I Don’t Have Time For “Speedrunning”.

Whether you are a committed adopter or a casual frequenter, time is the most cherished commodity available to any gamer. The restraints of life command a pervasive influence over how our spare time is distributed. So it’s critical that these precious interludes are utilised efficiently to ensure the utmost satisfaction. Of course the pursuit of “High Scores” are as defunct as video rentals, and playing games on a reduced difficulty is adjudged as feeble. Independent from the gruelling nightmare of “Souls” like games, the challenge now for many competitive players is speedrunning. A concept so foreign to me that it might as well be reprimanded at a detention centre, on the Dover coast!

The idea of expediting my experience, for the purpose of finishing a playthrough with proficient diligence, but little engaged amusement is something I’m quite accustomed too. With the constraints of life’s permissive schedules and limited accessibility to games, sometimes hastened participation is imperative. Objectives within the game necessitate a more rapid execution. Given how quickly we familiarise and assimilate ourselves into these virtual worlds, it’s only natural to pursue new challenges, via a swift negotiation of a game you enjoy. But to dedicate such a concerted effort into speedrunning a game, learning the specific techniques and exploits to complete games as quickly as possible, to an almost obsessive extent, is like arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Pointless!

The speedrunning community are a committed bunch though, make no mistake. And one I do ultimately respect. Their dedication to their craft, no matter how niche the game might be is admirable. Competitive to discover new, valuable exploits that may only permit seconds of advantageous time to beat some long held record, requires a fortitude that quite simply eludes me. Being so committed to the refinement of such a diligent vocation, is a skill that I wish was transferable to the more traditional way of playing games. With the prejudicial inclination to play until I’m either bored or more often, thwarted by a spike in difficulty, to have that inherent drive to succeed, even when we apply such artificial as well as asinine objectives, encourages a kind of autonomy that is usually negated by a natural promiscuity that compels us to move on to the next exciting product.

At my age, gaming is a hobby enjoyed in sips. To savour the rich, subtle bouquet it’s vintage has to offer. If I were to start pouring wine down my gullet like a rain deprived waterfall, questions would be asked about my sobriety. To speedrun through a game, having memorised enemy positioning and timings, while blindfolded and using a dance mat as a controller, without taking a single hit in “Elden Ring is a damn impressive feat! But when people are exploiting glitches and awkwardly manoeuvring through invisible walls to bypass huge sections of a game to precipitate better times, to me is just asinine. Having said that, I am in no position to dictate how people game. That’s your perogative, one which no one has the authority to judge.

Alone I Game.

With a New Year emerges new, usually domestic challenges. Increases in tax. National insurance. Rent. Utility bills. Inflation. Unemployment. All while wages stagnate, the economy fluctuates and the government flaunts its privilege while extorting the poor to fund next year’s extravagant New Year’s Eve party. I’ve often considered the possibility of deserting the congestion of residential monotony and living life off the proverbial grid. To seek refuge in the sanctity of a cabin, furnished with a kettle, decent WIFI connectivity and an accessible delivery route, if it meant avoiding all social interactions or humanity in its entirety. I believe that such nurtured abstinence would leave me a very contented mammal. And this inherent desire for social forfeit has only been further epitomised by the festive break.

Much of my gaming is economised by trivial domestic responsibilities, a province that afflicts many burgeoning diversions. And though Christmas permits much needed respite from the rigidity imposed by work, your patriarchal duty is satisfying your family’s demands. Now this is certainly my preferred environment, with food, booze and all of the festive hospitality you’d expect from a Christmas gathering. But the excesses of this socially repressive period affords little time to indulge in your own coveted seclusion. As someone as introverted as myself, thrust into awkward conversations with peripheral members of my family or indeed those inherited through my partner, can be a stifling. And even the obligatory moment of synergetic narcolepsy that afflicts every family unit post Christmas feast, provided scarce refuge to indulge in my gaming proclivities. Even with my transported Steam Deck for comfort.

