Richard Cobbett

Windows 7

2009-10-22T10:38:19Z

It’s Windows 7 Launch Day, and obviously, it’s the most exciting thing ever to happen.

If you’ve already used previous versions of Windows, you’ll know the rough score already - initial optimism inevitably drained away by rubbish drivers, software manufacturers who’ve been slow to update their software despite 7 being basically the same as Vista and having over a year in which to do their goddamn jobs instead of sitting back and eating cake. There are however important undocumented changes to be aware of before you get started, especially in the light of the many bugs being automatically patched on this, the first day of what will one day become known as the Year of Windows 7 / Era of the Snake People From The Moon. Probably.

Changelog, 22/10/09

The traditional installation minigame has been removed. If you want the fun of formatting your whole drive only to find out half-way through installation that there’s a scratch on the disc, you must now scratch it yourself with a blunt compass point. Microsoft has however upgraded your inability to type a perfectly simple 94 character serial number, ensuring that you have to enter it three times before it works, despite it clearly being right, look, I totally checked it twice, oh wait that’s a G.

Windows no longer laughs maniacally during installation.

Ultimate Extras: While there is no Porn and Bikini wallpaper set supplied with Windows 7, Microsoft Customer Services has been instructed to assure the spouses of users with the Ultimate edition that in fact there is. Home Premium users must face the music for not covering up their screens fast enough. Please note: if you consider this insulting and patronising, remember the Ultimate Extras you got last time.

Disk Defragmenter and Chkdisk now run 40% slower in an attempt to convince you that they’re actually doing some good for your system despite things being bad enough that you’re running them. Registry cleaning software in the form of a pair of slowly rolling eyes of endless contempt has been added to Accessories.

The much-requested “TRY IT ANYWAY” button has been added to all file operations. Corrupted ZIP? Lack of hard drive space? Think you know better than Windows? Hit this button to ditch the error window and force it to at least give it a &^%$ing try. It won’t work, but at least you’ll know for sure and maybe feel better.

To cut down on the number of idiots online, tools like e-mail and Windows Messenger are no longer provided as standard. If you can get the necessary neurons together to download them, maybe you deserve your access.

The EULA has been rewritten in Wingdings to see if anyone notices.

“My Computer” has been renamed “Computer”. Thanks to DRM, “Your Computer” has been deemed too inaccurate by the European Court of Endless Pedantry.

Clicking the icon “Internet Explorer” no longer punches you in the face for your stupidity. Using Internet Explorer instead of absolutely anything else, up to and including a tin-can on a string, has been decreed both crime and punishment.

The dread portal of Ana’xhoom has been moved to the Documents folder for easier access. Please remember to sacrifice one file per day to the glory of Ana’xhoom.

The Purble Place competition has concluded after several long years. The first person to actually bother running it for more than five seconds, Mrs. Dawn Edmonton of Maine, has received her cheque for $4,000,000. Congratulations, Dawn!

Bigfoot has been returned to his home in the wallpaper.

The Solitaire cheat code now automatically texts your friends to stage an intervention. If you have no friends, the cards will fly around the screen as usual. Loser.

All PowerPoint presentations longer than five slides or containing the words “Mission Statement” will now be automatically deleted five minutes after being closed. No, really, you’re welcome. It’s the least we can do to apologise.

Gnaw: This Death Knight ghoul ability now has a 1-minute cooldown.

All online help replaced with the message “Just get a Mac, idiot...”

It is possible to upgrade from Windows 98. Oh, not as a cheap deal or anything, just reminding you. Seriously, it’s 2009. What the hell’s taking so long?

Assorted security hotfixes.

It works now, unlike Vista.

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In My Eyes

2009-10-05T18:18:37Z

Richard’s Guide To Touching The Eye

1. DO NOT TOUCH THE F&*%ING EYE!

2. That is all.

Seriously, in order of importance, the eyes are used for the following things: squicking out sci-fi viewers, making A Clockwork Orange unwatchable, infecting idiots with the zombie lurgy, providing sight, and actively not being touched. It doesn’t matter that a modern lens is only a little sliver of jelly, there are places where things aren’t meant to get shoved, and at least half of those places are the surface of the f&*%ing eye! This is just plain common sense! It goes without saying! I mean, really! Keep your hands off them!

On the other hand, wearing glasses sucks. Everything about wearing glasses sucks. They’re impossible to wear in the rain, they make you look through the world through a very annoying frame, they need constant cleaning, look terrible on anyone other than sexy geeks, and there’s still no official word that they don’t cause cancer.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I’m currently trying out contact lenses, as in “I wouldn’t be able to use because I’m horribly squeamish about my eyes”. I don’t know if it’ll work out yet, but it’s a two week free trial. That’s good in the sense that most things with the word ‘free’ are good news, although I’m still waiting for that Tibet I signed up for to show up. On the other hand, the fact that there is a trial involved made me instantly suspicious. Would ramming terrifyingly complicated lumps of jelly into both eyes not, in fact, be as much fun as the adverts made it look?

Oddly, no. I’ve spent years actively not ripping open my eyelids with my fingers and jamming things in the middle, and as a result, have a highly toned blink reflex capable of breaking iron bars. The optician almost lost a finger trying to get the first lens in a couple of weeks ago, and I thought I was doing very well to keep my eyes open up-to-but-not-including the bit where the finger gets close. Apparently not. Turns out it helps to keep them open. It’s almost mandatory in fact.

After lots of effort, lots of prying and lots of fingers getting entirely too close to squishy jelly bits, we decided I should probably get out of her sight and come back in a couple of weeks when I might not be so rubbish. She didn’t phrase it like that, of course, but she may as well. A couple of hours with not even one lens (of two, for anyone keeping count) even close to sitting comfortably wasn’t exactly a great start.

Anyway, this morning it was time to try again. This time, the optician managed to get both of them in. Can’t say it was much fun - if your own finger in your eye isn’t a good time, a stranger’s is no real improvement, especially with both lids fighting your orders to stay the hell open. But it worked! After only three attempts and one chopped-off finger, we managed to get them both in, and I might add, with a distinct lack of kicking and screaming on my part. I wanted a lollipop, but there weren’t any. Sometimes, being a grown-up really sucks. So I bought one on my way home.

