#oneaday Day 56: Trendsetter

Trends are bizarre, inexplicable and ultimately meaningless if you have a mind of your own. I find it impossibly difficult to fathom sometimes how one minute something can be excellent, popular, wonderful, critically acclaimed and all manner of superlatives, then the next it is shit, awful, bollocks, crap and proof that you are a complete fuckwit if you dare to admit you like it in the company of anyone with a face.

There are few places where this is more apparent than in the world of "celebrities"—and my God how much I hate that word, but that's an entirely different story. I have one specific example in mind and that is the comedian Michael McIntyre. He appeared on the scene a year or two pack, mostly on panel shows such as Mock the Week, and he proved himself to be an entertaining, clever, well-spoken funnyman with floppy, silly hair that I could relate to. We started seeing some of his stand-up on TV, and I thought his material was very funny and a little different from other acts around at the time. At some indeterminate point in about the last year or so, it became fashionable to hate him and slag him off.

To be perfectly honest, I wonder exactly how many people who use Michael McIntyre as a whipping boy for what is supposedly the lowest of the low comedy have actually watched his whole act, and how many of them are simply following the trend. Who decided it was time to hate McIntyre? Why? Where did that "trend" originally come from? It must have started with someone and spread virally. Public opinions don't do complete U-turns without some sort of influence—and McIntyre himself is the same as he's always been.

It happens in all media too; Square's Final Fantasy series, once beloved by most gamers (or at least the ones who liked JRPGs) is now belittled and complained about by almost everyone. The games aren't any worse (I'm playing FFXIII right now and while it could be argued to be a step backwards from the complete change of direction that was FFXII, it's certainly not a bad, boring, stupid, dumb game like some people have ranted at great length about) and sure, Square could probably stand to re-release the first four games in the series a few less times and the others a few more times… but Square hate is also in fashion right now.

I'm not objecting to anyone having opinions, you understand. People are free to like or dislike whatever the hell they want, whether it's music, games, movies, books, celebrities, foods or even abstract concepts. The idea of people belittling each other based on what they enjoy, though? That's just stupid. I hate The X-Factor and related TV shows, for example, and have even moaned about them a great deal in the past. But I figured out that there was absolutely no point in doing so, because even if it is the shittest of the shit (and it is) there are people out there who enjoy it and aren't going to listen however much you try and convince them otherwise.

So here's a thought, then. Why don't we start a new trend—a trend of saying "I like this, give it a try, it's cool if you don't"? Okay, sure, as slogans go it's not the catchiest one out there. But it's better than "I hate this and you should too even if you have no idea what I'm talking about!"

#oneaday Day 55: DLC is only two letters from "DICK"

Nostalgia and rose-tinted spectacles are rife in all walks of life, but there are few places where it happens more so than in the video games industry. This is perhaps due to the fact that it's such a fast-moving industry that you can be in your twenties and still feel nostalgic for "the good old days" and how much better they supposedly were.

Nine times out of ten, of course, nostalgia is proven wrong when you actually go back and play the things you were so nostalgic about. Things move on for a reason.

But I'm firmly of the opinion that the previous console generation is always going to be looked back on as a "golden age" that is going to be very difficult to top, however good the games might be, and however beautiful the HD graphics of today's games might be.

The reason for this, to me, that games from then were finished. Now we have the blight that is DLC. Now, the arguments in favour of downloadable add-ons for games are many—extra content adds life to a game and keeps it relevant long after release. It gives developers the opportunity to show that they're still "supporting" a product. And it allows for other, smaller developers to use an existing base as the means for some creative risk-taking—see Bioshock 2's "Minerva's Den" as an example.

But at its worst, DLC is a cynical money-making exercise designed to get people to pay for their games twice—once to buy the thing in the first place and once again to purchase all the "premium content" that should have been included with the game. Premium content, let's not forget, that very often is actually on the game disc and is simply "unlocked" by purchasing an access code.

This isn't the only negative side to DLC, either. Narrative games suffer considerably from this whole "oh, let's add a bit here, add a bit there" structure. There was a time when you would start playing a game, go through its story, beat it and be satisfied. Now, it seems, there always has to be "a little bit more". There always has to be an "exclusive epilogue chapter", or some "side missions" or "the shock return of a beloved character!"

