If you fancy gellin’ like Magellen or cruising like Columbus, then Mars One would like to hear from you. Mars One are looking to establish a human colony on the surface of Mars and have received thousands of applications already. The plan is to send up satellites and pathfinders before sending four humanoids to establish a settlement in 2023. Every two years after that, another four settlers will arrive and before you know it, the community will be positively booming.

Naturally as with all exploration expeditions, there is a slight element of danger and risk. But this hasn’t stopped people climbing Everest or plunging to the depths of the ocean in a small metal container has it? Concerns have been raised about the amount of radiation the settlers will be exposed to, not only on the 8-month journey, but also on the surface of Mars. A simple suggestion that the habitation domes can be covered by dirt when they land has alleviated these worries for the most part. Then again, to cover them with dirt will require the settlers to venture out onto the barren surface of the red planet under the bombardment of radiation and do it themselves.

A further warning to any potential applicants; if at any point on the 8-month journey should someone utter the phrase “are we nearly there yet?” – that person will be jettisoned into space. So if you get accepted to the program, bring a book. Or better yet, a Kindle, it’s a long journey and tempers will likely flare.

It should probably also be mentioned that this trip is realistically going to be a one-way deal. During the course of the journey, it is expected that the astronauts will lose a serious amount of muscle and bone mass making it nearly impossible to consider returning to Earth. Quite the radical diet plan should you wish to lose weight at any cost, but ironically pointless in a largely weightless environment. Also, despite my biological knowledge lacking somewhat, I am under the impression that bones and muscles are important.

So Mars One are looking for resilient, adaptable, resourceful team players to apply who don’t mind the moderate to extreme dangers that will be thrown their way. I expect patience will also be essential. I may be on the job hunt myself, but this is quite a job spec and don’t think I will be putting my CV forward.

But what kind of person is likely to apply? You have to be willing to accept the dangers of the mission and be willing to leave mankind behind forever. I say leave mankind forever; they are hoping to televise the mission on TV making it the first reality TV show in space. But if it turns out to be anything like Big Brother, the evictions will be brutal.

Although these four brave souls will leave Earth forever, their names will go down in history alongside the likes of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. It is exciting thinking about a future when the human race has expanded to the wider galaxy like in science fiction and this is the first step that will make that journey possible. It may be a little lonely living on a planet with a population of (initially) 4, but that number will soon swell should everything go to plan. And until then, they may not have a dog on Mars, but they do have a very different kind of Rover to play with to pass the time.

Should you wish to take your place in the history books and become one of the first human Martians, you can apply on the Mars One website.

As this is part 3 of my 2-part list, things obviously didn’t quite go as planned. Mainly because in writing the entries for the second blog, it was quite obvious to me that I had a favorite game as one entry was about 3 times the length of the rest. So I had to split things up a little.

But before revealing what is my favorite game of all time and undoubtedly the greatest game in the history of human existence, I would like to make some honorable mentions.  Just a few games that I couldn’t fit into my top 10:

Crazy Taxi (Arcade/Dreamcast 1999)

A game allowing you to drive a taxi sounds fun right? Well this taxi is crazy, you drive like a lunatic, get paid extra for driving dangerously and you rock out to the sound of Offspring and Bad Religion. Sure there may have only been 7 songs that looped frequently, but they were rocking and encouraged even madder driving as you drift around the city. And unlike a GTA game, it was impossible to run down a pedestrian… No matter how hard you tried.

WWF No Mercy (N64 2000)

There was a day when wrestling games had proper story modes, and this game really started it. In other games, if you lost, you had to replay the match. In No Mercy the storyline branched depending on the outcome of a match, meaning in order to get 100% completion, you had to lose matches on purpose. It was also the first WWF game to venture into the highly interactive backstage area and the first game that allowed you to slam your opponent through the announcer’s table. Despite having a release copy of the game with an in-built fault that caused my saved content to regularly get erased, I still loved this game.

Portal (multi platform 2007)

You are a test subject trying to escape a facility controlled by a psychotic artificial intelligence obsessed with cake. What’s not to like? The inclusion of mind bending puzzles and the portal mechanic that may just be one of the most revolutionary gaming devices ever conceived can’t hurt its appeal.

Fallout 3 (multi platform 2008)

In the second part of my blog I mentioned that few games capture an atmosphere as perfectly as Vice City. Well Fallout 3 is another of those rare games, but instead of 80’s Miami, you get 2277 post apocalyptic Washington DC. The moment your character steps out of the vault into the nuclear capital wasteland is a real breath taker as you see the ruins of DC on the horizon. Fallout 3 is an enormous game with countless ways to play through thanks to the open world nature and endless side quests and places to explore.

But finally, it is time to reveal the greatest gaming creation in the history of mankind (in my opinion).

