Euro Tour Combo Breaker!

Admittedly it’s a combo with a ten day pause between hits. But still - here’s something to chew over in the absence of a proper update. I write a fortnightly page for a Leeds magazine (like the city’s equivalent of Time Out) which is half on games, half on gadgets. The games bit isn’t worth posting but the gadgets one might be silly enough to put up here. Here’s a recent one. Let me know if you like it and if you think it’s suited to the news page.

This is it. People of Leeds, it is time to retreat to your underground bunkers with a well oiled rifle and 3,000 cans of mushroom soup, because humanity has officially crossed the line. If it is any consolation, know that you are a part of history. This year will be known forever as the pivotal point at which we began our inexorable decline into anarchy. For 2008 brings the dawn of the kissing robot.

Dubbed Eternal Maiden Actualization (E.M.A.) this Sega Toys gadget will stand at a mere 38cm tall and sell for around £100 from September. It’s an evolutionary cousin of the Robosapien - a bumbling battery powered minibot for kids - and will be able to sing, dance and walk, using infrared sensors to stop it hurtling headlong into a table leg or a lawnmower. It will be cute. And funny. And entertaining. It will be petite and unassuming, but do not be fooled. This plastic trollop is nothing less than the vanguard of the apocalypse.

Why? Come closer. Cock your head and pout, then lean into the cold computerised face of the E.M.A. and be astounded as it swivels to return your affections with a kiss. It won’t be a satisfying kiss, coming as it does from a tiny helmeted robot with no lips, but the dangers of this diminutive digiwhore do not lie in the lacklustre delivery of its interspecies embrace. No. The problems lie ahead.

Because it’s not going to stop here. Once man finds there is money to be made in ploughing a new electronic furrow, his digging will not stop until he reaches Hell itself. Thus technological progression moves at a frightening rate, so where, for example, early calculators took up whole factories to house the horses their power supply required, today’s models are small enough to be implanted in our heads at birth, enabling us to perform simple mathematical tasks using thought alone.

20th century cash machines were little more than a man standing in the street with a sackful of notes and a keypad taped to his face, yet today we pay for our goods and services by emitting a simple sequence of coded bleeps with the microscopic modems we wear inside our mouths. And as recently as 1998, heavy square boxes known as “refrigerators” were utilised to keep food fresh for longer - now we simply store our milk in convenient wormholes connected to the sterile vacuum of outer space.

The pattern is clear. So while the kissing robot of 2008 may be small and stupid looking, tomorrow’s versions will be better. Soon they will be the size of people, their heads and bodies will be covered in realistic latex skin, their computational prowess and artificial intelligence will nudge ever closer to mimicking real human emotion and, crucially, they’ll have vaginas.

And that, people of Leeds, will be the end. Give a man a convincing wife with an off switch, and he’ll love her for a day. But give him the means to buy an endless supply of convincing wives with off switches and he will never leave his home again. Real interaction will die out. Reproduction will cease. By 2150, Earth will be nothing but wild animals, empty homes and 15 billion beautiful humanoid computers in dire need of a clean. The robots will have won. Thanks for nothing, Sega.

Trial units to the usual address please.

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Saturday, April 19

Quick witted readers will have spotted a discrepancy between the size of Iscaria and the size of Iscaria’s front door. Well done! The picture in the last installment did not, in fact, depict his house, but rather the tiny entrance to a Dwarven mine located in his back garden.

Little is known outside of Finland of the country’s sizeable Dwarf population. These dimunitive people live in a network of underground caves spanning the entire breadth of the nation, and their relationship with the human natives is peaceful and, to some degree, interdependent. Like the birds which pick scraps of food from the mouths of hippopotami, the Dwarves extract valuable materials from beneath the crust of Finland - like iron ore, truffles and rats’ eggs - and trade them with their larger, land dwelling neighbours in exchange for canned goods and pornography. Although the door in Iscaria’s garden is one of only three in Kuopio, we were sadly unable to meet its inhabitants, as the naturally shy Dwarves surface just twice a year. Fortunately, there was much to occupy Brodos and I in Iscaria’s actual house.

It’s crucial to make a good impression when staying in a tidy family home, so we resolved to wake ourselves up at a civilised time on our first morning. Iscaria reminded us of this at roughly 12.30pm when he knocked on our door. Breakfast had been varying levels of warm for several hours - something we would also discover to be a recurrent theme during our stay. We arose and shuffled into the kitchen, looking as weird as we possibly couldn’t.

