peeeeeeet

I haven't, so far, been affected by the new law that requires British people who wish to look at boobies to provide a picture of their face which clearly shows they are the sort of person for whom the perusal of boobies is part of the natural course of their day. Whether that's because I don't frequent dodgy websites, or whether it's because the websites I frequent are SO dodgy they don't give a shit what the UK government wants them to do, I'll leave to your imagination.

UNTIL TODAY. When I attempted to log on the NHS website and was told I would need to send them MY FACE. This was after I had already done the thing of having a code sent to my portable telephone. I used to think that two-factor authentication was a needlessly tedious chore, but now we are up to THREE FACTOR AND COUNTING. When will this end? Must I make a video where I moonwalk while reciting Kubla Khan dressed as Lara Croft? MUST I??

One of the things I've been doing this year is rebuying magazines I had in the 90s. Magazines are a lost art. They were so dense! Often obscurely so, full of little injokes for those who bought every issue. They're also often very slick, with high production values (which means they have survived pretty well over time). I know they technically still exist but back then TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE would buy them. My main magazines of choice were:

Doctor Who Magazine - mainly up to late '93, with a few more following the TV Movie
Amiga Format - Pretty religiously until mid '92, then I fell off hard for some reason
Q - mainly the "late Britpop era" of '96 to '98
Official UK Playstation Magazine - late '97 to sometime in '99.

Of course in addition to ones that are familiar, buying big job lots means you often get ones you didn't have which can be a fascinating snapshot of the time.

Some odd highlights:

Someone used a letter from a Financial Advisor as a bookmark. They didn't sign and send off the contract part so I don't know if they ever received financial advice.

A lot of the scratch-n-sniff perfume adverts are still v. pungent.

The DWMs often had the free gifts intact, including the Absolom Daak flexidisc ("I'm gonna kill every damn stinkin' Dalek in the galaxy!") and many posters and postcard sets. I kinda want to leave them, or I could blu-tac all the posters to my bedroom wall exactly as I did with the originals. One time a moth landed on Sylvester McCoy's face and made him look like he had a Hitler moustache.

The Playstation mag gets steadily more sexist over time, all while doing editorials where they crow they are the least sexist playstation mag

One playstation mag had a Parappa the Rapper cut-out-and-fold diorama thing which the original owner had left alone. I just don't understand some people, though I am grateful.

Another owner, though, had carefully cut out his favourite PS1 lead characters from about five issues. He particularly liked Barrett Wallace.

Q liked to take the piss out of David Bowie every chance they got.

Isopropyl Alcohol is very good for returning the front and back covers to their original shine

Anyway, magazines was pretty much all I spent my money on during the 90s, so I probably now re-own virtually everything I bought. Remember, we didn't have the Internet. Well, we did, but it was shite.

As they say in the videogame Katamari, "Origami!!!!"

I have been getting back into paper folding, partly for A Thing that is currently A Spoiler. But also, I wanted some quick DIY way of making pockets for View-Master reels. This is because I think that I have sort of started to become a View-Master reels collector. Anyway you often buy them loose so some protective wallet would be nice.

TURNS OUT you can make a square envelop from origami paper that is about a quarter the size of the sheet you start with. This is MY OWN DESIGN!!!!!! though technically (a) it is an adaptation of a couple of other designs I saw and (b) it's so simple that it probably isn't that original anyway. But still! I AM AN ORIGAMI DESIGNER.

Anywayz in case I forget I have made a little tutorial:

1) Starting with 20cm x 20cm paper, make a diagonal corner to corner mountain fold on the non-plain side, then open it up and make a crease halfway along an edge.



2) Use a line from the crease to a corner to mark a cross point that is 1/3 the way up the paper.



3) Refold the mountain fold and use the cross point to fold one wing across.



4) Fold the other wing to match and make another light crease halfway across.



5) Fold the front flap down so the point matches the crease you just made and tuck one wing into the other.



6) Place up to three View-Master reels into the pocket you have formed.



7) Fold the remaining flap down and tuck it into the pocket.



8) Turn over and write important information on the front.



ETA: As usual with origami, looks best with duo paper:

"I heard his maiden speech in the Lords, and I saw his maiden over at Lord's. In my view you cannot truly trust an Englishman until you have seen him deliver two maidens."

Some Doctor Who thoughts, including some SPOILERZ.

