We’re currently in the process of switching from BT to Virgin Media at home. Our reasons are numerous and I won’t go into them here*. What has struck me as odd during the sign-up process to Virgin though, is that broadband suppliers are still dishing out branded email addresses to their customers.

Don’t get me wrong; I can completely understand the reasons from a supplier’s perspective. Primarily, whenever their customers send out an email, an advert for Virgin is sent out along with it in the form of @virginmedia.com address. A few free email addresses also helps to bulk out the list of features when advertising broadband packages. That’s absolutely fine. I get it.

What I don’t understand is why customers continue to use them. For one, you’re choosing an email address which is potentially going to disappear at some point in the future, should you switch to another supplier. At that point you’re going to have to change the address on all of the websites you’ve signed up to, as well as having to inform everyone else you know that you’ve had to switch your emails to another company.

Of course, there are always going to be people who don’t realise they could get an email address with someone else, but in this day and age these people should be few and far between. This is especially true when using Virgin Media, as you’re informed when you log in that your emails are going to be handled by Google and Gmail anyway. And if you’d have signed up directly with Google, your email address would end with the much shorter @gmail.com.

There are a couple of people in my office who have told me they use these addresses. One has even mentioned that when she switches back to BT from Virgin in the near future, she’ll be switching from her Virgin account to one of BT’s email addresses and letting everyone know of the change. She even complained that the process of switching is a complete pain.

My question is, why? There are a myriad of free email hosts, including the ever-decent Gmail, who will give them access to the same address no matter who their broadband supplier is. What genuine reason might there be for someone who is perfectly able to sign up to any free email provider, to instead keep using the address their broadband supplier gives them?

*BT are diabolical

I often go out and buy new notebooks with the intention of filling them with ideas; passages I’ve written which could make it into a larger work; character profiles; ideas for locations. But they never get filled. I carry them around with me for a while, before they start to be used for other, less artistic works. Such as the shopping list.

I bought one the other day. It’s a Moleskin clone from Ryman’s. It feels just as nice to the touch, but less than half the price. But that’s by-the-by. I’m not here to talk about the price of paper. I’m here because I want to write. I need to learn to concentrate and not imagine there are a million-and-one other things I could do instead. When it comes to fictional writing, I am the world’s greatest procrastinator. There is always washing up to be done, or clothes to be dried, or cushions to be straightened, or cats to be stroked. It’s the little things which continually distract me from doing what I really want to do. And by the time I’m distracted, it’s already too late; my mind has wandered. There’ll be no writing on those days.

Eventually, a few days will go by and I’ll never return to the story I’d started. Perhaps I need to give myself more opportunities to write. But I doubt a publisher is going to give me an advance to enable me to quit work and write full-time, especially given that I don’t yet have anything to show them. I know I can do it if I put my mind to it. I just need to beat my mind into submission first.

Although I’m fully aware that this blog isn’t read by a huge number of people, if anyone out there has any hints and tips for writing, I’d be very glad to read them.

Derby is a city that’s had a fair amount of investment in the last few years. There was the construction of the Westfield shopping centre, the redevelopment of the old railway sidings into Pride Park, the improved railway station, the fancy bus station (with it’s hotels and casino) and all of the many other bits and pieces which are still ongoing, but too many to mention. There is a website you can visit to take a look.

It would seem that the plans for the velodrome have been in the works for a while, but they have only just come across my radar (a link I saw on Twitter). It has been designed by Mace, who have recently designed the velodrome for the London 2012 Olympics and it seems that a little bit of the glamour has rubbed off on this.

The proposed Derby Velodrome design. It's a fantastic-looking wave-shaped building with a budget of £20m.

Obviously there have been naysayers (see the comments), who claim that the money should be spent on health care, or creating jobs, or improving the other delapidated facilities which already exist. There are also arguments to suggest that the designers should stick to a tried and tested design; i.e. a concrete box. To those who believe the money could be more wisely spent in other areas, surely they understand that the only way to compete and improve the local economy is to promote ventures such as this? Derby (and every other city) is in constant need of attracting people and outside investment, and this would help to put Derby on the sporting map (an ensure a lasting legacy). Sure, a new or updated leisure pool would attract a few families to the city for a day out, but an Olympic-sized pool and velodrome would help attract investment and future expansion.

I also obviously agree that other services need constant investment, but if you pump all of your money into health care you end up with a healthy population living in a continually dreary place. Investing in sporting facilities and improving Derby’s sporting image will help to develop an all-round healthier place in the long-term.