It was at around this point that the holiday became brilliant. For all the dangers that the ill-informed traveller fears he might face - gunfire in Serbia, abduction and dismemberment in Bulgaria or, ideally, some kind of prolonged sex attack by the beach volleyball team of Sweden - meeting the uncertain parents of an internet friend ranks extremely high. There was every chance we would be received as co-conspirators in their son’s enslavement to his computer - which in truth we were - and roundly despised for the part we had played in turning their traditional Finnish home into a sun-fearing house of nerd.

But there was none of that. In fact, Iscaria’s mum seemed very happy to meet us, visibly relieved to discover we were not grizzled, elderly, heavily bearded or in some other way indicative of predatory online groomers. Her exceptionally friendly welcome, bolstered by a large spread of food and tea, pivoted our trip from awkward voyage into the unknown to sheer enjoyment of the hospitality of people who, in the traditional sense at least, were largely strangers. We ate, drank and talked, starting to feel very welcome in this snowy, northern province of the internet.

Then we went to the supermarket.

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We had been slightly concerned Iscaria wasn’t going to meet us. Our pitiful attempts at planning had left him largely unaware of our arrival time, and his worrying online absence in the days preceding the flight meant all we could do to contact him was leave details on the website and ask others to relay the information while we travelled. There was also uncertainty over whether he had actually told his parents they would be hosting a pair foreign nerds for a weekend. If we had grounds to fear we might be straying into the trap of an internet penis cannibal, they certainly had them too. Personally, I already had suspicions about Brodos.

But there was Iscaria, dutifully waiting on an uncomfortable seat in the world’s smallest airport arrivals lounge. He looked tired. He also looked tall - something we would discover to be a recurrent theme on our travels. We took some photos to record this fact and got into his car.

Three hours is a long drive in any country, but this holds especially true on the main roads of Finland. Conversations prompted by the surroundings extend to “That place has a very long name” and “Oh look, another tree”, so Brodos kept our spirits up by minutely detailing the back stories of almost every character in the Marvel comic universe. This was surprisingly entertaining and I learned a lot of important things about avoiding toxic waste.

We arrived at Iscaria’s home in Kuopio and collapsed in our allocated quarters, Brodos claiming a top bunk large enough to house a small orchestra and me claiming a ground level bed large enough to house a fat child. As you may have deduced from the photos, that was perfect.

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Friday April 18

Frrrrkkk! Prrrrrppp! Screecckkk! Our plane touched down on Finnish tarmac, lights pinging back on and wheels making a noise I don’t know how to write. It had been a windy descent, so when a triumphant fanfare played over the tannoy, the passengers cheered. The trumpets seemed to be a recognition that we were all in this bumpy flight together, and that hooray, we had all made it one piece. The cheering promptly stopped when the voiceover kicked in: “Another flight arrives on time with Ryanair… Europe’s most punctual airline.” We weren’t all in this together after all. It was just a cheesy ad.

Then again, this was the internet, land of false impressions and pop-ups. Congratulations! You’re the one millionth person to see this banner! Click here to install our free virus software! You’d be forgiven for getting excited.

However, the internet wasn’t quite what we had been expecting. What we’d seen of it in films had prepared us for something more intimidating, but evidently Hollywood had missed the mark. We certainly hadn’t been sucked into a hallucinogenic realm of interconnected computer-generated pipelines and grids, as The Lawnmower Man had suggested we might. And if there were any vast, apocalyptic hives of sedated humans being harvested by spider-like robots, like in The Matrix, they were out of eyeshot of the runway. There wasn’t even anybody on a skateboard, so Hackers was wrong too.

I should have learned my lesson as a child. I once mounted a bumblebee and trying to fly it round the garden after watching Honey! I Shrunk The Kids. It died, and I became a vegetarian.

So we had arrived in Tampere, Finland, the Internet. Awaiting us was a man named Iscaria. He and Brodos had become good friends over time, and I had known him as long as I had known anyone online. That was a comfort, but it also meant there was more to live up to. What if he hated us? What if we hated him? What if my work colleagues’ belief came true, that the kind of person who would willingly drive three hours to collect a pair of strange Englishmen was probably also the kind of person who enjoyed cooking and eating human penises?

For those who have never tried it, it is initially weird meeting a very familiar yet unknown face in real life. The moment you clamp eyes on them, years of established relationship are potentially overwritten. It’s safe and cosy when all you know of somebody is text and pixels, it doesn’t matter if they smell, if they drool, if they look like their face was run over by a tractor when they were three years old, because you’d never know.

