Notes from England - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

• The Good - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Clocking in at around 53hrs of gameplay for me over the course of about a year (hey...I play when I have time, I don't do this professionally and I'm not a teenager anymore), I have to say that it's one of the more satisfying experiences I've had in gaming recently. It was a game that I felt compelled to return to again and again. Well worth the purchase, and well worth the effort to reach the end. Great story.
• The Bad - Mario Kart DS Wi-Fi battles - there's idiots out there who, rather than just enjoy a nice race with people, go out of their way to cheat their way to the front of the field. It makes it a great deal less enjoyable. (My "Friend Code" is 189111622825.)
• The Good - Replacement DS Lite chargers fixing a worrying problem of a DS Lite not charging.
• The Bad - Some dink teenager with acne in "GAME" telling me (after supposedly plugging my DS Lite into one of their own chargers in the back room) "Looks like the battery wasn't charged properly. You'll need a new battery, and for what Ninty charges, you're better off getting a new DS to the tune of £99. I have one available if you like..." (or he might as well have said that) Charger - £7.99. w00t, my friends. w00t.
• The Good - His Dark Materials. I don't know how good The Golden Compass is as a film, but the trilogy of books from which the film is based (book 1, Northern Lights) was very enjoyable. It doesn't deserve (in my opinion) the laudits it sometimes receives such as "...look out J.R.R. Tolkien & C.S. Lewis - Phillip Pullman is the fucking shit and he's as good if not better than you..." or something similarily ass-kissing, and I admit that I'm very biased towards the Grandfather of modern fantasy, but HDM is still very enjoyable. It's very well written and surprisingly dark when compared to some of it's fantasy counterparts. I might have changed some aspects had I written it, but that goes with life - you can't always get what you want.
• The Bad - The death of a friend.
• The Good - Bread. Bread of all kinds. Brown breads, white breads - so long as I bake 'em myself. I've taken to baking bread lately, and there simply is no comparison. From something quite light, white, and squishy with a crispy crust to a brown multigrain which is dense, harty and full of wheaty goodness. The latter becomes so crunchy when toasted that it is truly for the hardcore toast lovers only. Mmmm...add a schmear of natural peanut butter (peanuts & salt - nothing else added) and it's breakfast heaven when sat next to a cup of steaming Earl Grey.
• The Ugly - Need I Say more? What's that? You want more? Okay:
  
  
• But let's end on a high note: The Good - Tiger: Spy in the Jungle - If this programme doesn't make you go "Awwwwhhhh!" - there is one simple and incontrovertable conclusion: you have no heart!

Need more convincing of cuteness?



~Jer