The trouble is, unless money is being spent on something that makes an immediate impact in people’s pockets, the public are going to get annoyed. No matter what the council were to invest in, there would always be someone telling them they’re doing the wrong thing. There’s no way to win, except to get on with it and improve people’s lives whether they like it or not.

The Velodrome will be built next to Pride Park Stadium

And that’s what these developments will do. Some people don’t think so right now because they don’t have the vision to see beyond today.

As I said earlier, I really don’t like sports. I can’t swim and in all honestly, the thought of watching people cycle in a velodrome sends me to sleep. But the council will recoup the money spent on this in no time at all; it will bring new people and investment into the city; it will make Derby a centre of excellence for cycling; and it will leave more of a mark than just upgrading the run-down leisure pool facilities currently on offer. You never know; it may well bring in enough money to sport and leisure in the city that the council have enough to upgrade those as well.

As to the design, I personally hope the final design ends up as innovative and unique as the current proposal. Anyone can build a square; just look at the top of the Westfield shopping centre in the middle of the city. But let’s have something different and funky that leaves its mark, rather than a bland slab that will fade into the background. A unique design will attract greater investment. A concrete square will not.

In my day, those games were called demos. You got a small chunk for free and then you had to pop off to Game if you wanted to get the full thing. And that was absolutely fine. There’s always room for a demo or two. I also believe there is a place in this world for games which only give you a certain number of features before you hand the developer some money. But what I don’t believe is right is the abundance of games which charge an extraordinary amount of money for so very little.

My Country loves your money.

Take, for example, My Country on iOS. It’s a pretty basic city-building game, which is actually quite fun to play when you have a couple of minutes, though it doesn’t really have much of what you’d call longevity. You place buildings, hire employees and continue on until you’ve filled your screen and earned a shed-load of in-world cash. However, the difficulties start pretty soon after you begin the game. In order to hire certain employees, you must collect certain objects whenever you place, upgrade or collect profit from a building. But some of these objects are so few and far between (and placed randomly) that you’re forced to spend real money in order to purchase more in-game currency, allowing you to skip the process of random item dropping and get on with hiring employees. The same goes for expanding into certain territories; mostly you’re fine with the in-game cash, but often the only way to expand is to spend insane amounts of real money.

And let me tell you how insane these amounts get. In order to purchase various amounts of “CountryBucks” which lets you do various things, you’re looking at:

• £1.49 for 20
• £4.99 for 70
• £13.99 for 200
• £34.99 for 500
• £69.99 for 1,000

I can’t be the only one who finds this all a little bit excessive, can I? I mean, Modern Warfare 3 is currently less than just £30, so how can a game as tedious and disengaging as My Country possibly warrant charging almost £70 for absolutely nothing?

Worst of all though, is that proper, established game studios have started jumping on the bandwagon. Yes EA, I’m looking at you. EA have recently come out with a spate of titles for absolutely nothing, but which then rely on the freemium strategy of raking in the cash. I’m pleased to say that people aren’t willing to take this lying down when it comes to EA. Smaller companies can get away with it as it’s really become an expectation that their games are funding in this manner. But I think EA have gone off on a tangeant that they really should have steered clear of.

Take, for example, Theme Park. Theme Park is an absolute classic game and I was rather pleased to see it in the App Store. I was also pleased to see that they weren’t going to charge anything for the game. Result! But, of course, there’s always more to it than that and I was extremely disappointed to find it was freemium. As were many other people, which has resulted in the game receiving (at present) 1,897 1* reviews. Lack of freedom of play – and the fact that to do anything at all you have to hand cash over for in-game tickets – have meant a backlash against this title in particular, although it’s by no means alone.

How to destroy a classic.

There’s also Tetris. Now, how could you take Tetris and screw it up? Tetris is the greatest puzzle game there has ever been, it’s also one of the most addictive and it’s the reason why there is still an original GameBoy sat somewhere in a drawer in my parents’ house. But what did EA do to it? They went and offered a subscription service for £20.99 per annum, which gives you in-games coins to boost your score. Which effectively means, if you have the money, you can cheat the game. Where is the fun in that?

You know what I want? I want to spend £5 on a game like My Country. Or Theme Park. Or Tetris. I want to spend £5 and then play the game whenever I want to, without having to fork out extra for it. A game should be fun. It should be relaxing. It shouldn’t mean the stress of having to work extra hours in order to pay for additional content. Which, let’s face it, means absolutely nothing at the end of the day. It shouldn’t mean giving kids a game and then charging their parents a fortune for extra bits, or making them go out to buy an iTunes voucher with their pocket money. There needs to be an end to this disgraceful act of money-grabbing on the part of all developers, but especially the larger studios. We all know you need to make money, but there are alternative methods. Charging people for the game in the first place is the obvious one, but what about in-game advertising. There are options here which don’t involve ripping people off. Developers, please choose them.

