This evening I happened to come across an old blog post I wrote in 2011 called The Flow of Time. At the time, I was just about to leave the Corsham School and that blog post was a nostalgic reflection of how I had had so many experiences during my time there and that time seemed to start flowing more quickly as I got older.
What’s funny about this to me is that I was feeling wistful and nostalgic, but by that point in my life, I hadn’t even had the experiences which are now the most important to me! In fact, I hadn’t even properly developed into the person I would become. I was still so young – still a child, really.
Like I said in that original blog post, I did meet a lot of people at that school who I cared a lot about and I would’t mean to suggest that meeting them was not important. But they’re still in my life now and I consider the experiences I’ve shared with them as adults to be significantly more valuable. Plus there’s the fact that a great deal of the people who I am the closest with and who I feel the most affection for, were still unknown to me when I was writing – and yet at this point in life I could write paragraphs of how nostalgic I am for the times I spent with them!
But here’s the nicest thing about that blog post: while I was writing it, it never occured to me that I was on the precipice of times which would soon become some of my most cherished memories. Just four months after writing that, I was making friends who would be enormously important to me and sharing experiences which I’ll always cherish.
Who knows what, in as little as four months time, might have changed in my life? What memories am I yet to form? What bonds are yet to be forged? I can’t wait to find out.
When I try to think of games where you play as a snake, other than the classic mobile game, I can’t really think of anything. What’s so amazing about Snake Pass, is that it is the only game I know which is based around the strange and unusual movements of a snake.
You play as a snake called Noodle who, with the help of his hummingbird friend Doodle, must navigate a series of jungle temple-based levels. You have to collect a number of special items along the way so that you can then open a portal and progress to the next level.
Unlike most games, these levels aren’t full of monsters or enemies, instead the challenge comes from the fact that you need to carefully coil Noodle around bamboo poles to climb up ledges, while avoiding spike pits, hot coals or bottomless voids. It’s a simple concept and a fairly short game, but it’s very enjoyable and finally getting Noodle across a particularly difficult area is always very rewarding.
There are several stylistic choices which help make the game even more enjoyable. Firstly, Noodle himself is a very expressionate Snake and it’s funny to watch him react to the different hazards – both in terms of his facial expressions and the noises he makes. Secondly, the world looks very beautiful, which makes the small areas you move around all the more fun to explore. Finally, the soundtrack was created by David Wise of Donkey Kong Country fame and it sounds fantastic – those games all have wonderful soundtracks and this is no exception. In fact, it sounds very Donkey Kong Country-esque, which is a very good thing for me.
Other than being short, another of its downsides is that it can be pretty difficult sometimes. The most annoying thing is when wind is added as a hazard – wind annoys me in every single game it’s in. If you’re aiming for 100%, I think you’ll have a very tough time indeed. But, none of these problems are significant and the game is often very cheap to download. Should you come across it on sale, I highly recommend that you buy it!
As an independent creative, I feel it is my responsibility to share the work of other independent creatives from time to time and today I want to draw your attention to the art of Paul Hanley.
As I mentioned in the title, one of the main things he does is Doctor Who fan art. There are two things he does which I especially like; the first is “group photos” of specific Doctors and all of their companions across different media. Here’s an example of the one he did for the Twelfth Doctor – incredible! He also does portraits of individual characters and has covered so many Doctors and companions, including some really obscure ones, such as the alcoholic female Doctor who worked at Sainsbury’s in the audio story Exile or John and Gillian, the Doctor’s grandchildren in comics from the 1960s. The fact that he is really going out of his way to include so many different characters is really admirable in my eyes.
It’s not just Doctor Who fan art that he does either, but also a fair number of other things. Most significantly to me, he also does a lot of Twin Peaks art, which is great because I also happen to be very fond of Twin Peaks and I enjoy his art of these characters just as much as the Doctor Who ones. Overall, whoever he’s drawing, Paul Hanley is a very talanted artist and I hope that he can make a lot of money doing what he does! Support him on Patreon.
People enjoy hearing their name said out loud by others. From what I’ve heard, doing this is a useful way to get people to trust you. Of course, it won’t always work, but generally speaking, it’s supposed to have a positive effect – unless that’s all just a myth.
