The Wedding was at the top of our to-chat-about list last night. It’s been bubbling away at the back of our heads for the last two years, obviously, but living in London has kind of stymied/slowed decision-making. Knowing that we’re certainly leaving next year has galvanised our thinking somewhat and we’re close to a theme for the day. The prospective costs are a bit of an issue, but there are ways around these. I think once the end of the year comes around we’ll be in a good place to book venues, decide on decor etc etc. I don’t want anything too fancy, as we’re not really fancy people, and our friends and family have to love it, so it’s not going to be all about DJs and fireworks. Something cool in the West Country – where we met and fell in love, after all – seems the most sensible option.
On the whole, Autumn next year seems to be the best time, giving us enough of a window to put something together that ticks all of the above boxes and gets everybody who needs to be involved on the same page. I can’t wait to put some concrete in the foundations of this idea, which has been mere sketches for so long.
A quiet evening last night, after accidental after-work beers the night before. Did some writing (‘Apple’ is proving a lot more straightforward to knock out than ‘Age’ ever was, and hopefully won’t contain quite as much self-reverential nonsense). I think it’s a good discipline to aim for getting one of these things done a week, and the longer I spend writing something – anything – on a daily basis here, the more likely that is.
I emerged from steering an imaginary Arsenal side to European glory on PES last night to find Tam’s character in GTA in the grip of a post-Alien-induction acid trip, complete with phasing visuals, sitar’n’bongo backing music and all kinds of analogue-delayed vocals, as he fell serenely to earth. I’ll post some images of it here in due course, but suffice it to say it is easily the most out-there visual I’ve seen in any media – TV, film, whatever – in a very long time.
Rockstar could be accused of shark-jumping at this point, as it feels that they’ve run out of better ideas and have opted for the fantastical, but it raises an interesting potential direction for future games on this model. Open-world games such as GTA seem to succeed because they represent a skewed or dreamlike version of the real world, while unapologetically ‘fantastical’ sandbox games revel in their unreality. Truly combining the two has probably been done – apologies, I’m no student of videogame history – but the idea that there’s another world ‘behind’ ours, in the style of Stephen King and Peter Straub’s book The Talisman – is compelling. It’s one of the ideas I’m toying with for my magnum opus. I wonder what a combination of Oblivion and GTA would be like, for example?
Before witnessing Rockstar’s latest fever-dream first hand, I’d been listening to a nightmare of sorts, as Manchester City were taken apart by a Bayern Munich side who are steadily usurping Barcelona as European football’s pre-eminent force. I only listened to the increasingly fatalistic 5 Live coverage, but from what Alan Green and co were saying, combined with the Guardian’s reaction this morning (http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/oct/02/manchester-city-bayern-munich-champions-league) it was brutal out there. Their strikerless, endlessly shifting dominance of midfield and exploitation of space will probably even have Neymar and co shitting it a little bit. Even so, I had a good day at the office, with Real Madrid and PSG both winning at a canter. My latest foray into the world of high-stakes gambling reads thus, predicted winners in bold:
Wednesday 3 Oct
PSG v Benfica - won
Real Madrid v FC Copenhagen – won
Saturday 5 Oct
Liverpool v Crystal Palace
Levante v Real Madrid
Barcelona v Valladolid
Sunday 6 Oct
Tottenham v West Ham
Norwich v Chelsea
As you can see, there are relatively few risks here. I can’t say I trust Liverpool 100% to get a result, but Palace were so pisspoor against Southampton that I had to have a go. Real away at Levante might also come unstuck, but I doubt it given the form they’re in. Tottenham should be pretty safe against West Ham at home, and I assume that Chelsea will be able to overcome Norwich, even though the Canaries are tough to beat at Carrow Road. Sensible bets all, though, and if they all come in, that’s £50 on a fiver, right there. Two down, six to go. I’ll let you know.
On the strength of last night’s schooling of Man City, I may have to add Bayern to my ‘stable’ of regular bets, to (qv. Barcelona, Real Madrid, Chelsea) and remove Man United, who are getting a little better each week, but have clearly lost a lot of their potency and ‘fear-factor’ since Lord Ferg retired to the golf course.
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