Those few minutes of having them in made it worth continuing though. The effect was fantastic. I’m short-sighted with astigmatism, which means I can’t see very far (no kidding) and everything’s a bit blurry at any distance. I’m certainly not blind without my glasses, it’s just deeply uncomfortable, so I wear them most of the time.

Turns out normal vision is great. A contact lens feels like part of the eye. It itches for a bit when you first put it on, much like an eyelash, but that sensation quickly goes away. No problem at all. Really. You think I wouldn’t whine if it was?

There’s only one problem. Having got them both in, it was up to me to take them out again. I’m not sure what happens if you can’t - maybe they hold you down and use some form of tongs. I didn’t dare ask. I knew this was part of the process, yes, but if touching the eye is enough to bring on the squick, the idea of gripping onto it, pinching and pulling was… let’s just say, I saw Kill Bill: Part 2 and it didn’t seem to go well for Daryl Hannah. Nor did the movie Splash, but that’s not really relevant, I guess.

Bad movie though. Very bad. Where was I?

Oh, yes. Drifting.

The trouble with poking and prodding at the eye is that the eye doesn’t like being poked and prodded much, its bloodshot surface quickly reinforcing Rule 1 of my personal guide. Getting even one of them out took the best part of half an hour. It seemed like longer, but then I realised I’d actually knocked it out about ten minutes earlier and it had been sitting on my shirt. Good start there. The other one was slightly easier. Both just about came out without dragging the cornea or anything with them, which definitely counted as a Win. Maybe even a Bonus.

Then came the really fun bit: not just getting them back in, but getting them in on pissed-off bloodshot eyes that burned at the touch of saline. I didn’t want to have to make another appointment, making this the first two-week trial to take a whole season, so I kept on at it. At some point, the sight of my eyeball glaring back almost stopped turning my stomach. Almost. Tapping and moving the lens around with my finger, that was another story. Specifically, a horror one. Eyes. Eew. Gross.

Once out… back in they went. In. Out. Saline all about. At one point, I managed to lose a lens four times in a row. One time it landed on my shirt. Another it went into the mirror. It started to feel like the best way of getting it back in would be to just keep dropping the damn thing until it magically flicked back up until my eye.

Tell you the truth, I’m still wondering.

That’s because I’m now sitting here at home with a couple of lenses, a bottle of peroxide, and a truly terrifying list of things not to do. Do not sleep with lenses in. Do not wash lenses in Coca-Cola. Do not pass go, do not collect a refill of solution. I don’t need to try them again until tomorrow, but that’s a process I can’t say I’m particularly looking forward to. I’ve already spent the afternoon with my eyes shut, and that was with a professional watching over. If a somewhat frustrated one. Justifiably so, of course. I can’t remember the last time I made such a mess of something that technically speaking should have been as easy as… shoving a concave disk of jelly into the middle of the eye. Now I think about it, ignore that. I want a goddamn medal.

Still, it’s something I genuinely hope works out. As the guy said, millions of people use these things, and I’m millions of people. Or not, counting’s not my thing. A person, anyway, and a person sick of wearing glasses at that. There’s nothing I’d like more than to be able to consign my regular glasses to just airplane flights, evening use, and staring over when I want to patronise someone. Stuff glasses were invented for. Having finally done it a couple of times, I’m even slightly more optimistic that, just maybe, at some point I’ll be able to do the lens thing, and all this will work out in a nice, easy, don’t-even-have-to-think-about-it-any-more way.

Too bad it’ll still mean touching the F&*%ING EYE.

Yes. Definitely the downside, right there.

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What Is Google Wave?

2009-10-01T18:49:12Z

With invites flying around the web, everyone's asking: what is Google Wave? The real question is: what isn't it? Because Google Wave is more than just a website. It's a platform. It's a revolution. It's a magic machine capable of bringing life to desolate planets through terraforming. It raises the dead. It divides by zero. You cannot be told what Google Wave is, you must experience it for yourself!

But that's not all!

If you dip Google Wave in water, it produces copies of itself. Do not feed Google Wave after midnight! Google Wave is not a toy. Google Wave answers the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. Google Wave even produces the question. With Google Wave, all your problems will be over, especially if those problems involve the absence of Google Wave in your life. Google Wave tastes of cherries, unless you don't like cherries, in which case strawberries. Or cherry and strawberries, for the user who wants it all. Google Wave is the sensation multiple orgasms aspire to. Google Wave is not merely the Alpha and the Omega, but the Google Wave and the Google Wave, for all else has been rendered meaningless before its literally indescribable brilliance!

And it's still in beta!

Google Wave is the only thing in the world capable of beating up both Chuck Norris and Jack Bauer without breaking a sweat. It is no relation to the Mexican Wave. If you wave at Google Wave, the universe itself crashes. Nodding is acceptable. Shaking your fist is right out. Stop being mean to Google Wave! It died for your sins!

With Google Wave, your work will be done for you, but your boss will never know. It will find you a date for the weekend and hide the body afterwards. Google Wave can time-travel. Google Wave will usher in first contact with the Vulcans. The history of all things was merely a prelude to Google Wave. A footnote at that.

...or maybe it's just a mix of wiki, e-mail and Google Docs. But from all the fuss about it online at the moment, that can't be it, right?

Not that I'd know. No bugger's sent me an invite yet.

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Gameswipe

2009-09-29T23:20:53Z

“Hello, I’m Charlie Brooker, and you’re watching Wipewipe, a show all about the shows of Charlie Brooker. And macramé for some reason.”

I’ll be honest, I’m a bit confused. I enjoyed the show, I like Charlie Brooker as much as the next cynic, but I’m not entirely sure who this special was aimed at. If you’re a gamer, you knew most of it already. If you’re not, Brooker’s mocking style (which is absolutely perfect if you’re a fan of the kind of thing being mocked, as with Screenwipe, Yahtzee, Noah Antwiler’s fantastic videos, and even stuff I don’t like much, like The Angry Video Game Nerd) isn’t exactly going to bring you round or teach you anything other than that you’re probably right about games being silly.

Why Games World instead of Time Commanders? Why GTA instead of Monkey Island? I’m not saying it shouldn’t have been cutting, that’s Brooker’s thing, but why wasn’t it cutting the idiots it kept showing clips of instead of reinforcing their prejudice through game choices? Why actively try to turn off the audience you presumably want to stick around for the full show by confirming their prejudices?