But I think it goes both ways. I quite like saying people’s names – or at least the names of good friends. When people have short and snappy names, it’s nice to just quickly pop them out; names like “Mike” and “Kat” are two I quite like saying. But it’s not just the single syllable wonders – it’s also the longer names too, the ones which you can really take your time articulating and slowly spilling out of your mouth – the names like “Dalfino” or “Stephanie.” Then there’s you’re middle of the road names, the ones like “Chloe” or “Liam” or “Sophie” where they’re neither short or snappy or long and unusual – just simple words, but ones which you enjoy molding your mouth around and you say them.
And in the end, you find that you mainly say their names when you’re around them, so that then means that it slowly begins to have a positive association. You hear yourself saying their name and you start to feel good, because the last time you heard it was when you with them last – which was doubtlessly a wonderful time. For me, it’s also a small sign of affection: if I’m not very close with someone, saying their name doesn’t feel quite right, I’ll only do it to get their attention – but if I do like someone, I’ll sprinkle their name into sentences like a sprinkle the salt over some chips when having dinner at Nando’s. It just makes conversation with them a little more delicious.
Prior to reading this book, I knew absolutely nothing about David Sedaris, or even anything about what he wrote: not even the genre. Now having finished it, I feel as though I not only understand his writing style, but I have a strong grasp of who he is as a person; or at least, who he likes to portray himself as in his writing.
I’d say the book is a nice example of life writing – it is autobiographical, but I certainly wouldn’t call it an autobiography. It’s essentially a collection of anecdotes from his life, without much of an overall structure, other than half of it being based on his life in America, then the second half being based on his life after moving to France.
What’s appealing to me, as a writer, is that Sedaris’s life isn’t particularly extraordinary (other than moving from the US to France.) Generally, he’s had the same sort of experiences which many of us have had, but what makes it enjoyable to read is his strong writing voice. He’s a good writer and he’s funny. That fact that this alone was enough for him to fill a book is inspiring to me.
While I enjoyed the half about his life in America, I do think it picked up significantly when he moved to France. Reading about the way that Americans would speak English in front of him assuming he didn’t understand was hilarious. I laughed out loud several times. He often writes about hating people he doesn’t know for small (and sometimes justified) reasons and it amuses me to no end – some of it’s ridiculously petty and I love it.
I must warn you though, for all the laughs it contains, it can be very bleak. There’s a chapter about euthanising pets and a chapter about a woman who nearly died in an amusement park accident – though he keeps up his comedic tone, I was left feeling quite depressed after each of these chapters. I wish he could have written more about genuine joy in his life, because, without that, it can feel a bit too much – but I suppose sincere happiness may not have been compatible with the tone he was going for.
Overall, an interesting read which gives us a good overview of the author’s life. It’s very relatable at times, so I feel like a lot of people will get something out of it – if you’re after some comedic, slice of life reading, then I recommend it.
One of my favourite activities to do myself is reading. I love it, of course. Reading is cool and I have that printed on a t-shirt. I could take for granted that you already agree and understand, but then this blog post would be a bit too short, so I’ll elaborate. Reading is relaxing and a great way to start a day or end it, it’s a great thing to do to fill time when waiting at the bus stop and it’s a great thing to make time for especially. It broadens your mind, it helps you to be more empathetic, it makes you laugh and makes you cry and because it all happens entirely within your head, reading is a highly personal experience which is different for everybody.
With all that in mind, reading only really makes sense as a solitary activity, right? But somehow that’s not true. While I wouldn’t like to read in a group of people who were otherwise occupied, there’s actually something pretty enjoyable about reading with somebody who’s also nose deep in a book. Against all reason, sitting and silently reading a book alongside somebody else doing the exact same thing, is actually more enjoyable than just doing it alone – or at least it is for me. It’s hard to put my finger on what I enjoy about this and I feel that it might just be down to being in the presence of friends, but if you’ve never tried communal reading before, I recommend it!
I’m not somebody who usually does much for their birthday, but I was particularly excited when I was having dinner with my friend Sophie a few weeks ago and she suggested that we take a day trip for my birthday this year.
The day out was decided to be a visit to London, centered around a visit to the Sea Life Aquarium. I’ve always been particularly fond of ocean life and I’ve never had an unenjoyable visit to London – so tickets to go there were a fantastic gift. You can imagine how excited I was. To make this blog post a little more enjoyable than the usual walls of text that I post, I’ll sprinkle the best photos between the paragraphs.
I find ocean life so much more interesting than animals you see on land, because it’s so different. I suppose a part of my enjoyment is based on escapism, because my mind wanders a lot when watching these beautiful creatures swim around.