Rather than seeing this as a good opportunity to get more of the games I love, I see this as reason to not pick up a copy of a hotly-anticipated game on its original release, because it's almost inevitable that there will be some "extra bits" sold separately down the road, and that these will be bundled into a "Game of the Year Edition" or similar even further down the road.

This is what was supposed to happen with the PS3 version of Mass Effect 2. I was quite keen to wait for this rather than picking up any of the DLC for the Xbox version, so that I could play the "definitive version". Sure enough, the PS3 version was announced as having "all" the DLC included with it. Nice. Except now they've announced some more, because Mass Effect 2 is big business and people will keep funnelling money into it.

ARGH. What this means in practice is that when you buy a game these days you're essentially purchasing an unfinished product. With the speed at which some of this DLC magically appears, it's clear it's been worked on alongside the "main" game and so it would have been very easy for it to simply be included in the price of admission. And with some publishers like EA already withholding content from those who have purchased a game pre-owned, the whole situation just strikes me as more than a little objectionable. Games are too expensive anyway, and to start charging even more for them is just… well, wrong.

Unfortunately, there are too many people out there invested in the DLC debacle to mean we can ever go back. Are you happy with that?

#oneaday, Day 54: Travels of an Angry Jedi - Brick Lane

London is a city of many surprises. A lot of them are "oh, this part of our illustrious capital is a shithole", but surprises nonetheless. Today's excursion was no exception.

Following an event I attended which I can't talk about (yet) we were recommended to head to an area called "Brick Lane", with the assurance that "if you like curry, you can't go far wrong". I like curry, so it seemed like a sensible choice.

I wasn't ready for what our party was confronted with. Imagine, if you will, the Las Vegas Strip. Now imagine the street is only one car-width wide and one-way. Now, instead of casinos and strip clubs, imagine every single establishment on the street is a curry house. Now, instead of people in fancy uniforms looking for valet parking and/or prostitution business, imagine every establishment has at least one overly aggressive Asian gentleman outside offering increasingly ridiculous deals in order to get you to frequent his establishment. (The best we heard was 2 free drinks and a 95% discount, which led us to believe that even breathing in the food's fumes would lead to immediate food poisoning.)

It was quite an experience, the likes of which I've never seen anywhere else. The whole street was lit up like a red light district, with curry houses hawking their wares with increasingly outlandish neon displays the further down the street you went.

I've only gone and forgotten the name of the place we ate at, but it was quite good. We were recommended by someone who knew Brick Lane's idiosyncrasies to look out for two things: restaurants that were full, and restaurants that didn't have anyone hawking their wares outside. Sadly the latter was impossible as every place had someone outside badgering people with crazy deals and discounts that I doubt very much they would have honoured come bill-paying time. But the one we picked was pretty full the whole time we were there.

The toilets smelled absolutely awful, though, like a fetid stench-pit from the very bowels of Hell. Fortunately you couldn't smell them from the eating area. Probably for the best.

So there's your tourist attraction of the day. In London? Like curry? Don't mind being harassed by what are essentially curry-pimps? Then Brick Lane is for you.

#oneaday, Day 53: Mr Motivation

Motivation is a curious beast. And it's not a case of either "having it" or "not having it", there are many complex factors involved. And sometimes, apparently, blind chance.

Take today. I got my ass soundly kicked by a boss in Final Fantasy XIII (which I am enjoying a lot so a big middle finger to all of you who hate it) so instead of swearing profusely and trying again, I swore profusely, turned off the PS3, said to myself (silently, because saying it out loud with no-one else nearby would just be weird) "I'm going to go and run 10km now," and then went and ran 10km. I'd say "just like that" but it took over an hour and a half, and anything over a couple of minutes is automatically disqualified from "just like that" status.

Anyway, casual bragging that I've achieved my goal of running 10K aside, I find that sudden bursts of motivation like that happen at the strangest of times… and it's very difficult to force them. Impossible, in fact. They're a spur-of-the-moment, impulsive sort of thing… which makes it rather inconvenient when you actually need some motivation to do something.