It seems that I need not have feared. I used SoundHound, which is currently free on iTunes and one of the pressies Apple are giving us this year with their 12 Days of Christmas promotion.

SoundHound listens to the song you’re playing at it tells you what it is and who’s singing it. And it got every single one absolutely correct. The only issue it had was with a random Christmas song by Alvin & The Chipmunks, although after skipping ahead to later in the track it was able to pick up the chorus.

Obviously, one set of songs is not enough to determine whether it would get anything you could through at it right, but for absolutely nothing this app has saved me what could have amounted to hours of searching.

Firstly, Macworld offer a pretty in-depth FAQ on the subject, which can be found here:
http://www.macworld.com/article/163658/

Secondly, if you’re wondering what the little icons mean in your iTunes music library, the Apple Support article below is very useful:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts4124

It’s an extremely entertaining game and not merely because the whole point is to be able to call the loser a “shithead”. It’s a game of skill, tactics, cunning and guile. And for those who don’t know how to play it, I am about to explain.

NOTE: Given the nature of the game, there are several variations as to how you might choose to play it. For this guide I’m just going to tell you about what we do, but by all means make any changes you see fit.

The game is designed for any number of people, though you may wish to set yourself a limit. Two is the bare minimum, but if you want to get some real enjoyment out of the game you’ll need at least three, but preferably four or more.

If your cards don't look like this, you're doing it wrong

Firstly, the dealer dishes out three cards face-down in a row to each player. These cards must not be looked at. A second row of cards is then placed on top of these, but face-up. Finally, three cards are issued to each player, face-down, which will become their hand. So:

• Three face-down
• Three face-up
• Three face-down

As you can tell, you’ll get through the deck quite quickly because of the number of cards being dealt, so you may wish to use two decks shuffled together. The remaining cards are placed in a pile, face-down, in the middle of the table.

Once everything is dealt, each player may swap any of the cards in their hand with the ones they have face-up on the table. They may only be swapped at this point in the game and cannot be changed later on.

The player to the left of the dealer begins and the game proceeds clockwise. The idea is to place a card on the table equal to, or higher, than the card at the top of the pile. Aces are high. If you cannot lay a higher card, you must pick up all of the cards in the pile and add them to your hand. The next player then plays whichever card they desire on to the table and the pile begins again.

You may lay as many cards of the same value as you wish. For example, if there is a Six on the table, you may lay two Sevens on top of it.

Whilst there are cards remaining in the deck, each player must have at least three cards in their hand. So if you place a single card and end up with two cards in your hand you will need to replace it to make it up to three.

Once you have played all of the cards in your hand and there are no more cards remaining in the deck, you may start on the cards face-up on the table. The same rules apply as with the rest of the game and you must try to beat the card previously laid. Obviously, as everyone else is able to see your cards at this point, it makes this part of the game slightly more difficult (and why it’s important to try and place the highest cards face-up which you were dealt at the beginning of the game). You may only play one of these cards at a time. So, should you have three Jacks all face-up, you may still only play one Jack at a time. If you are unable to play one of your face-up cards at this point, you must pick up the pile. You may not pick up one of the face-up cards to use in your hand. Proceed until your hand has gone and you are able to start on the face-up cards again.

Once you have managed to get rid of the face-up cards, you may start on those face-down. You still may not look at these. When it is your turn to play, pick one of your cards at random. You do not have to show anyone else. If you cannot go, retain the card you’ve just picked up and collect the rest of the pile. You may not play any more face-down cards until you’ve got rid of the cards in your hand.

Once you have got rid of all the cards in your hand and all of the cards on the table, you are out. The game continues until there is one person left. Remember, there are no winners; there is only the shithead left at the end of the game. You must remind them that they are the shithead.

Special Cards and Rules

Of course, the game is not quite that simple. There are a few special cards which change play rather dramatically. These are:

• Two (Restart): The Two can be laid on almost every other card (excluding the Three). It restarts the pack and allows the following player to begin the numbering again.
• Three (The Bastard): The Three (or Bastard card) can be laid on any other card. It can only be beaten by another Three. If you do not have another Three to play, you pick up the pile.
• Four: Not really a special card per se, but it is technically the lowest card in the game.
• Seven (Lower): A Seven requires the proceeding player to lay a Seven or lower than a Seven. It can only be played on top of a Seven or a card lower than a Seven. If the player cannot go, they must pick up the pile.
• Ten (Burn): A Ten will burn the pile; that is, it will remove the pile entirely from the game. The player who placed the Ten may have another go. A Ten may only be played on a card lower than a Ten.
• Jack (Reverse): A Jack reverses the order of play. So it will switch from clockwise to anticlockwise and vice versa. It may only be laid on a Jack or a card lower than a Jack.
•  Ace: Not really a special card, but Aces are high in this game.