Voice chat presents similar dangers. If you’ve spent months getting to know a stubborn, decisive and authoritative character through text alone, it’s off-putting to discover he has the voice of a camp French toddler. But meeting someone truly magnifies this threat - once you’ve encountered their true form, it’s impossible to see the pixels without the tractor wound.

Fortunately, Iscaria turned out to be normal. This was a great relief all round.

Don’t panic! The next post will contain pictures.

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As we’re now all proper real life friends and almost-regularly travelling the world to see each other, the Internet just doesn’t feel like enough of a means of contact anymore. You have to wait ages for people to login to the forum or Bookface, and even then they might not bother reading or replying to whatever you say as we’ve all developed this innate ability to selectively ignore words on the Internet.

This is nowhere near intrusive enough, so I proceeded to text every Bruce in my phonebook about my thoughts and how my day was going like real non-Internet pals do, with varying levels of success.

Rugal: i like squirtle how bout u?
Brodos: I was always more of a Bulbasaur man myself.

Success! I could’ve delved more into the mind of Brodos but I feel his first response was perfect.

Rugal: Would you ever get pegged by a girl? You can choose the girl.
Drum: By pegged you mean… Bummed?
Rugal: Yeah, with a strapon. Obviously you get to bum her back so there’s an incentive.
Drum: Yes, i guess so. Odd question though, why?

Success! We all know Drum has an overly sexual mind and I tried to appeal to this. Clearly the question piqued his interest but I had to leave the conversation there or risk being exposed.

Rugal: wat
Milkman: *no response*

Fail. My question was evidently far too cryptic.

Rugal: What are your views on extravagant headwear in the workplace?
Pix: I think it should be mandatory. Are you wearing the veil again?
Rugal: Yeah it’s going down really well, just a bit hot. What are you wearing, hat or otherwise?
Pix: I like the intrigue a turban brings. What they don’t realise is I’ve also got a little cap with a propeller on underneath that.
Rugal: The ‘propeller beanie hat’ is wonderful if you have the legs for it. Tomorrow I’m wearing a Stetson and my slippers, nothing else.
Pix: You’ll go places with that look. They’ll be all “who’s that trendsetter in the Stetson with his nob out?” Like someone off The Apprentice.
Rugal: Yeah and Sugar will come round and go “I like yer brass son, ‘ere av a job” and we’ll be bezzy mates.
Pix: Touch his beard when you meet him, he’s really into that.

Success! We all know Pix has a hat fetish and I tried to appeal to this. We’re now meeting tomorrow for afternoon tea and a chat about the fashion do’s and don’ts in the latest issue of Heat magazine.

Rugal: Word on the street is that you punched a horse and it died. Confirm/deny
Shem: *no response*

Fail. Shem obviously hasn’t quite gotten over the death of that poor horse. Or he’s running around pretending to be Conan, who knows?

Rugal: I put 60p in the machine and got two Cokes! Jealous?
Hoofy: *no response*

Fail. The only logical answer is that Hoofy put 60p in the machine before me and got no Cokes, and is indeed jealous.

Rugal: Once a man with one hand beat me at pool. True story.
Hench: Who ist thou?
Rugal: Someone who’s clearly shit at pool.
Hench: Lol. I really don’t know. Nick wanted me to reply with i once got a titwank off a girl with one breast. True story. But as i don’t know who you are it my be innapropriate so i won’t.
Rugal: That would’ve been great! I like the cut of Nick’s jib.
Hench: Lol so who are you?
Hench: I’m shit at pool too
Rugal: I’m better at lobbing bananas.
Hench: Not an activity i carry out regularly, though it does sound tricky. Wanna give me any clues at least?
Rugal: I’m from the Internet doing a survey. Logon to www.omgbruces.com for the exciting results!

Success! I’m hoping that maybe Hench has sold his phone and I’ve been confusing a total stranger. If you read this stranger, recruitment is now open!

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I used to work in an airport. Most days I would pass through its metal detector, eventually learning just which items would set it bleeping and trigger an embarassing pat down from a familiar face. Thus I was prepared at Stansted, keys and phone and wallet readied to place inside the x-ray tray, like a good passenger.

Brodos, meanwhile, was composed of at least 20 per cent metal. Pierced above and below the neck, he had also chosen a belt coated in huge silvery chunks, the kind of belt which needs a second belt to hold it up. Unsurprisingly, he bleeped. Equally unsurprisingly for those who know him, he also seemed to enjoy the fondling that followed from the security clerk.

But before long we were aboard the plane, bound for the snowy delights of Finland with a one way ticket. We had precious little to keep us entertained - just books, comics, in-flight magazines, iPods, digital cameras, snacks, Nintendo DS consoles with more than 10 games and, if the worst came to the worst, each other’s company.

