when an entire symphony orchestra descended on one tiny kebab shop in the middle of Warsaw which was staffed by one rather uncomfortable looking man. Now that was inefficiency, although to be fair he was somewhat up against the wall. Almost literally.)

Then there's the laziness of people who use computers. "Why can't I drag that text into my subject header?" I heard one person ask of an email application – because using two keyboard shortcuts to copy and paste it was obviously just such a hassle. "Why can't it do this?" "Why doesn't this do my work for me?" "Computers are supposed to be efficient!"

And then – then – there's the attention span of people on the Internet. Dare to write in more than one paragraph on a message board and there will be at least one response along the lines of "OMFG WALL OF TEXT" with nothing more meaningful to say. Well, thanks for that.

You'd think there'd be a point to this wall of text. And I guess there is. It's to say to these people "slow the fuck down". Leave ten minutes earlier so you can enjoy a walk to work without barging past people. Take your time over writing your emails and they might actually be spelled and punctuated correctly. Read someone's wall of text and you might actually find something interesting that they had to say. And London? Just climb out of your own arse and realise that some people don't want to live their lives at 300 miles per hour before dying of a heart attack at 28.

This post is dedicated to the people who take the time to sit down, chill out, relax, enjoy some time, some space and don't mind being a little bit wordy and pretentious along the way. If you're reading this and you've got this far, chances are you're one of them. And to you I say, "Good job. Keep it up."

Obligatory First Post Explanation

Hello. Welcome to yet another attempt at a blog. This time I'm not relying on crappy, shit-arsed web hosts who don't reply to my emails when I politely (and subsequently, less politely) enquire exactly why they have absconded with £30 of my hard-earned for another year's hosting and domain name ownership. But enough about 4sites.com (who, incidentally, used to be fantastic, and just appeared to vanish off the face of the planet recently) – let's not start this as a rant, as there will undoubtedly be plenty of time for that later.

If you've stumbled across this blog by accident, here's the obligatory "hello, this is me, as if you care" post. That way you can decide whether or not you feel like sticking around. So let's lurch right in.

My name's Pete Davison. I am not the 1981-1984 incarnation of The Doctor, hence the title of this blog. In fact, I was born in 1981, giving my parents great joy in telling the story of my brother (games industry veteran John Davison, as press releases are wont to call him) apparently insisting that my parents gave me the middle names "Doctor Who".

It didn't happen.

I did, however, end up with two middle names, which has meant for the longest time I have been unable to enter all of my initials into arcade machines upon achieving a high score. I suppose as names go, things could be worse. I could be called Theophilus McShitface or something like that. Now that really would be unfortunate, although at least "TMS" fits on the Pac-Man high scores list.

Anyway, who am I? I'm a self-confessed geek. I love my gadgets, I love my video games and I love my board games. I also like hot girls in lingerie, but I think that's something less of a niche market. I live in the UK and represent one of the last bastions of traditional Britishness, doing one hell of a Brian Blessed impression (with a beard to match if I haven't shaved for a while) and constantly shaking my head at the rancid, disgusting, despicable state that this country is in.

I'm also in the process of attempting to emigrate, for reasons which are probably abundantly clear from that previous paragraph.

But back to the geekery. One of the main things I do is take part in legendary (well, in our minds, at least) gaming "book club" The Squadron of Shame over at 1up.com. We have a podcast and everything – see the sidebar for links to subscribe. The Squadron of Shame are a group dedicated to rescuing underappreciated classic video games from the bargain bins and playing the shit out of them before deciding whether or not they actually do belong in said bargain bin or in pride of place on discerning gamers' shelves.

I also occasionally write for industry veteran John Davison's new site, What They Play, a comprehensive resource for parents wanting to find out more about their kids' favourite hobby. If you're a parent, know nothing about video games and want to know if the latest Final Metal Gears of Halo game actually does have all the graphic depictions of interracial anal sex that the Daily Mail "reported" (and I use the term loosely) featured in it, What They Play is a great place to start.

So sit back, relax, maybe drop a comment or two (but be sure to comment responsibly otherwise the government gonna getcha) and enjoy.

If this is the only post on the page when you read this, you have reached the end of the potential enjoyment of this page. Please feel free to come back and visit later.

Auf wiedersehen.