The final rule has to do with burning. Just like a Ten, should a player lay four of a kind (or place the fourth card on another three of the same kind, so that they are directly on top of each other on the pile), the pile gets removed from play. The player who burnt the pile then has another go.

And that’s it!

Hmm… actually, after reading all that I’ve noticed that I seem to have made it sound extremely complicated! It isn’t, but I’ve somehow managed it. But that’s by-the-by. This is a great game for all the family. Of course, if you are playing it with younger children, you may wish to call it something different. Like Poohead. Or Daffodils.

My trainers didn't last the entire journey to work.

I used to be a boy scout. Well, I went for a week. I guess that’s not enough time to learn how to Be Prepared.

Due to lack of funds and wanting to get as much use out of everything I own as possible these days, I’ve been wearing my clothes for much longer than I probably should have done. My t-shirts have become faded and the designs have all but flaked off. My jumpers are last year’s and bitty. My jeans all have holes in places they should have holes and I find myself having to think about when and where to bend, for fear of scaring some innocent child who happens to be walking passed.

All-in-all, I could really do with some new clothes. Fingers-crossed that as Christmas is just around the corner, some replacements will be on the way. Either that, or some vouchers for clothes stores would be greatly appreciated.

My alterative footwear wasn't really up to much either.

It’s not really been a huge issue up until today. I mean, I don’t look quite as smart as I used to, but I’m not at down-and-out stage just yet. However it all became an issue this morning when my one and only pair of footwear finally gave up on me and split on the bottom. It just happened to coincide with a downpour of sleet whilst on my way to work. Fortunately I did have an old pair of shoes in the office which I could change into, although these have also seen better days. I use them more as slippers for work, given that they too have huge holes in the bottom and are completely unsuitable for wearing outside.

A colleague was kind enough to lend me a pair of socks and offered to give me a in lift into town to buy some replacement shoes, but I guess it does highlight a change in my attitude which I’d not recognised until now. Whilst I’ve never be someone who has to rush out shopping to get the latest fashions, I at least used to make sure what I was wearing was suitable for the job. These days I’m wearing whatever comes to hand, whether or not it’s suitable. I really shouldn’t have been wearing my trainers in snowy conditions anyway, but I’d found myself completely unprepared. I had no other choice. I’d also been using them to walk five miles a day for a couple of months, which they certainly weren’t designed for.

In these austere times, I guess I need to have a rethink about where my money heads and to what I see as a priority. At least, I know I definitely have to start spending more than I currently do on clothes. That, or I’ll have to find a new job that pays more. A very tempting idea…

It was only released this morning and I’ve barely had chance to play it, but I can tell right now that Grand Theft Auto III on the iPhone and iPad is going to be something special.

Obviously, I’m fully aware that the game is a classic. I played it a decade ago and it’ll forever remain one of the greatest and most influential games there has ever been. It created a genre and set a standard for open-ended game play that titles such as Skyrim rely on to this day. I even remember some of the radio stations, which is good going for a mind like mine which tends to remember nothing at all!

The game seems to be an almost identical port, with the much-welcome additional feature of auto-saves. What it also does, which the entire series has always seemed to do very well, is to allow effortless game play. I’ve never been a huge gamer, with controls and options like those of Modern Warfare seeming far too complicated to me. I don’t really like playing games on a touchscreen either, as fingers seem to block the screen and you never really know what you’re pressing. With GTA you get simplicity, but not of a kind that at all detracts from the game. In fact, it adds to it. It allows those of us who exist merely on the periphery of the gaming world to play with absolute ease. And these controls seem to have translated extremely well.

By default, the left finger controller switches from simulated analogue stick to left+right buttons as you go from walking to driving. It works perfectly. Within a few seconds I was back to driving the cars as I always had on consoles; skidding around corners with the dedicated handbrake button, and slamming on the accelerator as I exited the turn. It works a charm.

Having had a quick go on both the iPhone and iPad editions (it’s a universal app), I do have to say that it does play slightly better on an iPad 2 than it does on an iPhone 4, though perhaps that has more to do with the size of the screen than anything else. However, it is great to be able to play one of the greatest games of them all during a break at work.

And what a bargain at only £2.99! Get it now.