Fuddland

Over Christmas my landlady and her husband cleared out a bunch of their stuff that they’d left cluttering up one of the rooms here — it’s all boxed up and vacuum-packed now, and it’s like the room has got a third bigger. I’m particularly pleased because it’s where I spend most of my time when I’m at home — my computer, which is also my hi-fi and DVD player, lives here; my guitars and the piano are in here too [along with my new harmonicas].

Amongst all their clutter there was a Sega Megadrive [the terms ‘landlady’ and ‘husband’ may have prejudiced your images of these people — they’re both around my age], which I immediately got very excited about seeing — I never had one [we were a SNES family] but I played on friends’ various consoles throughout my teenage years. So when they said I could use it whenever I liked, it was an extra, time capsule-like Christmas present.

I’ve just spent the last half hour or so blasting the aliens in the ‘R-Type’ clone ‘Sol-Feace’ — great for relieving the tensions of the day [must resist the temptation to immediately put it in cheat mode and complete it all levels on the first day].