When we arrived at the aquarium, there was a big illustration of a sad looking octopus cowering away from a flashing camera, with a message to say that flash photography was prohibited. Sadly, some guy thought it was worth stressing out an innocent creature just for the sake of a picture that he’ll probably look at once and then never think of again, so he was taking lots of pictures of the octopus with his flash on. Sophie and I spent some time wondering about bad things that might deservedly happen to him later that day.
Something I really appreciated, was that almost every exhibit had information about the human-made threats which face these creatures. As much as watching and admiring them simply due to the natural beauty of their existence is nice, it is equally important, if not more so, for organisations like the Sea Life Trust to educate people on these issues. So I’m glad that they were.
Having said that, I wish that more staff members were around so that I could ask questions. There was one penguin, for example, which seemed to be acting strangely and I wish I could have spoken to somebody to find out why or even to alert them to it. I would also have liked to be able to ask somebody about the issue of keeping shark in captivity, because there was one big shark swimming around and it certainly looked alright and it did have the biggest tank, but I’d have liked the chance to talk to someone, as I have heard it can be bad to keep sharks in tanks.
But, overall, I was definitely left with a positive impression. The tanks all seemed to be appropriately sized for the fish living inside them. It wasn’t just fish either, but also some insects, frogs, snakes and other creatures. At one point, there was also the opportunity to stroke a star fish – which was nice. There was a staff member there to make sure that everybody was respectful and not touching it in ways which might be harmful. She seemed very wary of the children there and I’m sure I would too. The starfish curled its arm around Sophie’s finger, but it didn’t around mine.
My favourite fish were the jellyfish – they look so different to anything else and there were loads of lights shining on them to make their bodies look as if they were changing colours. They’re amazing and they’re also the last thing you see in the aquarium – no doubt they knew that they were saving the best until last. If I had to pick a favourite jellyfish, however, I couldn’t do so. Sophie told me that I couldn’t say “Oh my, these ones might be my favourite” at every jellyfish tank we came to.
Other than just listing every single creature I saw and that aquarium and telling you that I loved them, I’m not sure I have much else to say about it. After the aquarium we ate some chips on some grass (tasty), then we wandered around the streets (invigorating), then we went to a toy shop (exciting), then we had dinner (delicious), then we went to a book shop (marvelous) – all in all, a very nice day. Indeed, as days go, it was one of the best I’ve had so far.
Also, all of these photos were taken by Sophie. There’s no way my camera would get pictures this good. I’m very grateful that she took so many, as looking through them all again today, was like revisiting the aquarium all over again. I hope that you have enjoyed looking at the photos.
Super Smash Bros. Melee was the first video game to bring any kind of Fire Emblem content to non-Japanese audiences and I’m glad it did, because it’s become one of my favourite franchises. But as important as that was, it was the Game Boy Advance game Fire Emblem which was the first actual instalment in the series to make the journey overseas.
Fans may have been a bit surprised though, because the two characters we’d seen in Melee (Marth and Roy) are nowhere to be found in this game, Marth isn’t even mentioned! Instead it focuses on a trio of characters: Lyn, Eliwood and Hector (worth mentioning is that Eliwood is Roy’s father.)
In terms of the story, I found it a bit generic by Fire Emblem standards: a small ragtag group of fighters come together to try and take on a evil political power. Along the way they’re joined by lots of different people and there end up being interesting ties to the ancient history of the world.
While the overall plot was not that exciting, I remained invested in it due to the fact that I found the characters very likeable. I’ll admit, Eliwood felt a bit flat, but Lyn and Hector were both very endearing and I enjoyed watching them interact with each other and the people they encountered (even though it’s all text boxes.) I cared about them all and wanted them to be okay – and knowing Fire Emblem, that wasn’t a guarantee!
In terms of gameplay, I cant fault it: it’s classic Fire Emblem. You take it in turns with CPU enemies to move your characters around a grid based map, engaging them in battles with a nice level of nuance provided by the variety of available weapons – you have to manage your weapons and money well though, because the weapons all break eventually. The biggest thing, of course, is that if any of your characters die, they won’t come back and you’re left with that guilt forever.
It’s an example of Fire Emblem by the book in that it doesn’t do anything particularly unusual or innovative with the formula, so longtime fans playing for this one for the first time may be disappointed. But I happen to think that Fire Emblem by the books is still pretty darn good, so I had a good time with this game (though it did get a little too hard in the last level!) You have to keep in mind that it was most certainly created with the intention of being a jumping in point for new players and I think it definitely succeeds at that – we owe Fire Emblem‘s continued presence and success in our country to this starting point and I am very grateful for it for that fact.