(In particular, I’m still trying to work out the logic behind spending much of the show complaining about TV only ever focusing on the negative, more violent games, then faking up a joke Wii title as a counterpoint instead of just… I don’t know… bringing out a copy of Animal Crossing. As it is, the message just became “We got nothing, sorry. Here’s some more boobs and explosions. Bullet to the cock!")

The gags and guests were fun, but I’d rather have heard Graham Linehan rave about Left 4 Dead some more from a writer’s perspective than complain about Grand Theft Auto (even though I agree completely), or have had Dara O’Briain do a self-deprecating comedy bit instead of a rant. Again, it’d have been fine if it was actively for gamers, but it seemed seriously misplaced next to ‘let’s explain what Wolfenstein is’ level stuff.

If Gameswipe goes to a full series - and I’d really like to see Brooker do one, especially given the amazingly good stuff he did for PC Zone back in the day - I really hope it bites the bullet and just aims itself at gamers who want to watch a show about games. Bringing out Rab and Ryan from Consolevania, then stepping back to explain what generic genres are about? That’s like mixing matter and antimatter, only without exploding and blowing up the universe, for which I for one am frankly grateful.

Randomly, that CyberZone thing? It was even worse than the short clip on the show made it look. Unfortunately, it was so bad, even the interweb doesn’t have much of a record of it, but that’s okay. Just the intro bit says it all…

Terrifyingly (and yes, I know I’ve linked this before), this isn’t just not the worst game related TV show ever made, it’s not even the worst one fronted by Craig Charles. But the other is so bad, I can’t even bring myself to embed it. Click if you dare...

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Credit Where It’s Due Department

2009-09-26T19:41:27Z

Just an update. Due to some hysterically funny hate mail sent my way after last week’s Merlin thing, I watched tonight’s specifically with a mind to rip the piss out of it.

But you know what? It wasn’t bad. Not high-art, and predictable enough, but a decent piece of Saturday evening entertainment, especially considering the areas the show usually falls down on. Decent enough writing, characters behaving sensibly, reasonable interpersonal moments, solidly shot action sequences, and a distinct lack of deus ex machina getting in the way of characters solving their own problems.

True, there’s still stuff that could be mocked, notably Gwen’s comical definition of poverty and the deeply unconvincing romantic elements that only vaguely work because everyone knows she and Arthur get together in the end, but for what it was, it was fine. So there. Let the fangirls continue their scary slash-fics.

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Merlin: Series 2 Transcript

2009-09-19T21:12:19Z

The new series of Merlin started tonight, but don't worry if you missed it. Here's a full transcript of the first episode: "The Curse of Cornelius Sigan".

In a land of myth and a time of magic, the destiny of a great kingdom rests on the shoulders of a young boy. Actually, more a young man. By the standards of the time, practically middle-aged. Whatever.

INT: ARTHUR'S CHAMBERS

ARTHUR: Merlin! Get in here! Oh, what are you wearing?

MERLIN: Richard Armitage’s hair, sire. I heard it brings good luck.

ARTHUR: Not really, Merlin, Robin Hood got cancelled.

MERLIN: You mean we didn't?

ARTHUR: Incredibly enough, no. Remind me, where were we last time we met? Did I find out you’re a powerful sorcerer yet?

MERLIN: Uh, no. I almost told you about seventeen times, but never had the balls.

ARTHUR: Great. Am I any better as a human being or still just an arrogant bully who occasionally acts nice, like an abusive husband? Is my father any closer to not being a paranoid psycho? Did we accomplish one genuine thing during last year’s adventures?

MERLIN: Not really. We almost did, but then I reversed it.

ARTHUR: Splendid. To business! Go and see what all the noise is downstairs. My father’s digging for buried treasure and I don’t see why keeping our kingdom financially solvent should intrude on my nap time. I’m going to be the best king ever.

INT: THE SECRET TOMB IN THE BASEMENT

WORKER: Cor blimey, strike a light. Looks like a big old tomb full of gold. I knew King Uther had a reason for making us dig up large bits of the palace for no apparent reason. Hey, what’s that? A big glowing heart that catches my eye like it’s the Arkenstone or something. I’ve always wanted one of those. It’ll look great on the fireplace in my hovel.

WORKER 2: Watch it, anything that obvious is always booby trapped. Big rolling rock balls. Snakes. Poison darts shooting out of the walls and stuff.

WORKER: Bah, only in incredibly clichéd fanta-

WORKER 2: Well, at least it wasn’t snakes…

INT: THE SECRET TOMB IN THE BASEMENT, NEXT DAY

GAIUS: Our dead friend here was shot by a ridiculously impractical poison dart, probably triggered by pushing this pressure pad here. Like this…

MERLIN: Wait! Even I know that’s- oh, hell. EYE MAGIC TO THE RESCUE!

GAIUS: Merlin, you just saved my life. I’m so happy, I’m not even going to berate you for it for once- Oh, Sire! Hello! No magic going on down here, not at all.

UTHER: My goodness, what a lot of treasure. I especially like this mysterious glowing blue heart, which draws my eye like the Arkenstone in Smaug’s lair and is definitely not a lure to any greedy bastards in the area.

MERLIN: Psst. Shouldn’t we stop our king and his only heir running round the booby trapped tomb that’s already killed one interloper?

ARTHUR: Moron.

MERLIN: What did I do now?

ARTHUR: Nothing. Check your watch, it’s Insult Merlin O’Clock.

MERLIN: No! No it’s not! There’s still a minute to go, look!

ARTHUR: Really? Oh. I do apologise.

UTHER: If I might interject. Gaius! Begin your preparations. Start researching this… tomb. Find out everything you can about it, then burn your notes because I won’t listen anyway. Arthur! You will be in charge of guarding the-

ARTHUR: Wanker.

UTHER: What?!

MERLIN: That was to me, sire.

UTHER: Quite. Quite… Continue as you were, unless you’re magic, in which case die.

INT: THE RISING SUN PUB

MACKENSIE CROOK: ...and so I said, look, you cast me in that bloody Demons rubbish, you owe me a cameo. I’ve been in proper films, you know.