1) What was the point of all the accents? Was it just to give Barney a chance to show off?
2) I like NPH and I think he pitched things about right, which is a minor miracle given what a tonal and structural mess the whole thing was.
3) Why was Mel there? I like Bonnie but what story function did it serve?
4) Kate Stewart apologised to everyone EXCEPT the gingers. WE NOTICED.
5) The resolution of the story is that the Doc challenges the villain to a game of catch and the villain drops the ball. No, for once I'm not being facetious, that was the literal sequence of events. It's like if the Curse of Fenric had ended with Fenric going "how do the horsey ones move again?"
6) Was that a sly dig at how shit Moff was at writing out companions? Cos people in glass houses and all that. Chibs got off fairly lightly I would say, though it's frustrating that after three years of Fam this and Fam that, the Doc appears to think he's only just acquired family. I mean you can argue Chibs didn't write it very well but it's still not fair.
7) I guess we're never going to be done with Tennant. EVER.
8) Put on some trousers, new guy.
9) I'm not massively keen on new guy so far. It looks like they're going with a vain, preening Doctor again. Sigh.
10) Some nice creepy design here, starting with the doll's hair catching fire. I loved the wife doll bit with Donna and the assistant guy as a puppet with a real head. Very 80s comic strip - arguably more so than the actual 80s comic strip episode. But holy hell, the editing was a royal mess, just random jumbles of shots with no visual continuity or context. Other recent shows have started suffering from this, though not to the same degree. Do directors and editors actually train any more?
11) Some just plain barmy plotting. Without reference to a stave those notes could be any distance apart, and we're being very selective in picking only the peaks of the wave anyway. Just like, does RTD make this stuff up as he goes along and no one is willing to challenge him on it? The first half of the episode was basically characters just saying the first thing that popped into their head and then moving straight on.
12) Why was Mel invited to the family dinner but Kate wasn't?
13) Last week Isaac Newton was under-used and this week Logie-Baird was underused. This at least had a point behind it whereas Newton was just there to kill time and invent that dreary "mavity" joke. Anyway, the importance of television reminded me a bit of The Wire (the Who episode, not the po-faced cop show). Wait, that wasn't what it was called was it? The Idiot Lantern? Anyway, why have the assistant at all? Have JLB go to the shop and get turned into a puppet. You can even cast an actor of colour if you really MUST use them as props in your confected war with other white fans.
14) That'll do for now

They brought back Big Brother! It is simultaneously as good as ever and not very good. We are at the halfway point so thortz:

a) They put too many housemates in to start. We could live without Tom who is basically just what happens when you put Paul and Matty in a blender and lose interest before you press the button. At only six weeks long, it's weird that they're doing one eviction per week as with the original series, meaning they'll either have to speed up from this point on or there will be ten people in the final. Doing two evictions per week and perhaps saving a couple of housemates to add in now to shake things up might have been better.

b) There are lots of other decisions they've made that suggest they didn't go back and look at what works. They had the first eviction before anyone really had a chance to get to know the housemates properly; in the original series the first set of noms was in week two (usually or perhaps always, I can't be bothered to check). AJ and Will are both adequate presenters - Will more than AJ, I think, who can be a bit wooden when faced with an autocue - but they don't really gel together.

c) They've kind of smushed the main show and sideshow together, for example the eviction interview is held in the sideshow. This seems unfair to the housemates who get the limelight for all of a few seconds before they're whisked to another studio. That said, old eviction interviews could be hard to follow if the crowd were very lairy or unsupportive, so I guess it makes sense.

d) Main episodes seem oddly edited for pace at times. Shots will jump around haphazardly and then we'll get longueurs. It feels a bit like they've given the footage to film school students for an assignment and not given them much direction. In particular, the eviction episodes drag on. Half an hour of recap before the boot is enough, any more and one can get fidgety waiting for the inevitable.

e) Far too much of the livestream is censored, and there's no particular reason that the livestream always has to be the same time window since it's online only so it isn't pre-empting any other programmes. They may not have the budget for 24 hours livestreaming but I'd like to see a few morning or early evening sessions, I think the vibe could be very different. I think part of the issue is that Big Brother seems to be doing a large number of shorter tasks rather than a smaller number of longer tasks, and thus there are more potential "spoilers" on the livestream, but I'm not sure I think that's all that important.

f) There's a lot of inconsistency regarding rule breaks, and it seems more like Big Brother decides on a punishment based on what will be most entertaining rather than what is proportional to the offence. I suppose you could argue that that Old Testament capriciousness is fitting, though.

g) Onto some positives: I love the design of the house. It's colourful without being a mess, the geometric shapes and use of the eye motif in unexpected places really works. They usually change the house every year but I'd be OK with them sticking with this one longer term.

h) The housemates too are a consistently good bunch. It's interesting that so far there's been no overlap between the housemates nominated each week, suggesting no clear villains. It doesn't seem like people have been put in primarily to piss off other people. The vibe is much closer to the first three or four years than the later, more aggressive years. Some people are finding that dull but as someone who thinks year three was the best, it suits me very well. It does mean though we lose great housemates earlier than we might usually. Hallie in particular is a big loss.