Final Fantasy X

PS2 – 2001

Listen to my story. This… may be our last chance

Not FFVII you cry? There is only room for one Final Fantasy entry on my list and when it came down to it, this was the easiest decision I have had to make. FFVII was a very good game and has a massive following, but I will not hesitate to say that FFX is the greatest game I have ever played.

It is difficult to know where to start with this one. This title was my introduction to JRPGs and my first Final Fantasy game in my collection. After my first play-through lasted more than 80 hours and was still not fully complete, it is safe to say this game has a lot to offer. Slightly better value than the 8-hour games of today.

The main character is Tidus, a star Blitzball player for the Zanarkand Abes or at least you were until a leviathan like monster called Sin flattens the city sending you a 1000 years through time into the future to a world now called Spira. From here out I would need to write a dissertation to attempt to begin conveying the story of the game.

The world of Spira is a staggeringly beautiful place but is a land tormented by Sin, the monster that leaves death and suffering in its wake. It goes without saying; you have to stop this monster, but the story twists and turns relentlessly and unexpectedly until the time the credits roll. You can’t help but fall in love with the main characters in the game and feel their pains and triumphs as you play. FFX’s story touches you on an emotional level that no other has ever come close to achieving, and if you can play through without being moved, almost to tears at times, you have no soul. And I have no issue admitting that several moments in the game cause me to choke up. The story telling is sublime.

Graphically the game was ahead of its time and the CG sequences still hold up today. Sure this is one of those RPGs where you have to suffer random battles that mostly come from nowhere, but the turn-based battles and the Sphere Grid experience system was a joy and allowed for strategic fights and highly customizable character development. No Final Fantasy game would be complete without a sizeable minigame, luckily Blitzball is available throughout the main story and on its own provided enough depth to spend hours relentlessly leveling up your team.

I should also mention that FFX has one of the most beautiful and dynamic soundtracks ever created. So good is the music created by Nobuo Uematsu, I had to get hold of not only the game soundtrack, but the orchestral and piano based versions of the soundtrack too.

The huge success and critical response to the game even resulted in a first for the Final Fantasy series, a sequel. As a stand-alone game, FFX-2 is a thoroughly enjoyable game and one I’d recommend, but as a sequel, it suffers the difficult second album problem. The plot was too disconnected from original game and doesn’t really progress the story how fans desperately wanted.

After the release of Final Fantasy Advent Children, the CG sequel-of-sorts to FFVII, I was really hoping that FFX would receive the same treatment. I don’t even necessarily want a sequel. It is a story that I want to be able to relive again and again, but I don’t really have 40+ hours every time I want to experience it again.

Final Fantasy X has a compelling story that will move you more than a tidal wave, a wonderful array of characters, engrossing gameplay, minigames and a musical score that will make you tingle. What more could you want from a game?

Final Fantasy X and X-2 are being remastered in high definition due to be released for the PS3 and Vita some time in 2013.

What is your favourite game of all time?

Although the list so far has been in no particular order, the first five entries proved very straightforward. The second half of the list has been slightly more problematic when it came to picking from my shortlist. There are a few that it physically pains me to leave out like Banjo Kazooie or Discworld 2, but this is a list of 10 and sacrifices must be made. I present the next four entries to my list.

The Sims 2

PC – 2004

I could make this easier on myself and simply say that I enjoyed The Sims series as a whole. The first Sims game established the series but was a bit limited, The Sims 3 tried too hard and too much, which leaves us with The Sims 2, the best.

The great thing about The Sims games is that there are so many variables; no one will ever play exactly the same game as you. Your game experience will always be unique. Do you want your Sim to take up a career in politics or crime? Maybe they have updated those job options to make them the same thing. Perhaps you want to spend all of your Sim’s time wooing people of the same sex, making the neighbourhood exclusively gay to annoy the Westborough Baptist Church. Or maybe if you are from the Westborough Baptist Church, you would put your Sim in a room, remove the doors and start a fire so they burn in the fiery depths of hell because they liked a different kind of pizza than the one bible apparently tells you to enjoy.

I must admit to putting my Sim in a swimming pool once and removing the ladder to see what would happen. Turns out the sides of the pool were higher than they seemed and he drowned. So in keeping with my God like power trip, I reloaded my save and brought him back to life.

Personally, my favourite aspect of the game was the building and designing modes. When I was a young whippersnapper, I dreamed of being an architect and The Sims games gave me the tools to let my creative mind run wild and build the fantastical houses of my dreams. I probably spent longer building than I did playing God with my Sims.

I even have fond memories installing the game as you went through the 3 or 4 installation discs getting bombarded by mini games.