STOOGE: Uh-huh. Yeah. Anyway, about the tomb. See, it’s full of gold, only it’s locked down. Arthur’s giving it his full attention by going hunting tomorrow and not thinking about it and stuff. When Fort Knox exists, this tomb is what they’ll compare it to. It’s got a gate and everything. A metal one. That’s top-level security, I’m telling you.

MACKENSIE CROOK: How fascinating. So, if I wanted to get in…

STOOGE: You’ll need a key. Thing is, only the Prince has access to it.

MACKENSIE CROOK: Only the Prince?

STOOGE: Yeah. Only the Prince.

INT: THE TOMB

GAIUS: Dum de dum, here I am, a frail old man with the key, totally unattended for some reason. Good job nobody’s around to seize this opportunity. Dum de dee…

EXT: CAMELOT

MACKENSIE CROOK: Prince Arthur? Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Mackensie Crook. I play slimy characters for a living.

ARTHUR: Perfect! I shall make you my most trusted servant.

MERLIN: What about me, sire?

ARTHUR: Oh, of course. Where are my manners. Merlin?

MERLIN: Sire?

ARTHUR: You smell. Go muck out my horses.

INT: THRONEROOM

GAIUS: Sire, I have investigated the tomb. It is the burial place of Cornelius Sigan, the most powerful mage who ever lived. We must seal it up and not risk letting the inevitable curse kill us like the last seventeen curses that almost killed us due to your pig-headed refusal to accept fundamental truths of our reality.

UTHER: Gaius, you more than anyone have been my ally in the war against sorcery. You more than anyone should know better than to suggest the magic I seek to exterminate actually exists and might affect our lives on a regular basis.

GAIUS: Yes, sire.

UTHER: You agree with me?

GAIUS: Assuredly not sire. But I see you are no better written this series, so arguing with you is merely a waste of valuable screen time. If you will excuse me, I have a wall to bash my head into until one of the two breaks into its component atoms. My money is on the wall, but I am old. I live to be surprised.

INT: MORGANNA’S CHAMBERS

MORGANNA: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

GWEN: What is it, my lady?

MORGANNA: I had a nightmare! I was still in Merlin! And you were there, and… oh.

GWEN: Ssssh, it’s alright, my lady, it was just more unnecessary foreshadowing. Go back to sleep. Maybe you’ll have that dream where you end up an evil sorceress, crushing the world in your new steel and leather bustier.

MORGANNA: I do like that dream. Gwen… if it ever happens…

GWEN: There will be talcum powder waiting, mi’lady. Trust me.

MORGANNA: I don’t know what I’d do without you, Gwen. You will be last to die.

INT: STABLES

MERLIN: Stupid Arthur, making me clean the stables like the servant I am. Stupid feudal system. Stupid everyone treating me like an idiot just because I spend my days actively acting like an idiot so they don’t suspect I’m the most powerful wizard ever and everything. Sigh. Good thing there’s only hay on the ground or this would be really messy. In this whole place, there’s only one pile of poo, and- Oooh. Whoa… So… so sleepy… Zzzzz. Zzzz. Morganna in leather. Zzz…

ARTHUR: Merlin! MERLIN! Wake up!

MERLIN: Whu… what happened?

ARTHUR: You fell in the poo, Merlin. The poo! One pile of squishy brown horse poo in a whole pristine stable, and you fall right over and go to sleep on it? This is a new low, even for this show. I mean you. You.

MERLIN: It was Mackensie Crook! He must have invented knock-out gas while I was mucking out the stables so he could steal my job! Do you really think I’d fall asleep on a lump of poo? Please! You must believe my insane sounding story!

ARTHUR: I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

MERLIN: Arthur! Please! This poo joke is tearing us apart!

MACKENSIE CROOK: Doesn’t he look tired?

ARTHUR: Yes. You shall take the night off. Mackensie Crook shall look after me.

MERLIN: What? His surname is Crook! He plays bad people! Are you a divvy or something?

ARTHUR: A… what did you call me?

MACKENSIE CROOK: He called you a divvy, sire. And in real life, I’m probably a very nice guy, you know.

MERLIN: Oh. Great. Play to the lawyers. Sire!

ARTHUR: Nobody calls me a divvy, Merlin. Go home, clean yourself up, and for God’s sake, learn some proper insults. Has my constant abuse of you taught you nothing?

INT: MERLIN’S BEDROOM

GAIUS: You’re covered in… oh. Merlin, what happened? This time, I mean.

MERLIN: I just realised, the longer I keep playing the fool, the more likely it is Arthur will decide he can’t trust me when I finally reveal myself, instead wondering what else I hid from him. He’ll look back at all the little details and his suspicious mind will crack. When I advise him, if he still lets me hang around, he’ll think of me not as his friend, but of days like this, as I languished as his idiot servant. Covered in poo. I can’t help wonder, Gaius, is it not time we ended this embarrassing excuse for a storyline and developed our plot before we get canned?

GAIUS: Sorry, I was laughing at the word ‘poo’. Did you say something?

MERLIN: Never mind. How goes the evil tomb subplot?

GAIUS: I translated an inscription. It read “He who breaks my heart completes my work.”

MERLIN: Wait. He translated a modern idiom into a dead language?

GAIUS: It happens more often than you’d think.

MERLIN: So… presumably that means that whoever picks up the giant blue heart that draws the eye like the Arkenstone despite the fantastic riches elsewhere in the tomb will free the ancient sorcerer. Makes you wonder why he rigged it with traps to shoot anyone who got close with deadly poison darts.

GAIUS: My script says that it doesn’t.

MERLIN: But you’d think he’d want someone to get to it, to release his spirit and let him wreak his unholy vengeance on the world and everything. For that matter, why tell people? Why not just let it be a surprise for the first one to touch it?

GAIUS: That does it, go to your room! Honestly, kids today…

INT: ARTHUR’S ROOM

ARTHUR: That will be all, Mackensie Crook. Have the decency to wait until I’m asleep or nude before raiding my belongings for the key you’re after.

MACKENSIE CROOK: Too late, sire. Sleep well.

ARTHUR: Zzzzzzzzzzz

INT: THE TOMB

MACKENSIE CROOK: Oh, damn it. I just realised, as a thief, I’d probably know how to pick locks and the real threat would be the guard on the gate. The guard that’s not actually posted here because Arthur is a moron. We’re twenty minutes into the episode and damn near every scene of it just got rendered entirely pointless. On the plus side: gold! Yippee! I’m rich! Rich! Rich! Nothing can go wrong now!