Part of the issue is, of course, prior successes. My running has been a slow but sure upward slope of little victories, one step at a time, and so that has provided ample motivation to continue and keep pushing myself to the next milestone, no pun intended. Contrast this with the jobhunting, on the other hand, which has been a string of ignorance, incompetence and idiocy—none of which was my fault—and it's understandable how I may be feeling a little disheartened on that particular front. Still, I am cracking on with it and have yet another bunch of applications in now. It remains to be seen if anything will come of these ones. Some of them, again, are even relevant to what I want to do, though the pay is all over the place. I'm kind of taking the opinion now that any money coming in is better than no money, particularly if the job in the question offers a potentially good "foot in the door" for other Good Things. Which at least one of the things I've applied for does.

So we shall see. But it has been a long time since I've felt that same surge of motivation for the jobhunting than I have for the running. Perhaps it's because of the difference between something I want to do and something I have to do. No-one likes feeling obliged to do things—given the opportunity, most people would rather be able to stay in bed as long as they like and then spend their days doing any combination of eating pies, playing video games, watching TV, staring at the Internet, wandering through fields of flowers, driving expensive cars very fast, wanking, listening to music, smashing Justin Bieber albums over the heads of people they don't like very much, giving and/or receiving oral sex, smoking weed, drawing pictures and eating Lindor chocolates—and so anything that you need to do that gets in the way of doing those things that you want is automatically parsed by your brain as being an inconvenience.

Perhaps I just need to want to find a job more. For that to happen, though, I need to spot the Awesomest Job Ever That Is A Complete Shoe-In For My Appointment And That No-One Else Will Ever Apply For.

What's that? AwesomeTech are looking for a "Playing Final Fantasy In Bed Technician Called Pete" for £50,000 a year? I'm so there.

Sigh. A man can dream, huh?

#oneaday, Day 52: Desperately Seeking Perfection

The modern age brings with it many benefits. The ability to communicate with anyone in the world at any time (so long as they're not asleep). The ability to express one's creativity in a broader range of media than ever before. The ability to acquire pornography to cater to any and all fetishes. And, of course, more ways for people you want to avoid to track you down and "see how you are".

The downside of all this, though, is that everyone always seems to feel the need to constantly be reinventing themselves. It's a particular problem when it comes to popular websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Someone, somewhere decides that it's really important that sites have particular features in place, and some poor sod of a programmer out there has to implement said features. Then when said poor sod has implemented said features, everyone whinges and moans that it's "worse than it used to be" and "shit now" and blah blah blah and conveniently forgets that said services are, in fact, free and the owners of them are perfectly within their rights to do what they want with them, however stupid some of those moves might be.

But why does this happen? It's seen as "necessary" to constantly update and reinvent to "stay competitive". Why? It usually ends up doing more damage than good, because as we've seen on many, many occasions in the past, People Hate Change and will react in somewhat inflammatory, stroppy manners.

This isn't to say that all change is bad, of course. Not at all. Genuine changes that benefit someone's experience are to be applauded. New ideas that are experimented with should be treated with a "well, let's try this" attitude rather than the outright hostility we get right now. But change for change's sake when something already works just fine? That, right there, is the reason that we get aforementioned hostility. People just want a bit of stability, and when they feel they've got it and the rug is pulled out from under them, it's sort of understandable that they kick off a bit. Not always handled in the best way (in fact, usually handled in the style of a stroppy 8-year old) but at least a little bit understandable.

Combine stroppiness with the anonymity of the Internet and you get some ugly scenes indeed. It's a fast-paced world we live in these days, and some might argue it really doesn't need to be quite so fast-paced. It'd be nice to be able to slow down a bit, enjoy the view and only fix things when they break.

But nah, that's never going to happen. Everyone has to be the Very Best, to strive towards the "perfect" experience, the criteria for which seem to change on an hourly basis. And striving for perfection means having the techie types constantly at work with their hammers and nails and bits of code. A permanent state of construction. The eternal beta.

One day the Internet might be finished. But I don't see it happening just yet.

#oneaday, Day 51: Litmus Test Your Friendships

Congratulations on your acquisition of one or more friends! To get the most out of your new acquaintances, you may find it necessary to perform one or more simple diagnostic checks to ensure that these people are, in fact, your friends and not just "people you know" whom you see occasionally. Interpersonal compatibility is a complicated issue and there is no guarantee of 100% compatibility between you and any friend(s) you may have acquired recently, particularly if said friend(s) were acquired via a third party.

Some of these tests may not be compatible with your own personal social interaction algorithms, in which case you may feel free to omit them. If you end up omitting all of the below tests, then you may wish to consider upgrading your interpersonal software to the new "Lighten The Fuck Up" edition to ensure normal functioning in society.