The aforementioned Steam Deck enables a versatility impeded by the conventional console systems. Sure it’s not the most subtle device, one that evidently attracts the attention of even your cataract afflicted grandmother, and is considered a major social faux pas, but a necessary reprieve from the “invigorating” family congregations. But what suddenly occurs to me during this bustle of congenial levity, is that gaming really is as intimate as reading a book. I lack the requisite discipline to suppress the ambient revelry around me, that in turn disrupts my capacity to engage with the words on the page with any comprehension. It could be the noise from a television or a simple conversation, I just can’t concentrate. And the same applies for gaming. There is just too much activity encompassing you to fully immerse yourself in a game, and zone out for a few hours. Which has always been a prime incentive. Despite the versatility and portability of a device like the Steam Deck, it’s just not the same unless you can play it alone.

Sadly, unless I inherit a small fortune from a wealthy Uncle I “accidentally” murdered, I’m probably going to have to stop being so selfish.

A Failure To Write.

After such a prolonged abstinence from anything resembling critical thinking, it can be challenging to rouse the fractured synapses in your brain from their cognitive dystrophy. And that’s even under the provision that you have an interesting or pertinent subject to discuss. Do you talk about personal interests? The rigours of child rearing? Analyse some contentious issues afflicting the world? Do you get political? Philosophical? Debate the therapeutic benefits of self isolating after mandatory lock-downs? Lament the economic deflation of Jaffa Cake quantities, from 12 to 10 packs?! It’s not always easy to simply invent a narrative that encompasses a thought or opinion, without it coming across as a composite of puzzle pieces, compressed together to form an awkward, malformed depiction of your thoughts.

I’m lucky in a sense that blogging is a hobby, one unencumbered by schedules or hindered by editorial authority. I retain creative autonomy over what I write, restricted only by my own neurotic censorship or creative fervour. But even if say for instance you find a subject you want to discuss, or at the very least motivated by an idea, the challenge then is collating these cluttered thoughts into a tangible, vaguely coherent translation. So often these scattered ideas, jotted down in harried, barely legible notes become a mangled collection of adjectives and obscenities. Like a puzzle with no visible corner piece to start or a picture from which to refer. It’s all jumbled. Tangled. Often these assembled concepts, on the surface at least, appear to meld together with seamless continuity. Wrought with evocative symbolism and wry, caustic wit, that could only germinate in the mind of someone with such an enlightened intellect. Only for these musings to make as much sense as homeopathy.

Sometimes you just have to take a chance and experiment. You have to accept that whatever gibberish is being composed probably isn’t going to change the literary world. Moreover, these indecipherable ramblings will likely make less sense to yourself than even the people (person) reading it. But that shouldn’t deter you from trying. To refine your craft to a degree of vague competency, and not be embarrassed to express whatever curious thought you have. You are the author of your own madness and you have to trust that someone, somewhere, can interpret your distorted writing “style”. That can sympathise with the points you make on whatever subject you deem important to you, and say “Do you know what? I’m weird too”. And that is a rather comforting thought.

Christmas

Christmas is a time for celebration. A respite from the tedium imposed by the burden of yuletide preparation and frantic work commitments. To revel in the annual festive traditions of Turkey, novelty jumpers, the jingle of bells, Die Hard, consumerism, saccharine John Lewis adverts, alcoholism, stockings, suspenders and all the trimmings commonly associated with this contorted religious festival. Christmas, until you reach that inevitable point of cynicism in your life, is the most magical time of year. A gleeful beguilement that is only rejuvenated by the mercurial derangement of your own children. Only through the vicarious delirium of children can you even hope to evoke that same sense of wonder you experienced as a child. But you’re also reminded of just how fortunate you are to have your family there to remind you of how great this time of year can be.

I have always been somewhat withdrawn, favouring the hospitality of my own inimitable company. Even when I’m coerced into social situations I can exchange pleasantries and engage in inane chit chat for short periods, before my limited interest wanes. Nothing gives me as much pleasure as the mere prospect of having time, as well as my home to myself. But the possibility of spending Christmas on my own is a depressing notion. Though there is a critical distinction between being alone and being lonely, Christmas presents a unique convergence of the two. And it’s in realising that being surrounded by your family, at a time of year notorious for inflicting such crippling despondency, is offset by their presence.