GHOSTLY VOICES: Pssst. Should have brought a bigger bag.

MACKENSIE CROOK: What? Quiet! I’m going to make the usual mistake and ignore the endless riches all around me that I could actually go out and fence in some other kingdom in favour of the obviously booby-trapped, utterly unsellable magic jewel embedded in the- oh, crap, it’s taking over my body! I’m- I’m-

SPIRIT OF CORNELIUS SIGAN: Really, really stupid. Verily.

INT: MERLIN’S BEDROOM

MERLIN: Gasp! My plot sense is tingling!

INT: THE TOMB

ARTHUR: I knew I should have put a guard on that gate. Merlin! Find a reason why this is all your fault, march yourself to the stocks and have yourself flogged.

MERLIN: Um-

ARTHUR: Oh, forget it. Ring the bell we sound to close the stable doors after the horses have bolted. I’ll be in my room, blaming everyone but me.

GAIUS: Merlin, whoever did this got more than they bargained for.

MERLIN: I don’t know how they could have gotten in. The gate’s not damaged. The only way to get in would be with the key, and not for instance, a lockpick. Or magic, like every other person we meet has access to.

GAIUS: Curious. I wonder if Mackensie Crook has any ideas…

MERLIN: That’s it! The one person who could have done this must have done it! Arthur!

ARTHUR: Oh, don’t be such a cynic. Mackensie Crook, throw this servant out on his arse. Both buttocks, please.

SPIRIT OF CORNELIUS SIGAN: Gladly, nay, ironically, my lord.

MERLIN: That does it. Merlin punch!

ARTHUR: Oh, and now they’re fighting. Merlin, you fight like a girl. And not a girl who knows how to fight, like most of the girls I know actually do. The other kind of girl. The non-fighting kind. Probably has pigtails and plays hopscotch. That’s you. In your pink dress. Having tea parties with your imaginary friends…

MERLIN: Sire! How stupid are you?

ARTHUR: ...in the cells. Guards!

EXT: CAMELOT

SPIRIT OF CORNELIUS SIGAN: I am… returned. I AM...RETURNED! I AM MAKING A COMPLETE MOCKERY OUT OF GETTING MERLIN ARRESTED IN THE LAST SCENE! ATTACK, MY UNIMPRESSIVE SPECIAL EFFECTS! FLAP ABOUT A LITTLE, MY EVIL GARGOYLES! ATTACK! ATTACK! LATER I WILL UNLEASH SOME OF THE MAGIC I’M FAMOUS FOR HAVING, MAYBE! FOR NOW, LET MINOR PROPERTY DAMAGE BE THE HARBINGER OF THEIR DOOOOOM!

ARTHUR: Yay! Monsters!

UTHER: What is happening?

GAIUS: It’s the scene where I say ‘I told you so, sire’. And I did! With gusto!

UTHER: This cannot be Sigan! It must be some other stupid thing I’ve done! I do twelve of them a week! Ask the druids! See if they know I took a piss on Stonehenge last week!

GAIUS: Sire, they do, but I fear this is not about your herpes!

UTHER: My what?

GAIUS: First things first, sire! This is Sigan’s revenge! You cannot kill a dead man! You can only damage his career by casting him in Demons. Believe me, sire, I know!

UTHER: You make a good point. Let’s go kill some monsters.

INT: MERLIN’S CELL

MERLIN: Today, I’m going to cast spells with a vocal component. TOSS BREACH! Ooh, explosive. Note to self, never use that spell again, it looks like it could be useful. Gaius! Thank goodness I found you in time! What can we do!?

GAIUS: You cannot fight Sigan, Merlin. He is much too powerful. You will be destroyed.

MERLIN: Just once, can’t you build me up? Fine. I’m utterly defenseless except for the five million spells I can only ever use when it doesn’t matter! What do I do?

GAIUS: There is only one old enough with the power to-

MERLIN: No… Oh no…

GAIUS: What?

MERLIN: No, please! It was the one actual bit of plot development we did last season!

GAIUS: I know, Merlin, I know. It looked like things were going to change, even give this series a darker edge, but desperate times call for desperate plot twists and believe me, it is the only way. You must press the reset button on your relationship with the dragon under the castle. Make the kissy face if you must.

MERLIN: But I had this whole speech! I swore he’d never see daylight, that I’d never speak to him again! He even did a next-season hook by calling out to Morganna, as if ushering her down the path of darkness and actually having a character instead of just a bizarre accent. You can’t make me undo all that! Please! Gaius! We’re not Voyager!

GAIUS: Merlin…

MERLIN: I know. Sigh. I have no choice. Or free will. Or backbone.

INT: THE DRAGON’S CAVE

MERLIN: Hello? Hello! I need your help!

DRAGON: You told me I would not see you again.

MERLIN: Yeah. I had faith in my writers.

DRAGON: You did? You have more to learn than I thought, young warlock.

MERLIN: I’m not here for myself, I’m here for Arthur!

DRAGON: Yes, yes. This is my ‘smug’ face, incidentally. Go ahead.

MERLIN: You have to help! You’re not evil! Forget what I said last time we met when I said I’d leave you locked up in a cave for the rest of eternity because you were evil and/or saved my life in a way I didn’t like very much! Give me what I need to know to defeat Mackensie Crook without drawing on my own resources of competence or developing in any way as a character who will one day be able to stand alone!

DRAGON: Ah, you wish a deus ex machina? Indeed. So does the road of life loop round into the cul de sac of Saturday evening television. Very well! To defeat Sigan, you must drop your pants in the town square at-

MERLIN: I’m not falling for that again!

DRAGON: Oh, you’re no fun any more. You will need a spell more powerful than any you have used before. But you must give me something in return. A promise. That I may continue being a supporting character in your show, no matter what plot developments you may imagine we have later in this series.

MERLIN: What about promising to free you?

DRAGON: Oh, yes. That too, please.

MERLIN: Grr. You strike a perfectly reasonable bargain. Go on then.

DRAGON: Very well. I grant you this spell. It is the most mighty magic in all the kingdom. Don’t waste it trying to get chicks or I’ll flame your balls off.