The Sims 2 also had a plethora of expansion packs allowing you anything from a teleporter to replace your staircase to a robot butler. You could go to University or out on the town, maybe you wanted to get a pet or go on holiday. It was also the first Sims game where you could throw a party and make Woohoo (do it) in a hot tub. There was something for everyone!

Vice City

PS2 – 2002

Very few games manage to capture an atmosphere so perfectly as Grand Theft Auto Vice City did. Vice City took inspiration from a wide range of 80’s movies, predominantly gangster movies (most importantly Scarface), to craft the perfect setting for GTA’s trip south to Florida.

In the GTA series there is arguably better gameplay (San Andreas) or better graphics (GTA IV) available, but Vice City was the complete package. The missions were insane and frequently hilarious, the voice acting fronted by Ray Liotta was superb was unheard of at the time and the setting was spot on. But nothing compares to the moment in the game you get into a car for the first time and Billie Jean is playing on the radio as you drive down the beach.

There has never been a better soundtrack in a game before or since Vice City. Couple the music to the perfect 80’s Miami-esque setting and you have a game you will keep with you forever. You have to remember this was the game following GTA III and if you can remember that far back, you probably wouldn’t have had the highest hopes for the music of Vice City.

There were times when I would turn on my PS2 and start up Vice City simply to hit pause and just listen to the radio stations. I even got hold of a CD copy of two of the stations Flash FM and Emotion (available in all good music stores that aren’t in administration).

Grand Theft Auto games have always been known for their madcap humour, although maybe to a lesser extent in GTA IV. I think Vice City was where the series’ humour peaked. Even with slightly dated graphics, it is still worth playing today and it will still make you laugh as you listen to the rock band Love Fist on the radio, while your partner in crime Lance Vance does his patented Lance Vance Dance as he strafes a car park with an assault rifle. Good times.

Majora’s Mask

N64 – 2000

Swamp. Mountain. Ocean. Canyon. The four who are there, bring them here!

It pained me to leave out Ocarina of Time as it could quite easily be justified as one of the greatest games ever made, but Majora’s Mask made the cut for me. It is one of the strangest Zelda games in the series as there is no Ganon as your nemesis and Zelda only makes a fleeting appearance once in a flashback. But it is undoubtedly one of the most unique Zelda titles ever created.

The game revolves around a 3 day cycle in which the moon above the land of Termina gradually gets drawn closer by a character called the Skull Kid who is possessed by the evil within Majora’s Mask. At the end of the 3 day cycle, boom, you’re dead, everyone’s dead, the planet is dead. As a result this could be regarded as one of the darkest Zelda games to date. Luckily Link is able to find the Ocarina of Time and reset the cycle and start over as many times as he wants, causing the inhabitants of Termina to relive the terror of impending doom as many times as you need to complete the game.

Thanks to the 72 hour cycle the game plays out over, Majora’s Mask is swamped by countless side quests that occur at designated times and places. There are only 4 main dungeons, so it is likely a large part of the game will be taken up trying to complete these side quests. And most of these quests are conditional on certain events preceding them. So if you don’t stop a seemingly unrelated burglary on the first night, you won’t unlock the sequence of events that allow you to reunite two lovers on a matchmaking side quest that is actually the longest and most memorable quest in the game. So you have to reset the cycle to try again, but this then provides the dilemma that certain progress will be undone and items in your inventory lost. You must utilise the 72 hours wisely, but with the moon growing ever larger above you, you feel the sense of growing urgency as the clock relentlessly counts down.

There are many masks to collect throughout the game that allow you to perform abilities needed for certain missions or quests, a wealth of side quests and the outstanding storyline that we have come to expect from a Zelda game. It is a completionist’s dream and an outstanding title for a fan of adventure games.

Minecraft

PC – 2011, XBox 360 – 2012

Minecraft is undoubtedly the strangest entry to my list as there doesn’t seem to be a point to the game. There are no missions, no tasks, no real collectables of note. It is a “sandbox game” in the truest sense. You are an unnamed character put into a randomly generated world where everything is made of blocks, including the trees, the beaches, the mountains, everything. And all you do is survive and build.

As a premise, this may not sound appealing at first. The graphics are very basic and there is no defined gameplay. But essentially, if you can think of something, you can find a way to build it. Creativity is the key premise of the game once you really get into it. You cut down trees, you mine rocks and minerals as building supplies, and then you let your imagination go wild. There is even a resource that allows you to create circuits leading to the possibility of automated machines or switches.

And if you don’t fancy mining for building materials, there is always the Creative Mode to play with that gives you infinite building blocks to do with as you please.

The kind of things people have built and uploaded to the Internet will boggle the mind. You will wonder how there are enough hours in the day to achieve what they have created. The gallery below is a sample of the things I’ve made, but trust me when I say my creations pale in comparison to the scaled versions of cities or expansive lands that others have made.