PROVISIONAL HOUSEMATE RANKINGS AT THE END OF WEEK THREE:

1) Yinrun. The most multifaceted housemate, she constantly surprises with her attitude and her look. Silly one moment and serious the next, her reactions to things are unpredictable and often adorably funny. She wears her heart on her sleeve but can also be sly and cheeky when she wants to. I only worry that as basically everyone's favourite to win, she may have peaked early.

2) Trish. Comes across as the most honest and trustworthy housemate, she plays a straight bat at all times. Wash your hands after touching raw chicken, though, girl, come on

3) Jordan. At first amusing due to his dry observations and deadpan delivery, he's gradually developing into the messiest bitch in the house, alternating playing hot and cold with those close to him and often failing to maintain his studied aloofness. When I've known people like this in real life they've been infuriating, but he's good telly.

4) Olivia. I'm surprised she's this high, but she's sharp and always has a quick comeback to anything anyone says to her. I thought at first she'd be irritating and an obvious first or second eviction, but she's thrown herself into the experience and won me over.

5) Chanelle. She has the makings of a classic early-noughties housemate with her gently amusing Welsh charm. She's low key compared to others, though, and hasn't been involved in many instantly iconic moments.

6) Henry. Made it this high because he's a central part of the Jordan Experience, which is good for him since I suspect he'd otherwise be a bit dull and one note. I'm glad he survived the week two eviction, though.

7) Kerry. I have mixed feelings here. She's a big-headed busybody who's often inserting herself into other people's drama, to the occasional bemusement of other housemates, and she is generally unwilling to throw herself into tasks without a lot of moaning and pessimism. You can't deny, though, that she's got under the viewer's skin, as evidenced by her already being an entire sub-category of memes.

8) Noky. She offers something unique in this house, someone who after three weeks still appears completely two-dimensional. If she were a fictional character I'd be screaming "cardboard!" at the telly. She gives off a rather snot-nosed VIP vibe despite contributing not very much. She is easy on the eye, though.

9) Dylan. Someone on Twitter pointed out that whenever there's a wide shot of the kitchen he's always in there. He's appointed himself lord of the food budget and cooking and gets the hump when someone isn't as grateful as he thinks they should be. It's a shame as his spats occasionally make good telly, but he's not very good value to the viewer.

10) Matty. I can't say I've noticed anything about him other than his involvement in The Jordan Experience. I can't really get a read on his personality, other than his taste in haircuts and clothes is very bad. He's another one where you occasionally think he could break out and become iconic and he just never does. But then, Jordan calls him "Myatteeh", like Ian Richardson in the original House of Cards, and he goes up a place for that.

11) Paul. I don't think I'd like Paul at all on the outside, but to be fair to him he does throw himself into the experience - takes it a little too seriously at times, if anything. He's oddly thin-skinned for a lairy scouser, so here's hoping he explodes at some point and becomes interesting.

12) Jenkin. Tis perhaps telling I failed to include him in the first draft of this ranking. He showed early promise as a potential bag of fun and games, but he's another one that moans his way through tasks. Very occasionally you glimpse his potential - twerking at the Free Yinrun rally, for example - but given there were 18,000 applicants one can't help feeling his place could have gone to someone who would actually enjoy being there some of the time.

13) Tom. Has made almost no impression on me at all, other than sharing Matty's penchant for 80s footballer style. There's still time for him to improve, though.

So the moral of this story is: white men suck except messy ones

I thought I'd challenge myself to see how quickly I could get to the credits from a cold start in Pikmin 4. Just under five hours! I'm sure I can shave off another half hour but beyond that... hmmm.