EXT: CAMELOT

MERLIN: There’s five minutes of the show to go. Time to-

ARTHUR’S KNIGHT: Arthur!

ARTHUR: Having a line won’t save you, Sir Expendable! Retreat!

MERLIN: Oh no! Arthur’s locked in combat with an indestructable gargoyle. And now one’s attacking- MIND BLAST! Oh. These things go down in one hit? Wish I’d known that a few scenes ago. That was embarassingly easy.

SPIRIT OF CORNELIUS SIGAN: What? You’re a sorcerer? Why are you protecting this arrogant little shit of a prince? He treats you like a common slave!

MERLIN: That’s not true! He’s nice to some of his slaves!

SPIRIT OF CORNELIUS SIGAN: Oh, good grief. I was going to do a tired old ‘join me and we’ll rule the universe’, but now I’m just too depressed. Let’s just cut to the fight.

MERLIN: You do realise I have deus ex machina on my side?

SPIRIT OF CORNELIUS SIGAN: You have- No! Not deus ex machina!

INT: CAMELOT

UTHER: Did anyone just hear a script banging against a wall? Fifty pages, I’ll wager.

GAIUS: Probably just thunder, sire. ‘Tis a common sound around here.

EXT: CAMELOT

MERLIN: Well, that was easy. I’m so glad I have a dragon that solves all my problems for me. I should buy him a cake when I get over myself and STOP HATING HIM.

INT: THRONE ROOM

UTHER: These terrible events. We must learn our lesson from this, Gaius.

GAIUS: Oh, yes? That we must be vigilant against these evil sorcerers, for otherwise magic will destroy us all, especially if we actively go out and kick it in the metaphorical nut-sack for no good reason? That lesson, sire? Again?

UTHER: No, that I must start trusting your wisdom on the grounds that you are never wrong, and realise that every time I ignore you, my whole kingdom ends up on the brink of apocalypse. We must stop trying to fight magic head on and learn to harness it, to live peacefully, and understand that while we may have had problems in the past, good sense must ultimately prevail.

GAIUS: R… really, sire? This is the happiest day of-

UTHER: No, not really. Magic. Grr. Find five women with hook noses and have them burned at the stake. If they’re witches, all the better.

GAIUS: Yes. Yes, sire.

INT: MERLIN’S QUARTERS

GAIUS: ...so basically, we’re back to where we were at the start of last series. Have some diced carrots. It is what all true heroes strive for.

MERLIN: Thanks. You know, at this point, killing Uther would be a pretty good idea-

GAIUS: Impossible, my boy. The writers have spoken. Equilibrium must be maintained. You must continue living like a dog, always on the cusp of revelation. Uther must remain in charge, no matter how much he dribbles. As for me, I must take our king his scrofula medicine and retire to my bed of bitter, impotent tears.

MERLIN: I thought he had herpes?

GAIUS: Our king has a very large bladder and no shortage of enemies.

ARTHUR: Merlin! There you are. I haven’t forgotten how you called me a divvy. But I do have to admit, you were right about Mackensie Crook. I formally re-hire you back to the medieval world’s very own Spacely Sprockets - my royal quarters.

MERLIN: Oh. Glee.

ARTHUR: Don’t give me that! You’ve got armour to polish, toilets to scrub and food to prepare… not in that order please. Then you’ll be castrating my horse, washing my ermine, and later, acting as official Royal Footstool at the ball my father is holding to cover up the fact that we have no idea what happened to the evil sorcerer who almost destroyed us today. Oh, and Merlin? See that clock on the wall?

MERLIN: Sigh. “Merlin, you’re a cretin.”

ARTHUR: Ah, the sweet, sweet smell of status quo.

Click here to discuss this story

Remembering Knightmare

2009-09-19T15:07:38Z

“I’m watching you. And I am awesome.”

Growing up as a gamer in the 80s and 90s wasn’t much fun. The games were fine, at least by the standards of the time, but the idea that you could play them without being a fat, bespectacled, largely introverted geek was pretty much alien to the wider world. What? So I’m single, wear glasses, need to lose a few pounds and write about computers and videogames for a living. Your point, please? Sob…

TV programs were the worst. Every single attempt was largely horrible, in different ways. There was Gamesmaster, featuring Dominik Diamond sleazed around a stage and Dave Perry dressing as a pirate, with a few low-grade celebrities flailing around a Mortal Kombat machine. Still, probably the best UK games show - at least it focused on the games and had a good range of titles to drool over. On ITV, Bad Influence managed to be dull and annoying with its kid reviewers and ‘worthy’ features. Sky One had Games World, which was.... well… moving swiftly on. What else? Nothing of note.

Still, all of these had one thing in their favour: being better than Craig Charles’ Cyber Zone and Heaven And Hell. Ye gods. Shows this bad should be fired into space.

But there was one shining light in the darkness. Knightmare. I loved Knightmare. I would run back from school just to catch it, and be very depressed when the series ended. Its Wall Monsters were my Daleks, for some reason filling my geeky little mind with terror I can’t even attempt to justify now. I mentioned this yesterday on Twitter, and was immediately beset by people asking “What’s Knightmare?” It’s such a part of British TV history, the idea that people might not know it hadn’t really occurred to me.

Well, I can’t fit it in 140 characters. Let’s do the nostalgia thing right here…

Magic and Technology

Simply described, Knightmare was a fantasy game show. Teams of four kids were summoned to a magic dungeon watched over by Treguard, everyone’s favourite Dungeon Master. Three acted as Advisors, sitting in Treguard’s castle and watching through not-particularly carefully disguised TV monitors. The fourth was the Dungeoneer, wearing a ridiculous horned helmet, facing death or glory in the most expensive set ever created for a kids show - whole castles, underground rivers, giant dragons, icy causeways…

...okay, that’s a lie. It was almost all done on a bluescreen stage, with a handful of simple physical sets thrown in for good measure. The Dungeoneer, blindfolded for obvious reasons and utterly reliant on their teammates, was guided step by step through the virtual world, navigating rooms, solving puzzles, collecting items, and usually being insulted on a regular basis by the dungeon’s many inhabitants - some good, most bad, all hammier than a bacon sandwich wrapped in a pig. In a good way.