Test 1: The Quotation Test

To perform this test, first ensure you are in a social interaction scenario with your new friend(s) and the background volume is set to a level where you may be heard.

As an optional safety measure, you may wish to preface this test with the statement "have you seen [insert name of favourite movie/TV show here]?"

Performing the test is a simple matter of quoting your favourite scene, including impersonations of the actors/actresses if your vocal communication facility is up to the task.

Success criteria include: laughter, quoting another line, finishing the lines with you, rolling on the floor laughing, applause, eternal adulation.

Failure criteria include: blank looks, expressions of confusion, the word "what?", awkward silences where there should be laughter.

Safety note: overzealous performance of this test may lead to people regarding you as "the quote person" and reconsidering inviting you out to social occasions on the grounds that you're unable to hold a conversation without Blackadder quotes.

Test 2: The "Name That Tune" Test

A prerequisite for this test is a certain amount of self-confidence and/or alcohol. Assuming these conditions have been met, you may commence the performance of this test by bursting into a song of your choice, the sillier the better.

Success criteria include: joining in with the song, harmonising with the song, adding percussion parts to the song.

Failure criteria include: confused expressions, sudden claims that they have a "thing" to "do", walking 20 feet behind you in the street.

Safety note: if you are in a social environment where bursting into song is frowned upon, such as a library or the quiet bit of a classical concert, consider performing this test when the environment is more appropriate.

Test 3: The "Compound Swear-Word" Test

In order to perform this test, steer the conversation towards something that really, really pisses you off, preferably a person or agency which gets your goat and makes you want to throw things. When the time comes in the conversation to say exactly what you think of your ex-boyfriend/tax inspector/boss/co-worker/weird guy you see on the bus every day touching himself, refer to them by making up a compound swear word.

For added safety, you may wish to prepare a suitable bank of compound swear words in advance. Examples include: "cockwipe", "dicksplash", "creamdick", "felch-monkey", "knob-jockey", "cock-custard", "fucknut", "twatbag", "bellwodge", "cretinous cum-gullet", "insatiable scat-licker" or "cuntishly twat-faced bellend-arsepipe".

Success criteria for this test include: a moment of astonished silence followed by hysterical giggling and requests to repeat the compound swear word in the same irate tone of voice you originally uttered it.

Failure criteria for this test include: awkward, rather than astonished silence, frowns, tutting, slaps around the face either with or without the use of a haddock.

Test 4: The "Say The Funny Word Over And Over Again" Test

Performing this test requires that you have determined what your favourite word is. This may or may not be an obscenity, but it tends to work best with single-syllable rude words such as "cock".

To perform the test, utter the rude word in an exaggerated voice without explanation. Then repeat it a number of times.

Success criteria for this test include: people joining in with saying the word, laughter, recording of video evidence using mobile phones.

Failure criteria for this test include: invitations to leave, the arrival of psychiatric nurses.

Test 5: The "Failure Recovery" Test

In order to perform this test, think of the worst joke you have ever heard that never makes anyone laugh. It doesn't need to be offensive, but it sometimes works better if it does.

Utter the joke. Following the inevitable awkward silence, follow up with either the word "Anyway…" or an impersonation of howling wind and tumbleweed.

Success criteria for this test include: laughter at your own self-deprecation, a patronising pat on the head, a complete change of subject.

Failure criteria for this test include: requests to explain the joke in great detail, making it even less funnier than usual.

What next?

If you've successfully performed at least one of these tests, it is safe to assume that the people in whose company you are presently are, in fact, friends rather than people you just happen to be at the pub with.

If all tests have failed, it is extremely important that you fake a phone call and/or trip to the toilet but actually run for your life in the hope that you will never see these people ever again. You may also wish to contact technical support and attempt to install some more acceptable social graces into your personality.

Good luck out there!

#oneaday, Day 50: What Happens in Birmingham, Stays in Birmingham

Like a low-budget T-Pain, I'm on a bus. Well, technically a coach. The National Express of Divine Comedy fame, no less.

I'm on my way to Birmingham to meet up with Twittery-bloggy types @Bungiesgirl and @WhatGracieDid, which is all terribly exciting. Taking a previously-online-only friendship to that "next level" is always an exciting step, particularly if it means having a "mini-break" of sorts, to sound all Bridget Jones for a minute.