SPOILERS:

There's some shenanigans in that castaways that you need to access later areas do not always hide in the same hole. I *think* you get them in a set order regardless of the caves you go down, suggesting that going down the quickest ones to complete would be best. But I also think that the key one, Bernard the sexy pilot, is always a leafling so possibly you can only find him via Dandori battles and / or challenges. This time I did three battles and two challenges but went down many fewer holes overall. So it might be possible to make a bee line for those types of caves and avoid others entirely (though getting 20-30 ice pikmin is still a good idea). Also I think world three is best for getting the blue onion, there doesn't seem to be one on world two and the one on world one is a faff. On three you just have to climb the sandcastly thing and be there post-meridian with a squad of 20. I made heavy weather of this by assuming you needed 20 blue first, but this wasn't entirely my fault - a bug meant that the area didn't appear drained the first time I went there PM. There again, do you really need the blue onion? It helps with some caves but those ones may be avoidable.

Beyond that, no need to return to earlier areas once you have enough sparkly-yum to move on. In particular, you can avoid everything in world four, just get two of the three playing cards, switch on the fan (you don't need to kill the boss near the switch) and guess the third number. One playing card is near the entrance before you even see Moss, and another in accessed on the steps via the slidey thing. You can then beat Olimar and take him back to the onion in much less than half a day. I *think* Oatchi's rush move needs to be upgraded to get the first playing card down, since I think when I tried to rush it first it didn't come down.

I did four night missions which were all fine enough, but I'd rather see if I can get that down to three by not getting any leaflings other than Bernard and Olimar, but that may not be feasible. Alternatively, do one of the double-reward ones even though they're a bit harder, but perhaps they weren't unlocked early enough? Speaking of unlocking, not getting Oatchi's swim skill until what, day four?? is a pain when you're trying to dandori the whole thing. Why I couldn't be allowed that on day two I don't know.

EDIT:

Got it down to 4 hours 20 minutes. Didn't bother with a blue onion. The reason the water doesn't drain is because the onion is plugging it, for which you need 20 blue. It also seems like Bernard is always the leafling from whichever dandori battle you do third? So it's a double waste of time doing the challenges, because in addition to never being Bernard, they pile up leaflings to cure meaning more night missions. Reckon I could shave off another half an hour that way. Also I forgot to switch the fan on but it was already on, so the switch must not control all fans??

EDIT 2:

Final attempt, just under four hours. I could have shaved off the odd minute here and there but I think that's close to my best possible time. Did no Dandori Challenges (and in one battle I got around 200 more than Olimar!!), though I only did single-lumiknoll night missions so could have saved a few minutes there. (For comparison purposes, one pro reviewer claimed it took her twenty hours to do the same thing, though there's no shame in taking a more exploratory approach if you'd rather, since there isn't the ticking-clock aspect of 1 and 3.)

According to the Internet Oatchi learns to swim two days after struggling in the water, which I understandably tried to avoid. Not the only instance of the game penalising you for playing better or rewarding you for playing worse (example: if you do night missions when structures aren't built, enemies have to take a longer route and sometimes won't even get near the lumiknoll by the end of the night).

OK, FF XVI story completed. I have a LOT of thoughts. Let's get into it. SPOILERS AHEAD.

First, you'd better love the battle system, because there's nothing in the game but battles and jogging between dialogue scenes. No exploration, no puzzles to solve, no minigames.

I don't love the battle system. It's not too bad when it's quite contained, but at times it just becomes a chaotic jumble of particles, numbers, camera-whips and noise. Sometimes, including a lot of the final boss battle, I just spammed whatever was available and hoped for the best, because meaningful tactics was nigh on impossible.

Supporting characters can't be controlled (except the dog), but are fairly useless anyway. I didn't notice any meaningful difference between when I had a large party and when I was on my own as far as damage dealt / taken went. There was a good reason for this in XV because only Noctis had supernatural powers and his three buddies were only human. There's no such excuse here, as more than a couple of the characters you fight with have extraordinary abilities.

Clive, Joshua and particularly Jill are rather insipid characters (indeed there were times when I didn't even realise Jill was in the party, she's that low-key). The problem is, to use a phrase I heard recently and rather like, "they have no hinterland". In other words, they are focussed monomaniacally on their objective and care nothing for anything else. Tidus was a loyal guardian, but he was also a professional sportsman. Noctis liked to fish and pose for photos. Even Squall played cards. The span of the narrative is 18 years and in all that time none of them even consider doing any other thing. There's also a romance between Jill and Clive but to say it's a slow burn would be putting it mildly. Between Jill's vapidity and Clive's gruff demeanour, there's little chemistry that isn't forced.