I could go on, but it’s easier to show than tell, and luckily True Internet Hero Gary Guyatt has uploaded the entire series to YouTube. All eight seasons. Every episode. Many in High Quality Mode. Right here. It’s not the DVD re-release that’s been talked about for years and probably won’t ever happen, but it’ll do.

Here’s a random group from Series 4 starting their quest…

Enter, Stranger...

One of the most interesting things about the game was how much it changed over the years. The first couple of seasons are… well… somewhat embarrassing. The whole show had a phenomenal stick up its arse, with every line chewing so much virtual scenery, it’s amazing there was a dungeon left to explore. The writing was unbelievably bad (and to be honest, never improved all that much), and the acting not just bad but actively obnoxious. Even the great Treguard was barely tolerable at the start.

Seriously, just check out the first episode from 1987. It got better, I swear.

What a prick. If you got through Knightmare’s dungeon, you didn’t just deserve knighthood, but a small country of your choice. It was a serious achievement. In the eight years the show ran, in which roughly 70 teams faced the dungeon, only eight actually won - and a couple of those wins were… uh… a little generous.

What makes it even worse was that if you did win the game in these early years, your prize would be quite possibly the crappiest trophy - to share between four, remember - in the history of British gameshows. I’m embarrassed just showing a picture of it.

The ‘Silver Spurs’ of Squiredom. Most likely thrown together in a key-cutting shop near the studio to a chorus of “Oh, crap, they might actually win!”

Still, none of us cared. We were here for the fantasy, and this version of Treguard and his dungeon didn’t last long. First he became friendlier, and supportive of the teams instead of mocking them. Later, he was promoted from neutral observer to active good guy, sending his Dungeoneers against the forces of evil (The Opposition), instead of simply asking them to recover random crap from his basement of doom. By Series 4, he was firmly the gruff but lovable figure everyone remembers him as, complete with less-annoying-than-I-remember sidekick Pickle (played by David Learner, who later showed up as the demon Belial in the wonderful Realms of the Haunting).

Then Pickle was replaced with Majida the genie.

We do not speak of Majida.

These changes might sound like they led to a more serious show, but that wasn’t the case. As the years rolled by, the producers increasingly switched out serious characters like Lilith and Mogdread for straight-up comic foils and parodies, not to mention freeing the world design from simple puzzle rooms into something a bit more freeform that let the kids out of the dungeon and into the fresh air. Bluescreened fresh air, of course.

This definitely changed the vibe, but made the start of each new series that much more interesting. Every year brought fresh excitement as we waited to see just what form the ever-shifting labyrinth was going to take for the latest batch of incredibly lucky kids.

There Is No Turning Back

Right from the start, Knightmare’s dungeon was a thing of beauty. Its painted backgrounds were so far advanced over anything we had on our computers, and you couldn’t knock the cool factor of a room with a giant bomb burning in the corner. The dungeon and its character-based encounters were different for every team, albeit with lots of the same rooms and environmental puzzles, meaning that neither the players in the studio or the audience at home knew exactly what was coming up next.

Even after years of the game, these early series’ backgrounds are arguably the best visual style the show had. Later it switched to using horribly posturized photos shot at ruined castles that looked neat until they had to do anything more advanced than hold a table, and finally some blocky, murky, tacky 3D that was actually pretty advanced for the time, but didn’t have the same oomph then, and now just looks unbelievably ugly next to the classic rooms of old. There was never any real consistency between styles though, even in individual episodes. Dungeoneers would happily walk from a photograph to a computer generated puzzle room without anyone batting an eyelid.

The Dungeon through the ages. Well, eight years, give or take.

“Ooooh, Nasty...”

With or without rose-tinted glasses, Knightmare was a phenomenally silly program. Yes, it was. No argument. Some bits worked, other bits really, really didn’t. It was also however a phenomenon, one that every kid of the era was hooked to - and a real slice of history. For me, one of the most fun things about looking at it now is comparing it to the games of the era that it aped. It shared much in common with them, not least that it was phenomenally, blisteringly harsh, with no tolerance for weakness. Fail to get all three Wall Monster riddles right? Expect death! Step slightly too close to a ledge? Death! Take the wrong door? Death! Screw up a clue? Death! Step even slightly out of place in the very last room of the game? Take too long? Death! Death! DEATH!

And worse. The terrifying cracked skull of failure that haunted our nightmares. Even now, this thing flying onto the screen genuinely gives me the willies…

As the show progressed, it became much more about being half an hour’s entertainment than an actual game. Players were allowed to live longer, usually getting to at least Level Two before being snuffed out. The long-winded introductions and riddle sequences were pruned in favour of stuff actually happening. And as mentioned, the dull characters of the original series were shipped out in favour of new ones, and more entertaining actors like Paul Valentine, who played Motley the jester and a few others, and Clifford Norgate, who voiced the dragon Smirkenoff and the raspberry-ripple haired mage Hordriss the Confuser. Only Treguard appeared in every series, and with good reason - nobody could say he was anything other than the show’s lynchpin.

Probably the most memorable of the new blood was Mark Knight, playing the deliciously sardonic Lord Fear. He only usually appeared in pre-recorded bits, cued by the Dungoneer using a magical spyglass, and very occasionally as the dungeon’s final boss (sadly, the dungeon’s incredibly easily defeated final boss) for the few teams that got that far, but was always terrific value. He was almost a parody of the traditional evil overlord, always smug and dripping evil, but constantly infuriated by the fools he was stuck leading. He also represented half of the game’s interesting clash between old and new, being a ‘techno-sorcerer’ who used modern idioms, built robots and lived in a 3D generated tower, as opposed to Treguard’s medieval castle and resolutely formal delivery. The two of them had a terrific rivalry, if a long-distance one.

(Random cultural note: Knight also played a couple of the good guys, including the geeky Rothberry the Apothecary, and rather unfortunately, the Chinese salesman… I apologise on behalf of my country… Ah Wok, comprete with sirry accent, les. This kid-friendly stereotype wasn’t unique to Knightmare. There was a BBC Micro game called Granny’s Garden - yes, that one - featuring another horribly racist figure, Ah Choo, in an educational game aged at ages 4 and up. Not the most cosmopolitan era, at least not if political correctness was getting in the way of a cheap gag...)