It’s not just building though. Enemies spawn in the dark, so exploring caves or wandering at night can be extremely dangerous. If you are wandering around outside and you hear “sssssSSSSSsss” it is probably too late for you. The thing that just snuck up on you and exploded you into a mess of pixels is called a Creeper. They are one of the many things that will want to kill you if you go out wandering in the dark. So you can take the role of the adventurer survivalist if building isn’t your thing.

Minecraft was a game that I had heard about time and time again and I eventually caved to peer pressure to try it for myself and I haven’t looked back since. If you have a flair for creativity, this game can be your new addiction. And I thought peer pressure and addiction were meant to be bad things.

Stay tuned or subscribe for the final part of my list next week.

What games would make your list?

The Internet is filled with lists of the “greatest ever games” or “games that changed the world”, so would be a foolish endeavor for me to add another drop to that ocean of noise. Instead I present to you a top 10 list of games that have made me the gamer that I am today. These are not games that will necessarily make the regular top 100 lists, but the ones that mean the most and have defined me as a gamer.

Theme Hospital

PC - 1997

Doctor required in inflation room

Developed by Bullfrog, Theme Hospital sees you put in charge of building and maintaining your own hospital. The aim of the game is to achieve set goals like number of patients cured and hospital value to get you promoted and moved onto the next more challenging hospital. But this isn’t any ordinary hospital, nor will you have any ordinary patients. Say your GP diagnoses a patient with Bloaty Head where the poor patient in question has a head swollen to twice the normal size caused by sniffing cheese and drinking unpurified rainwater. The only possible treatment is to send him to the inflation room where a doctor will pop his head with a needle and re-inflate it back to the correct PSI.

You will have doctors with bios telling you they smell faintly of cabbage, heckle poor comedians and enrage insects with deodorant. You will have patients with conditions caused by excessive licking of yogurt pot lids, have considerable amounts of excess tongue or are covered from head to toe in hair due to prolonged exposure to the moon. And to top it all off, your receptionist is constantly making announcements reminding patients not to die in the corridors and to have their credit cards ready.

There is humour woven into the game at every opportunity making it an irresistible first entry to my list and a joy to play even today. And considering what we hear about the NHS in the news, its not even like the game is that implausible.

Pokemon Red/Blue

Gameboy – 1996

Jigglypuff, I choose you (said no one ever)

Remember a time when there were only 151 Pokemon? Well that was the age of Pokemon Red and Blue (and later Yellow with a special edition). It was amazing what they could fit on a 4MB cartridge. To summarise, you are a young Pokemon trainer, given your first Pokemon Charmander (only a fool would choose otherwise) by a strange Professor in your hometown. The professor sends you, a small young child with no combat experience, out into the dangerous wilderness to fight and catch as many critters as you can to fulfill his insane goal that he is not man enough to do himself. Then you travel through the world and everyone you see will want to attack you, then you go to a gym and to attack everyone there. When you think about it, the humans in the world of Pokemon have some serious attitude problems.

This was the game that started me on the path of video game completionist, because no matter what Pokemon you preferred, you still had to catch them all. The trading element also gave me my first taste of playing games with my friends (other than Tetris) as some Pokemon would only evolve when traded and others were exclusive to the Red and Blue versions.

This was the pinnacle of handheld gaming at the time, and to me, it still is.

Goldeneye/Perfect Dark

N64 – 1997/2000

I might be cheating by putting both in as one entry, but they were both made by Rare and both revolutionized what a first person shooter (FPS) could be. Besides, Goldeneye was probably the title that saved the Nintendo 64 and deserves a mention for that alone.

Goldeneye was one of those rare movie-based games that didn’t suck. In fact, it was brilliant. The single player stuck as closely to the movie as it could and had some real standout moments. But it was the multiplayer mode that burned away the hours for me. I remember spending many a joyous weekend with my friends throwing proximity mines at their feet on the Facility level. Ahhh memories.

A few years later, following in the footsteps of Goldeneye came Perfect Dark. It had an original storyline, new female lead character, futuristic setting, little grey aliens with massive heads and big scary aliens who disguised themselves as blonde Scandinavians to infiltrate our planet. The game was so advanced for its time that you had to install the N64 Expansion Pack just to run it. But despite the amazing single player mode, just like Goldeneye, the multiplayer was where the party was at.

To my memory, Perfect Dark 64 was the first game to introduce AI opponents in a FPS multiplayer. So all of a sudden, I wasn’t only worrying about the three friends sitting beside me, but also the eight bot players that could be set to a superhuman level of ability. Sometimes it was like trying to kill Superman by slapping him with a dry sponge.