That said, the story has strengths. The various other dominants and their different takes on being a dominant works well. Benedykta is a winning early villainess and Kupka is a good, memorable hard man. Dion is suitably tortured. Ultima himself is a nice creepy design, though he does rather love the sound of his own voice. And that's the big issue with the storytelling - infodumping. There's a lot of lore, a lot of jargon, and early on a lot of interchangable stock characters. They have worked hard to make it accessible - there's a connections timeline available that is pretty neat - but it's all rather tiresome. Thankfully, supporting characters such as Byron and, particularly, Mididol, arrive to liven things up. I suspect some people will lap up the "courtly intrigue" aspect of the story, but I expect on future plays through I'll be skipping a lot of it.

As for references to other games in the series, the two that stand out are XII and Lightning Returns, which should make me happy since they are two of my favourites. There are various little nods to XII, such as the Wall of Memories resembling the Sky Pirate's Den, or the notorious mark board being staffed by a moogle (sadly the only one). But most delightful were the little spinny tortoises. I didn't realise how nostalgic I was for little spinny tortoises. As for Lightning Returns, the central theme and several aspects of the last act of the story are very similar, plus at least a couple of sidequests are basically pasted from there (the "what makes a good knife" one in particular being virtually identical to the Gordon Gourmet sidequest in LR). But LR had more distinctive regions and a better integration of exploration and story, as well as a much more useable battle system.

And that word distinctive is important. FF has always stood out from other series in weirdness, but here, location after location are generic and forgettable, and - horror of horrors - even the music is very run-of-the-mill. It's not technically bad, but it could be heard in any middle-of-the-road movie or game series, perhaps the first time ever that's been true. Design-wise I'll make an exception for the Fallen architecture, which is distinct in its cool, geometric minimalism, but that's about the only place imagination has been employed. Well, it had to happen eventually. Tomb Raider, Resident Evil et al all sold their souls for mainstream appeal; even FF couldn't hold out forever. It's sad, though. For all that it had a weak story and janky-ass gameplay, XV was the only game in the world where four bros drove around in an open-top car listening to tunes and talking about back-seat fishing. I would hold out hope for the next one - after all, they're all different from one another and XVII may yet be the weirdest, quirkiest one yet - but as I'll probably be in my mid-fifties when it comes out, I'd better not hold my breath.

Also, I don't understand the ending. Clive appears to think Ultima was always doomed to fail (gee, thanks for making me play for forty hours then), seems to think smashing the origin will remove all magic from the world (why, when aether was embedded in the world and the crystals were sapping it?), then washes up on a shore somewhere unknown, then writes a book that implies everything was a legend (so magic was not just removed, but retroactively removed????). It's probably all something to do with primogenesis, but since that was never explained it's hard to be sure. Lightning made Earth and then got off a train in France SO MAYBE DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT, CLIVE ROSFIELD.

PETE TENTATIVELY GIVES IT: A SIX OUT OF TEN.

Church attendances are set to decline thanks to a online swell of criticism of Jesus's perceived "wokeness". Experts are predicting that many churches will have to close as a result. Christ joins Fox News, Chick-Fil-A and Genghis Khan as things that are now considered too lefty.

The American Christian preacher Rockerfella T Clinton Jnr began the campaign with a tweet that read "Just heard Christ said 'turn the other cheek'! This kind of weakness points to estrogen poisoning, since we know a real man would have said 'guns guns guns guns guns'."

This prompted many Christians to read the bible for the first time, where they discovered more of the same. "Love one another, as I have loved you" came in for particular scorn for not explicitly excluding gays and Muslims and blacks and whichever out of women or trans are currently worse. Evangelical YouTube channel ToddlerWithAThesaurus posted a video called "Christ The Lord Could This Be Any More Stupid" in which he went point by point through the Beatitudes, rejecting every one. "The meek? Why should they inherit the earth? Are they a billionaire CEO? I think not!" he railed. "I call upon every true Christian to denounce this Christ."

But some think the movement has gone too far. Conspiracy theories abound that Jesus eats babies, has sex with children and worst of all, voted for Joe Biden. Fact-checking site WhyDoWeBother.com pointed out that Jesus was crucified two millennia ago, fully three months before Biden was even born.

God the Father declined to be interviewed but did issue the following statement: "We had hoped Jesus would continue the family tradition of cruelty, capriciousness and genocide but we understand he must pursue his own path and we wish him all the best. But yeah I totally heard he eats babies, pass it on."