“Unberievabry lacist? Oooh! Me so velly solly...” (Thankfully he was only in one season before the producers saw sense)

As with games, these seasons spent much more of their time trying to tell a story than improving the basic rules and complexity of the experience for its players. There were story arcs bridging quests, involving things like Lord Fear trying to set up an alliance with the queen of the witches… Greystag, I think, although it’s been a while, or training up his superweapon, the Brollachan. Instead of just bumping into the characters for a riddle, teams would walk into full-on scripted situations, like a quarrel between two characters, or an ambush they had to be rescued from by a new ally.

The problem with this was that it largely destroyed the RPG side of the game. Only about three dungoneers in the show’s history - most famously Barry in Series 7 - really got into the spirit of things, trying to bargain with the characters, tricking people into helping them, or asking for favours. Very occasionally you’d get one who’d snap something back, like one girl who responded to a stream of insults from the wood elf Elita with “Look who’s talking”, only to have to apologise when she needed the abusive elf’s help to scare off some goblins. Most just stood stock still, blankly repeating whatever the advisors told them to say, even it was just telling someone their name.

Still, that made it all the more fun when a good team came along.

Lifeforce Running Out

With only the occasional exception, the show felt more and more on rails. It always had been of course, but with regular RPGs getting more and more advanced, it became harder and harder to ignore the fact. If the team wasn’t explicitly told what to do, and they increasingly were, it was heavily hinted at. Spells would be taken and used almost immediately. Spyglasses showed pre-recorded segments that offered outright solutions, like passwords to get past the monsters, what an as-yet unmet character (who would inevitably show up in the next room or two) could be bribed with, or the sequence to follow on the next floor puzzle.

Probably the most dumbed down bit of the whole show was the Brollachan, which replaced the riddle-giving Wall Monsters with an incredibly bad special effect in search of knowledge. If the teams couldn’t work out that it didn’t matter what they replied since the stupid thing didn’t know the answer either, Treguard would probably tell them almost immediately. They didn’t even have to sound convincing.

“Guys, are you sure this is a mobile phone?”

This didn’t stop it being a fun show - far from it - just less of a game. The bits with characters were effectively short pre-planned skits with no scope for messing around or affecting the story. If the team had the right objects, the character would help them past. If not, well, it’d be game over a screen or so later when they didn’t have the password or the spell, or whatever else that character would have given them. Dungeoneers were there to witness the story, not influence it.

Maybe I was just getting older, maybe the novelty had worn off. I watched Knightmare right to the bitter end, but it was increasingly obvious that while the show was awesome, the actual games I had available to me were much, much better. It was always enjoyable to watch; incredibly tense and often nerve-wracking, and the excitement of a team actually winning always meant a happy day in the classroom. But it was still an interactive movie. Without the interaction, obviously.

This was fine on one hand - they were making a TV show, not a game, and the quicker pace made it much more watchable. However, it heavily detracted from the game element. Dungeoneers still died all the time, but mostly from the environmental hazards - floor puzzles over yawning chasms, chessboards with painful jabbing spikes, quicksand and so on - screwing up on the footwork, rather than the more interesting mental challenges and roleplaying. It also started to get annoying how nobody on the show ever seemed to have watched the bloody thing, or worked out that clock directions are how you tell a blindfolded person to do diagonals, not ‘left’ and ‘right’.

Restore, Restart… Oh, You Can’t

It’s tough to remember which rooms were actually dangerous. The scariest of the lot was the Corridor of Blades, in which the Dungeoneer had to avoid giant sawblades hurtling towards them, although in practice it was about the easiest encounter in the game for teams that could keep their heads metaphorically as well as literally. Frustratingly, nobody ever apparently tried just lying down and letting the blades fly safely over them. Maybe the producers told them not to. Others were puzzle based, not too tricky, but for the timelimit. Others required good footwork and a previous clue, although a couple of teams did manage to luck their way through them.

Dammit, someone invent GameFAQs…

By far the most brutal was Play Your Cards Right, where the teams not only had to get across a small ledge from a horrible viewing angle, but choose between two cards without any hint as to what the actual rules of the game were. Same suit? Same number? Same colour? Beats me. Whatever it was, with no margin for error, it was effectively a room with several 50/50 chances of instant death. Usually only a couple of rooms from the end of the game, just to add a little insult to fatal injury.

Evil, evil, evil stuff. But evil stuff that had us all on the edges of our seats. Knightmare was one of those shows where you genuinely wanted the teams to win, not just because it was such a rarity, but because it was your only way of seeing the later rooms of the game, the new traps and twists to talk about in school in the morning. Almost everyone in my class was buzzing the first time a team actually won the game, and not just the gamers. Everyone stared in bemused horror as a losing team ended up dying for the crime of not psychically knowing they should pick up a horn to avoid being trapped behind the walls of Jericho. Seriously, that was one of the dead-ends.

And of course, everyone loved Lord Fear.

Play Along At Home

Oddly, the one thing nobody cared about was the existence of Knightmare spin-off games. I had all the books, which were a mix of schlock fantasy story and Choose Your Own Adventure (literally half and half), but I never knew anyone who owned the games.

There were two of them, both of which I later played and discovered sucked. The Amiga and ST had a dismal Dungeon Master rip-off that I’m 99% sure was just a generic RPG someone decided to salvage by slapping Treguard’s face on it, yet didn’t consider the implications of having its characters starting the game stark naked, while the Spectrum and C64 had a really bad adventure game. Konami also released a series of games called Knightmare, but they’re unrelated, coming out a year before the show on the MSX.

Anyway, here’s a clip of someone playing the Amiga/ST version.

The Quest Continues...

Rubbish videogames aside, I can’t look back on all this with anything short of nostalgic love. If you’ve never seen an episode, I’d love to know your thoughts, without the rose-tinted glasses. It was a kids show from the 80s, and has to be seen in that context, but one I’m genuinely grateful I had a chance to see at the time.

Will kids still be talking about, say, Raven in 20 years? Somehow, I doubt it. And on that note, ahem. Spellcasting: C. L. I. C. H. E. D. E. N. D. I. N. G…

UPDATE: This one ran ridiculously longer than I originally planned, so here’s the URL to the online episodes once again - ignore the Batman stuff, they’re in the right-hand column. This is currently the only way to see them, although of course I’ll take it down if the DVD project gets off the ground. And probably buy the DVDs.