Birmingham has, on more than one occasion, been the venue for meetups such as this. In my years before Twitter, I used to contribute to the Times Education Supplement forums (and indeed met my wife there). Many active members of the TES community were in the area, so it was a good central place to meet.

One thing that always strikes me when going to places like Birmingham, though, is that I can't imagine them being seen as "tourist" destinations, even though I'm sure plenty do flock to places other than London every year. Think about when you're going on holiday—if you're having a city break abroad, you'll generally tell people that you're going to Paris or Rome or New York or Toronto or wherever and people will know where you're on about. I often wonder if people in other countries know any UK cities other than London.

"Oh yes," they'd say. "We're having our honeymoon in Birmingham."

Well, firstly, there's a marriage that's going to get off to a rough start, and secondly, it just sounds strange. What is it that makes cities such as San Francisco, Berlin or Milan so special that they're internationally known? Or is it just that living in a particular country causes you to take it for granted?

#oneaday, Day 49: In Memoriam - Bizarre Creations, 1994-2011

The UK game development community has a long and colourful history. Some of the most well-known and successful titles from gaming's history come from UK-based developers, and it's in part due to the active "bedroom programmer" community of the 1980s that gaming is in the healthy position it is in today. In short, although the big bucks may come from American developers and hugely successful properties like Call of Duty, the humble UK played a pivotal role in bringing us to where we are today.

And that's why it's always sad to see a UK-based developer fold under the pressure. But something's different this time. The demise of Bizarre Creations seems to be affecting a lot of people on a much more personal level than many other similar announcements. I've been trying, with little success, to figure out why this is all day.

Perhaps it's quite simply the fact that they have made some astonishingly good games in their time. Sure, they've made a few that are arguably duffers, too, but those games, personally speaking, just showed me that they were willing to try their hand at something different, even if they ended up being not that good at it. And Boom Boom Rocket was awesome, I don't care what anyone else says.

Bizarre Creations was always about two things, though: racing and shooting neon shapes in space. These were their raisons d'être, if that's the correct plural, which it probably isn't.

The Dreamcast's Metropolis Street Racer was an absolutely gobsmacking title upon its initial release. We'd seen racers with pretensions of "photo-realism" before—the PS1 Gran Turismo titles along with Namco's Ridge Racer Type 4 and Reflections' Driver had come pretty close in all their non-anti-aliased glory, but Metropolis Street Racer went one further. The sheer accuracy of both the car modelling and the streets through which you raced was astonishing. The fact you were racing through recognisable locales—and the fact that the system's clock was used to make sure you were racing at whatever time it was right now—gave a pretty-much unprecedented sense of involvement in the races. Couple this with the fact that it wasn't just another racer—it was an extreme sports game that happened to involve cars—and you have a winner on your hands. The ability to customise the in-game messages to hurl obscenities at you whenever you crashed was just the icing on an already delicious cake.

And that's not even mentioning the soundtrack, extracts of which you may have noticed peppering this post. Completely composed from scratch rather than licensed, MSR's soundtrack perfectly captured a snapshot of how the year 2000 sounded in terms of popular music.

Project Gotham Racing was a similarly spectacular title showcasing the power of Microsoft's new Xbox system. When I first saw the game, I didn't immediately make the connection between it and MSR, but after a little bit of racing around I suddenly felt a sense of familiarity. It hit me hard—this was the next generation of the game I'd wasted countless hours on on SEGA's doomed little wonderbox. Its sequel spawned my favourite use of Xbox LIVE—Friends leaderboards. I was never that bothered about online racing as I'm not anywhere near as good as some of the freaks out there, but being able to compare times and scores directly against friends without having to do anything special? That was a watershed moment for me.

Which, of course, brings us to Geometry Wars, formerly a hidden minigame that sat in the garage of your Project Gotham cars. The original Geometry Wars is, without a shadow of exaggeration, the reason I bought an Xbox 360. An early-adopter friend showed me a few games—Oblivion, The Outfit and Geometry Wars, as I recall—and while the first two impressed me a little with all their HD glory, it was the orgasmic explosion of colour and sound that was Geometry Wars that convinced me I needed one of these machines. Thus began a long campaign of battling against each other for high-score supremacy, punctuated by regular MMS messages back and forth each time we beat each other.