The Perfect Dark multiplayer was a game changer. You had bots that could have their behaviour altered so they would always seek vengeance or only run around slapping and disarming people with their fists. You could customize what kind of weapons would appear and where and choose different game modes like Capture the Flag or King of the Hill. You could even use a gun disguised as a laptop that when thrown latches onto a surface transforming into an automatic turret that would unleash woe upon your enemies.

Ultimately, Goldeneye and Perfect Dark pioneered the FPS multiplayer format and without them, the games we have today could be very different. Perfect Dark is now available remastered in HD on Xbox Live Arcade should you wish to experience the game again or missed out the first time around.

Guitar Hero (Series)

Multi Platform – 2005-10

When Guitar Hero burst onto the scene, it spawned a new generation of wannabe rockers. In my case, it actually inspired me to pick up a guitar and start learning for real. But my skills as a real guitarist are yet to match my level of mastery on Guitar Hero.

I owned all the games of the Guitar Hero series and every time I picked up that little plastic guitar and set the game to expert, I felt like a rock god. Sometimes I would even have an audience around me as friends would sit and watch my lightning fast fingers nailing the next insane solo. Then I would pick up my actual guitar and struggle to play a Status Quo song.

My real guitar skills have come a long way since then and the Guitar Hero series has been retired to gaming history. But managing to survive Through the Fire and Flames on Expert still trumps anything I’ve done with a real instrument.

Guitar Hero inspired the rival series Rockband and then the peripheral wars began. What started with one plastic guitar ended up with electric guitars, bass guitars, drum kits, the ultimate rock tool the keyboard and even microphones so the tone deaf Sing Star fans could get in on the act. The series finally reached its end when you needed a spare room to store all your plastic instruments. A shame, but we will always have Dragonforce.

Football Manager/Championship Manager (Series)

PC – 1992-Present

This is a game I put firmly in the category “Time Sponge” and is responsible for the swathes of armchair managers you get today shouting at their TVs because apparently the real managers who have spent years in training don’t know what they’re doing.

Football Manager does exactly what it says on the tin (case) putting you in charge of whatever football club you choose from a wide range of countries and leagues. You choose the lineup, the tactics, who to sign and sell, who to engage in a war of words with, and then look at your watch and realize it’s 4am and you’ve not eaten for 17 hours. It can take a full day just to get through one season. The depth of the game is truly staggering.

Should you stick with your game for a couple of seasons, you start to feel that you have built the club in your image with your tactical genius. You have won trophies and smashed your bitter rivals and the only price you have to pay is forgoing your social life! Today the game even gives you an “addictedness rating” depending on how long you’ve been playing. These range from “I’m starting to get into this” to “turning your underwear inside out saves on washing”.

I remember picking up Championship Manager 2 from a jumble sale somewhere during the mid 90s when the game was only text based and introducing European leagues for the first time. There was no slick 3D engine, almost no graphics at all, just “Cantona on the ball… he shoots… what a goal!!!” You had to exercise your imagination a bit, but it was the game that cemented my love of management and simulation games.

Click here for Part 2.

What would make your list?

It seems that every ad break has some form of betting company trying to tell us how flipping amazing they are and why we should give them our money. I can just about understand people betting on the outcome of matches, as there has always been this kind of gambling in our society.

But now you can bet on literally everything. Who will score first, last or score at all, who gets booked first, how many bookings, how many corners, the minute a goal is scored in, how many people John Terry will racially abuse in a five minute window, how many times an overpaid asshat will dive and how many rolls on the ground he will achieve to convince the referee that his leg just broke so hard that it ended up in another dimension.

There is betting for fun and then there is betting to satisfy an addiction. The only reason these betting companies exist is because in the end, they will win. That being said, I’m not sure how so many big betting companies can exist in such an overly saturated market. Yesterday I was walking through town and realized that I was passing a William Hill shop that was directly next to a Paddy Power shop that was directly opposite a Ladbrokes shop. Not to mention the Coral and Mark Jarvis dens of woe further along the road.

Ironically you don’t even need exercise to reach these places to bet on sport, as they are all available at your fingertips on a place called the Interweb. In fact, there are even more available online to add further saturation to the market.

When it was first announced that England was going to start having casinos built throughout the country, I thought, “how ruddy exciting”. I was half expecting the glamour of Vegas to be visiting our high streets. But I was wrong. I visited one of these ‘trendy’ establishments, spent nothing, had a free drink and vowed to never return. T’was a silly place filled with desperate people.

I don’t mind if people want to waste their money gambling if they enjoy it, as I’m sure they understand only about 5% of all gamblers will leave in profit. Some people genuinely do it for fun.

But what I cannot abide are these incessant adverts every time I turn on the TV. I can appreciate clever advertising and the first time I saw the weird shouty Italian guy assaulting Chris Kamara in the shower shouting “Shampoo no, FOOTBALL NOWWWW”, I admit I laughed. But the 783^rd time I saw the 15th iteration of that advert this week; I am no longer in such a jolly mood.