The engine roared and the aeroplane chugged into life. Seat belts on, eyes fixed out the window, we lurched, accelerated and left the comforting embrace of solid ground, our ridiculous holiday now undeniably real.

Goodbye England, goodbye motherland, goodbye day jobs and ironing and scones and chips and proper cups of tea. Goodbye to our home for a combined total of more than half a century. Stay as we leave you, stay as you have always been and welcome us back safe in 19 long days, as if we had never departed.

Goodbye real life. Hold that image of us steady in your mind, for we are heading into the internet, and tomorrow we may be nothing more than ones and zeroes.

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Goodbye Leeds. Goodbye Weymouth. By car and train we travelled to Stansted airport and arrived with two hours to kill. Almost immediately we began making new friends.

“He looks like a goldfish,” said Brodos to the lady at the check-in desk as she eyed up our passports.

“He thinks I look like a goldfish,” I added, helpfully. She smiled pleasantly, passport-related humour doubtless a great novelty for her.

“Did you pack your bags yourself?” she asked.

“Yes,” we replied.

“Did anybody give you anything to carry?” she asked.

“Just that guy with the 12 kilos of heroin,” said Brodos. She stopped smiling pleasantly.

“Do you want to be searched? I am serious. Do you want to be searched?”

“Er…no. No, it was a joke.”

“It is not funny to joke about that. You want all your bags to be searched?”

We didn’t want all our bags to be searched. Not that we were carrying anything untoward - besides the 12 kilos of heroin - but it didn’t sound like much fun.

“You will need to take your bags to the oversized luggage check-in,” she said. Our bags, both rucksacks, came complete with straggly straps flapping in all directions, a pair of ticking time bombs itching to play havoc with Stansted’s conveyor belts and shut the airport down for good. Tails between our legs, we trundled towards the desk.

“You have something in your shoe?” asked the oversized luggage man. His suspicions were not unfounded, as both of my shoes had feet in. It emerged, though, that his interest was focused on the pair of shoes inside my bag. I unzipped the top compartment to reveal said shoes, crammed beside a hair dryer and two kinds of gel. Hair products and footwear. Of all the pockets to search, it had to be the gay one. I rifled through it for his amusement.

“And there is something in the shoe,” he said, a probing statement rather than a question. At times like these, every crime you have ever committed has a tendency to flash before your eyes. What could be in there, I wondered. What terrible banned item had I absent mindedly stowed inside my footwear? Were 12 kilos of heroin small enough to hide inside a size nine trainer?

There was nothing in the shoe. My new friend waved us on and we headed for the next search.

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One night, doubtless after eating too much cereal, I started chatting to one of the guild members I get on with best, Brodos. I suggested a holiday - three weeks booked off from work travelling round Europe to meet as many Bruces as we could. Being an idiot, he agreed.

If the first Brucecon taught us the uselessness of our organisational skills, the months that followed hammered the lesson home. We lurched, sloth-like, into action, gradually establishing a list of people bored enough to grant two lazy Englishmen access to their homes and fridges. Sporadically we found out where they lived and, eventually, we devised a rough route between them all, the potential cost of our flights rising by the day as the promise of early booking retreated into the distance.

The plan was full of holes, Only by whittling down the number of stops on our trip did we manage to come up with something resembling an workable journey. Starting out from Stansted airport, near London, we would travel first to Finland, then to Sweden, then Serbia, Bulgaria and finally Italy, before heading home.

With a few weeks to go, only four flights, an Interrail train ticket and a huge psychological wall stood between us and our holiday. Uncertain, we selected our ticket to Finland and clicked “accept”.

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December 2007

It was the kind of half-baked idea which pops into your mind when it’s already past your bedtime. Both guild meet-ups to date had taken place in England, but the guild has members from all over Europe and a few from even further afield. We’d have been delighted to welcome them to this beloved land of tea, queues and drizzle, but the barrier of a return flight and a foreign country meant only a few could come.

Late in the year, my grandparents came to visit. It had been a few years since we had seen each other and, after pointing out a strip club from their hotel window, we went for a meal. As we parted, they pressed a large bag of cutlery into one hand - either a family tradition I had yet to discover or a helpful gift for my new house - and an envelope in the other. I got home to find myself in possession of £2,000. Plus around 50 spoons.

When I called to thank them, they insisted I spend the money on something frivolous - mortgage repayments were out of the question. They were no stipulations about the spoons, so I put them to use eating cereal…

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