The sequel took this to a whole other level. There were some days when I wouldn't play a "full" retail game at all, instead blasting away at Geometry Wars 2 for hours at a time in a desperate attempt to beat my friends' scores on the various game modes. It became hugely, ridiculously competitive until I pretty much accidentally attained several scores that neither I nor my friends have been able to replicate since. Thus ended that particular battle.

And then most recently we had "powered-up racer" Blur. Blur came out of nowhere, thanks to Activision's questionable marketing. But what a game it was. Taking the good bits of Call of Duty's multiplayer and inserting them seamlessly into a game that wasn't brown and wasn't about soldiers going pewpewpew was a genius move, and the fact it's one of the few games out there you can still play in four-player split screen alone means it's worthy of mention.

So this is why I'm sad that Bizarre Creations have closed their doors for the last time today. Some of my fondest gaming memories stem from Bizarre's games. I sincerely hope that the team manage to find their way to pastures greener, and that they can once again get back to doing what they do so well.

Also, Microsoft, you are idiots for not picking them up to revive the PGR series.

So, if you'll turn to your song sheet, we can sing today's hymn, from the Metropolis Street Racer soundtrack, the lyrics of which are oddly poignant (if cheesy) today. Sing along. I'll know if you don't. SING, DAMMIT.

I wake up and it's another day
Time to wish all my tears away
Every day and it's the same old story
No more dreams, just reality

I should find a place I've never been before
Gotta see a place I've never seen before
Gotta go somewhere that I can still believe
You are there

Don't know what to do
Don't know where to go
How can I find you
Who's to know?
I gotta know where you are
No matter how near or far
I'll never get over you.

In my mind I know it's just a game
But it helps to keep away the pain
People tell me that it's all too easy
I don't listen, how could they know?

So I'll keep on running down this lonely road
'Cause I can't help thinking it's the only road
Gotta stay right here so I can still believe
You are near?

Don't know what to do
Don't know where to go
How can I find you
Who's to know?
I gotta know where you are
No matter how near or far
I'll never get over you.

I cannot believe that you are gone
How can I carry on?
It's so long ago that you were mine
Remember the first time?

In my soul I know that you'll remain
In my heart I love you just the same
All the time I think about the day
You'll return and say that you will stay

But I got to live my life without you now
Gotta get along but I don't know how
If I close my eyes then I can still believe
You are here

Don't know what to do
Don't know where to go
How can I find you
Who's to know?
I gotta know where you are
No matter how near or far
I'll never get over you.

Don't know what to do
Don't know where to go
How can I find you
Who's to know?
I gotta know where you are
No matter how near or far
I'll never get over you.

Farewell, Bizarre Creations. Thanks for the good times. May your work live on.

#oneaday, Day 48: RUN.

It's been a while since I talked about my exercise-related endeavours, so I figured why the hell not now? (You can, of course, follow my exercise-related Tumblr if you're that way inclined.)

Basically, it's going quite well. I've done two "long runs" of 8.25km now, which suggests that by the time May and the 10K I've signed up for comes around, I'll be ready to run that distance. It may be slowly and involve a lot of guttural grunting (particularly on hilly bits) but I should be able to at least do it. And why 8.25km? Well, convenience. I set out from my house in one direction, run down a country lane that seems to go on forever (2 miles), turn down a road and do a big loop around on a slightly less country laney country lane that also seems to go on forever before making one last turn onto another, marginally more country laney than the second country lane but less country laney than the first country lane country lane and ending up coming up the street my house is on from the other end. It shouldn't be too much difficulty to extend the route to 10K, but at the moment I'm pretty knackered by the time I get to this distance, so it'll be a case of extending it a bit at a time.

I may still be pretty slow, but I'm certainly pleased with my progress since I started towards the end of last year. Setting up some form of "structure" and quasi-reward mechanic has helped enormously. To begin with, this was the Couch 2 5K programme, that got me off my ass and moving in the first place. In the first week of that, I was exhausted by the time I'd been running for just a minute but gradually built up to being able to run for 30 minutes at a time. I started the Bridge 2 10K programme but the holiday period disrupted that somewhat. Rather than go back to that, I've simply been doing three runs a week—one pace-setting one of 5K or so, one "long" one (8.25K at the minute, that will eventually become 10K) and one interval training session (currently three sets of four lots of run fast 1 minute, run moderately 1 minute, repeat with 2 minutes of walking in between each set). I've been using the RunKeeper app on my phone to track my progress, and it's always pretty cool to see yourself make some sort of improvement, even if it's only a matter of seconds. Plus you can use it to draw penises on Google Maps if you get bored.