However there is one advert that makes my blood boil above all others. One that makes me shout at the TV in an effort to interact with it in rage. An advert where I half expect to be called a slag at any point. Of course, I refer to the Ray Winstone Bet365 adverts. Adverts so ineffective that I had to Google what betting company they were for.

“Want to know the latest betting odds for this game?”

“No thanks Ray”

“Sweet, want another one?”

“I SAID NO RAY! You might be the Sweeney but you’re not a very good listener. If you’re trying to sell something, never open a question to the customer that can be dismissed with a straight no answer. Now get back to real acting, you slaaaaag.”

You may think the above dialogue is exaggerated, but it’s not. These betting adverts agitate me as much as that pathetic McDonalds advert where the “nah y’alight” mop headed git sells his loyalty for sodding Happy Meal. I like Ray as an actor, but these constant betting adverts really drive home the issue. This is a marketplace where endless gambling shops, casinos and flipping Wonga.com with their 62,437% APR can thrive and the only the single major music retailer HMV can fail.

England, you have a problem.

I live in Leicester, not exactly the largest city in England. Yet despite its relatively small size, there are eight Tesco stores within a thirty minute walk from my doorstep (make that 10 minutes if going by car). In that same area, there are two Sainsburys stores, one Morrisons and a no show from Asda and Waitrose. If these other big supermarkets can’t compete, what does that mean for the smaller independent shops?

But as the saying goes, every little helps.

Unfortunately, I don’t have much choice in the matter. If I need groceries, I must submit to the Sith Lords down the road and hope I don’t displease them. The Stormtroopers at the cashier desks seem friendly enough, but you know Darth is keeping a close eye on the security feeds hoping for the chance to Force choke a shoplifter. I’m sure on a slow day, he’ll even take exception to people leaving items in the wrong place. Now I think about it, I’m not against punishing those people. When you are shopping in the fresh produce section and you come across a disbanded pack of tampons snuggling with the apples, you’d want to Force choke someone too. Say what you want about the Empire, but you have to admire their efficiency.

So I am within the walls of the enemy and behaving myself admirably as I reach into my pocket to grab the vouchers sent to me accompanying my Clubcard statement and head immediately for the Pringles aisle. Sure there are other products there, but I only have eyes for Pringles thanks to this magnificent 60p off any tube voucher. Target located, but something does not compute. I want to believe it was an error, but the Empire doesn’t make mistakes. This tube really is priced up at £2.49. Even with the voucher they are costing 80p more than Morrisons has advertised them for.

Pringles are still just crisps right? They don’t have some new recipe that involves lacing individual crisps with platinum do they?

Ok, so I’ll shred that voucher, I can still get 50p off a bottle of Lucozade and they were selling them for 99p the other week. Lets see, nope, up to £1.99 a bottle now. I’ll shred that one too. I can still get 50p off a pack of Cadburys chocolate fingers that were priced up at £1 not long ago. What a surprise, £1.89 now.

The vouchers often seem like a good deal, but pay attention and things aren’t always what they seem. To me this seems to imply that average customer is an idiot easily fooled by a piece of paper with a barcode on. Maybe the average customer is. The vouchers go out and the prices go up. Earlier on I said that Tesco must own about 97% of the market by now, and maybe that was a slight exaggeration. But for the biggest share of the market, they sure offer some of the worst value deals, even if the adverts on TV tell me otherwise.

This is a place that once offered the stellar deal of £1 for a loaf of bread or £3 for three. Should I consider myself a mug for shopping there or just submit to the Empire’s wishes and accept that they can do what they want? Maybe both are true as I am the mug who just got back from Tesco to write this blog.

As I had no other money coming in, I figured it was best to sign on while I hunted for a job to prevent my savings from spiralling forever downwards. I went through the whole process: forms, advisor meetings, more forms, another advisor meeting, then finally I was able to sign on.

Lets spin forward a couple of weeks when I got a letter telling me I would not be receiving any housing benefits or council tax contributions. Their reasoning? I have been too responsible saving up money so that I can pay off my student loan. Thanks to the government and the stagnant economy, I have not yet had a job that pays enough to actually make student loan payments from my wage packet. Yet still, I have been earning and saving responsibly so I can clear off my debt, which I wouldn’t even have had I gone to university in another country. But this, as it turns out, was a ridiculous thing to do. The government doesn’t want you to be smart with your money.

At least I will have the job seekers allowance to slow down the drain on my bank account. Or do I? I haven’t been paid a penny yet. I have signed on and done my job searching, sending off countless applications. So I have held up my end of the deal. I have even found some temp work meaning I have to sign off. Yet my bank account still longs for some job seekers payments like I long for pizza on a Friday night.