Most people take for granted just how fortunate their lives are. They find themselves aggrieved by mild irritants and asinine concerns, rather than appreciate what they have. Me, I have no such obstructions. I know how fortunate I am to have found anyone that can tolerate my misanthropic proclivities the way my partner does. I don’t want to refer to our meeting as providence, because that would imply that we had no control over our meeting. But there was such a coincidental set of circumstances that ultimately introduced us to one another that it does seem almost destined. Though I won’t go into details, it is staggering to me the unique set of circumstances that culminated in our paths overlapping. People will tell you that this kind of preordained convergence doesn’t happen every day. But it does. It’s just that some people lack the perception to see it. Which does make our daughter a rather miraculous creation. And I take great comfort in that.

As I sit here, gut swelling from the excessive consumption of stuffing, chocolate and beer. A generic Christmas movie reaching it’s final, saccharine conclusion, surrounded by warmth of my family, I reflect on where I could be and realise that though life is rarely perfect, it could be a whole lot worse.

Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio, Is My Favourite Film Of The Year.

In the wake of Disney’s derivative, live action remake of their own animated property, releasing another version in the same year as such a critically maligned adaptation is bold. Considering how much remakes are loathed for there brazen indolence and blatant nostalgic exploitation, it’s commendable that a movie as compelling as “Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio”, embraces the bleakness of the source material, that until now has been sterilised by Disney’s gentrified model. Only someone of Del Toro and Mark Gustafson’s shared singular vision, could possess the initiative clarity to adapt a story we thought we already knew, and remind viewers that with just a simple shift in tone, Pinocchio has always been firmly rooted in a twisted mythology that lends itself so well to Del Toro’s depiction of fascist Italy.

Set in the emerging shadow of WWII, a local carpenter Gipetto, consumed by years of grief at the loss of his son and in a moment of drunken rage fells a tree his son planted before he died, carving an effigy of him in a futile attempt to regain his lost son. When a mysterious entity imbues this little wooden boy with life, a familiar tale unfolds, infused with some requisite Del Toro horror. By instilling the story with an intended bleakness, this adaptation benefits from a solemnity sorely missing from Disney’s original. It doesn’t shy away from death with diluted asides or musical distractions. But lingers on its destructive influence, and just how bereft the passing of a loved one can be. That grief can’t be remedied by a saccharine musical number or comedy routine. It’s not afraid to embrace the melancholy of death, but to embrace it. To depict the sadness of loss as an emotion as natural as life.

Then there’s Pinocchio himself. A characterisation that benefits from the scripts astute focus on depicting a child like boy, that has no understanding of humanity or indeed mortality. With an exuberant inquisitiveness of childlike enthusiasm, Pinocchio is as irritating as he is destructive. A child that struggles with the concept of living, in a society that views something as miraculous as Pinocchio as an insidious evil in the eyes of God. No where is this sense of religious contradiction more apparent than when Pinocchio wanders into a church full of parishioners, condemning his existence, as an effigy of Jesus nailed to a cross presides over their sanctimonious judgements. Despite his autonomy and his effusive desire to be loved, even by his own father, he remains steadfastly fervent. Even when he is manipulated as a tool for Nazi propaganda! The exploitation of something pure, for the purpose of greed or the promotion of a duplicitous regime is even more sinister when it’s a child, wooden or not. Pinocchio is still a boy wanting to please those around him, so earnest and eager to be alive and experience the joys of living, that even in a World corrupted by the tyranny of war and riddled by the cult like lunacy of fascism, can still see the beauty of the world. Even when it isn’t easy for everyone to see.

This Pinocchio is as Dark and gritty as it is gorgeous and reviting. With a perfectly assembled cast to compliment some of the most fluid stop motion animation the industry has ever seen. Characters that are complex and floored, that don’t always do the right thing or even understand what they did wrong. The years of tortuous dedication to get this movie made were well spent. It doesn’t pander to children, but imparts an important message that has been formally diluted by other renditions. That mortality is a precious thing. That death is as much a part of living as life and that without that knowledge, we can never truly appreciate the finite time we have.

Life isn’t perfect, nor is it without tribulations, but we certainly appreciate life more when there’s an expiration date.