Alongside this, I've recently started using the 100 Pushups and 200 Situps apps for the iPhone. These are very simple apps, just recommending the number of reps you should do in each of five sets, but they're also effective in providing a bit of structure to your workouts. And structure is good; structure makes you feel like you're making progress, because you can tick things off (or gain points for them in EpicWin, which is another worthwhile motivational app for iPhones) and see at a glance how "well" you're doing.

While I doubt I'm ever going to be one of the skin-head tank-top wearing nutcases who frequent British gyms, it's good to know that I am making some progress, and I bet it's going to feel pretty damn special to complete that 10K in May.

You think it's awesome too, right? Sure you do. So you want to fling a few quid my way and sponsor me, don't you? Of course you do. And very gratefully received it is too.

#oneaday, Day 47: 6 Brit Comedies You Should Watch*

There's a specific breed of British comedy that's been around for a few years now that's a far cry from the "old school". Mostly, it can be recognised by the presence of any or all of the following people in the cast: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Mark Heap, Dylan Moran, Tamsin Greig, Richard Ayoade, Matt Berry, Kevin Eldon, Stephen Merchant. Yes, I know there are others, but the above-mentioned each have a number of different shows to their name with a considerable amount of crossover. Also, they're the only ones I can remember the names of without resorting to Googling.

Anyway. This specific breed of British comedy is quick-fire, clever and often quite surreal. As such, it doesn't appeal to everyone. There are some items on this list that Americans in particular find very difficult to fathom. And indeed some Brits find it quite hard to fathom, too. But I can highly recommend at least giving all of them a shot if you're not already familiar with them. And if you are already familiar with them, the UK-based people (and those who are clever at faking UK IP addresses) will probably be interested to know that all the Channel 4-based ones are available via YouTube.

So, onward then.

Spaced

It'd be remiss of me not to mention Spaced, probably the most accessible of all these shows, even though I'm pretty sure most people are very familiar with it by now. A tale of relatively normal people in circumstances that are frequently anything but normal, it's a stylish show crammed full of smileworthy cultural references and some truly wonderful character work. It put Simon Pegg and Nick Frost firmly on most people's radars, and is pretty much the reason Shaun of the Dead exists.

There are so many amazing scenes, but this has to be my favourite.

Black Books

Black Books is some gloriously surreal character-driven comedy based largely around the wonderful chemistry between Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey and Tamsin Greig. It's a simple show with some completely off-the-wall humour that is a little too much for some people. But it managed to hold its own for three seasons, which is pretty good going for a low-budget Brit comedy, even if our seasons are considerably, considerably shorter than an American season.

Like Spaced, there are a ton of fantastic scenes to choose from, but it's difficult to beat this one.

Big Train

Big Train is a sketch-based show on which Pegg, Heap and many others had one of their first "big breaks". It almost defies description, such is the diversity of the sketches in which they engage. But it carries the cast's trademark surrealist humour, allowing you to escape into a land of pure nonsense.

Garth Merenghi's Darkplace

A great idea for a show, this. Darkplace is a fictional TV show presented with occasional talking-head segments from completely fictional writers and actors. The TV show itself is convincingly low-budget and awful—so much so that it's intentionally unintentionally hilarious—and the whole thing is a fantastic parody of the terrible crap that we see on our TV at times.

The IT Crowd

Another piece of genius small-scale character-driven comedy, this one has successfully made the transition across the pond for many people. Featuring a cast who are perfect comic foils for one another, a setting which most people can relate to and a variety of mundane-yet-hilarious situations, this has to be one of my favourite shows.

Green Wing

I've only just discovered this as I'll confess I didn't quite "get it" when it was first shown on TV, though this was probably largely due to the fact I only ever caught little bits of it. It's a heavily stylised show set in a hospital with very little discernible medical content, and one of the strangest casts of characters you'll ever see. I am now addicted to it

There. Enjoy. Should keep you busy for a little while.

Tag: oneaday