No one at the job centre seems to be able to help me. They tell me to call benefit enquiries. When I went in for my first advisor meeting, I saw a man there who was clearly very badly off and struggling to get by. This man was being closely watched by security as he was flipping out. He was flipping out because he was being told that he had to call benefit enquiries to sort out his claim.

At the time, I thought he was being a bit of a loon. In a way he was. But after spending 30 minutes on hold trying to reach benefit enquiries to find out why they haven’t paid me anything, I could sympathize. If anything, I was becoming a bit of a loon myself. After being left on hold for 30 minutes on my mobile, I did a little calculation. After coming to the realization I had just paid £15 for the pleasure of listening to the same 20 second long hold music on a loop, I hung up.

I was left with one conclusion. Our government are scam artists. Outstanding scam artists. I believe someone on Hustle had a similar scam set up. Considering I have been careful with my money and generally lucky in life, this call charge was an annoyance. Now think about this man who was struggling to get enough money together to pay rent. Can this man afford to spend £15 waiting on hold? Of course he can’t, neither can a vast number of people in his situation. And these people are the ones who depend on the government’s support the most.

I assume the government plans to cut a further £10 billion from the welfare budget will be made up from the vast profits made from their phone lines. I can pretty much guarantee that many people have ended up homeless thanks to our fine government’s ineptitude.

I have never been so happy to be a taxpayer.

I was lucky enough to be around at the start of The High Tea Cast and they are going from strength to strength and can gloatingly claim to have been there from the get go. But what I technically mean is, I am delighted to be riding on their star on its meteoric rise.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to post some of my old HTC blogs for your amusement and my self publicising purposes. But do not make that stop you from visiting the site and checking out the articles on there. I am but a cog in a well oiled machine (team of writers) and they are a talented bunch. Just click these highlighted words, these ones here to check out the awesomeness.

I will be starting to write my own blogs that will be exclusive to my site very soon. So keep your eyes peeled for those golden nuggets in the future. Not to mention, there will be a bit of a redesign to my site as I add a brand new page to flaunt my design portfolio to the interwebs. Please try to contain your excitement. Bottle that excitement. Then send your excitement to me in the post, preferably by courier (I like signing for things).

I realize I haven’t written anything for a while. I have been lying dormant like a sleeping grouchy misanthrope waiting for something to poke me until I retaliate with an unfettered barrage of verbal bile. That day has come and Keith Vaz MP, your number has been called. Congratulations, you woke me from my slumber and I am not a morning person. You are first on my list.

The other day Mr Vaz tabled a motion in the House of Commons condemning Activision’s Modern Warfare 3 for its violence. Namely how the game allows users to commit acts of violence against the public and its striking similarity to the London terror attacks.

I will attack both points logically from an informed viewpoint, one I should add Keith does not hold. Having played these games, I can firmly state that both of his claims are filled with more crap than an episode of The Only Way is Essex. Unsurprisingly Keith Vaz, who I shall herein refer to as Muggins, has zero grounding to his claims. You cannot shoot the public to my eternal dismay and the acts in the game are a long way from resembling the London attacks in 2005.

Muggins sir, you are a gullible twonk. I get the impression you believe what anyone tells you, so I shall be writing his office a few anonymous letters to “inform” him of other gaming crimes. I hear that the Mario game series perpetuates mafia stereotypes and promotes drug use, predominantly mushrooms. I also hear that the game Bomberman is a terrorist training regime in disguise. Worst of all, the Just Dance 2 game on the Wii has subliminal messages that make you like Justin Bieber.

I believe politicians have more pressing issues on their hands in this global crisis climate. Why then Muggins, do you feel it worthy of wasting time in parliament condemning a video game that you have never played in your life? Were you jilted at the alter by a bride who didn’t turn up to the wedding because she was too busy fragging noobs in a Team Deathmatch? Maybe politicians could spend their time better by trying to not financially screw the country? It’s just a suggestion.

I know the public sector are mighty impressed by the governments current efforts. Curious George Osborne must calculate his figures like a baby who has been given an abacus, “if we moves da purple beady to da left…. There, country iz fixed. I want cake now”. I’m pretty sure that must be his method, nothing else can explain the farcical attempts at balancing our economy.

David Cameron described the public sector strikes as “a damp squib”. I don’t even really know what a damp squib is, but I’m sure our fine Prime Minister needs to look no further than a mirror to discover its meaning. I wouldn’t describe two million people uniting to go on strike a minor issue, but then again, these politicians can screw up numbers into the billions. Thinking about it, two million “commoners” going on strike probably won’t affect them as they decide which one of their homes they want to go home to tonight.

While I am ranting, I will raise the issue of the Leveson Inquiry being overseen by Lord Justice Leveson, or MC Levy as he is known on the clubbing scene. I am delighted that the inquiry has been commissioned and I truly hope that some real change can come as a result. But the worst thing is, every day new and seedy details are announced in the Inquiry yet, we can no longer be surprised by the revelations. We have become so desensitized by the events in the past few months that it didn’t really come as a surprise when told that a journalist “doorstepping” his target drove his car repeatedly at an elderly woman to intimidate her or when some gutter trash journo tried to get to JK Rowling through her 5 year old daughter while at school.

There is some good journalism in this country, but the integrity of the profession is being dragged through the mud by people with the morals of a sex offender. I’m not sure if it is in the public interest for tabloid journalists to hound the mother of Hugh Grant’s baby, in fact I will correct myself, it most definitely is not in the public interest. Maybe it is payback for the fact that Hugh Grant was the one who broke the media hacking scandal into the public domain. The only thing that is abundantly clear is that the Press can no longer regulate themselves, it’s like putting Muggins as head developer of the next Grand Theft Auto game or David Cameron in charge of our country.

I feel the need to bring the mood up after such banter, so it is lucky that yesterday there was an accident on the M1. Normally I don’t say yippee for accidents, but this was an overturned lorry with precious cargo. 20 tonnes of Marmite spilled out covering the motorway with delicious yeast extract. I was very tempted to make my way northbound on the M1 with a few hundred empty containers to stock up, that stuff lasts for ages and has serious longevity to its shelf life. Love it or hate it, Marmite is sodding expensive! And they say that oil is the black gold and as someone who doesn’t drive, I beg to differ. Time for some toast.

Having achieved minor celebrity status, and in desperate need of cropping the thicket that sat atop my bonce, I felt it time for the prodigal son to return.

I entered the realm of beautiful people, once again sticking out like a swollen sore thumb, and announced my arrival emphatically to the young lady at reception. I was escorted to my mirrored throne and plumped myself down and awaited Chelsea’s arrival. I had to bide my time and due to my uncomfortable nature, couldn’t just sit staring at myself in the mirror, I had to keep my eyes busy. It was at this my eyes point fell upon the GHD display behind me, however as a mirrored image, noticed that their logo starkly resembles the letters “BNP” once the vertical length of the ‘h’ is reduced.

Before conspiracy theories could start raging in the recesses of my cranium, Chelsea arrived and asked what I’d like done today. Now I knew I couldn’t say win the lottery or be casted in a movie with Jackie Chan, so I kept to the script of “keeping my hair long, whilst losing the weight and shaping it up”. Don’t say I don’t learn from my experiences, I know what to say in these situations, that’s just how I roll.

Next up was the washing of my hair, which if you read The Diet Coke Shame, was more akin to an interrogation method at Guantanamo. I think they must have read my blog, as the following experience played out like a head massage from the hands of a hair-washing saint. The only problem that confronted was to not go “ahhhhhhhhh” and lose my illusion of calm and collected.

On returning to my throne, I was asked if I wanted a drink. The moment of truth! I thought about it for a second and confidently requested a can of full fat Coca Cola, to which I was told they didn’t have Coke in any form. Problem averted regardless. I was brought a bottle of water as my hair started to get scythed from my head.

Maybe Chelsea had read my blog and took some lessons because she wasn’t in an overly talkative mood, which suited me down to the ground. A ground now covered in copious amounts of hair. At this point my hair was still wet and I have so far managed to avoid the mad twitches normally brought by the scissors snipping away in close proximity to sensory features. Only this one annoyance was replaced with another as the hair fell on my face causing an intense need to scratch my face from ear to ear. Which in turn brought back the twitches, you can’t win. Chelsea pulled the hair dryer from her holster and began to blow dry my hair, causing it to slap into my face like thousands of mini daggers.
Then I looked up into the mirror.

I looked like Justin bloody Bieber! My eyes could not move from the visage in front of me. They were transfixed. I watched every little cut hoping for the form to be altered from the pint sized popstar’s mop, but things were not progressing well. The twitches intensified and I gave up blinking for the next ten minutes as I watched tiny bits getting trimmed, falling past my drying eyes.

At my age, I worried whether getting a Justin Bieber hair cut would get me put under surveillance as a danger to children. I did not intend at the start of the day to have my name put on some kind of register.

Bit by little bit, torturously so, the Bieber look ebbed away. The floor surrounding me looked like Cousin It had been having a nervous breakdown. I carefully traversed the fluff to make my way to pay for services rendered. I removed my wallet and started to enter my PIN when a sound pierced my ears. The Bieberster came squeaking through the speakers of the salon. I don’t believe in coincidences, it was like a coordinated strike. My hair may no longer resemble him, but the taint of Bieber was etched indelibly into my soul. It makes suffering a Diet Coke a significantly more forgiving experience.