Viewers, a confluence like this comes around about once a decade. If it’s as sunny, warm and beautiful where you are as it is in Bath today, get out there and witness the phenomenon for yourself.
If it isn’t, don’t worry – you can do it indoors too.
The world moves alarmingly fast nowadays, doesn't it? But right now, at this particular moment in time and until something else shiny and exciting comes along (probably around lunchtime), this is the best game ever.
With a certain amount of irony, then, (and for no very good reason that I can immediately discern), it's called Forget-Me-Not.
Aged viewers will recall this reporter's once-burning love for the Nintendo DS. But it wasn't just the appearance on the scene of the younger, slimmer, all-touching-all-the-time iThings that caused the flame to die.
This week, with the Western launch of the 3DS just a few days away, I went back to the old stager for one last hurrah, to see what I'd missed in what's now almost two years of iOS-focused gaming and also to see how it felt to use a so-called "real" handheld console again. I found out some things, and have written them down here because I'm old and I forget stuff.
Hey! It's time for another WoSblog Challenge! WOO!
We're all familiar with the concept of Where's Wally/Waldo, right? The above is a tableau in similar vein but with a bit of a Biblical theme, taken from the iThing game Where's Jesus? Your job is simple: find the inset character (bottom left) somewhere in the main picture. He usually shows up after you've found three or four others in Level 1 (of 10).
There is literally nothing more tedious on Earth than some scared 15-year-old fanboy thicko witlessly pronouncing that the iPod, iPhone and iPad aren't "proper" videogaming devices, because "all the games are five-minute casual Flash rubbish or Angry Birds".
It gets really wearisome having to point out how ignorant and stupid they are in detail every time, so to save myself a bit of effort in the long run I've knocked up a convenient one-stop counterpoint for easy reference.
Get a load of this monstrous boss enemy. Yikes! It's a bit like if Salamander had been written by HR Giger. It'd certainly give me the heeby-jeebies at the end of a tough-level of bullet-hell shmup, or worse yet, if it came hurtling down a corridor at you in some survival-horror FPS. But do you know the most terrifying thing about it?
YOU'VE ALREADY GOT ONE OF THESE LIVING INSIDE YOU.
While it's still free, so that you can enjoy its awesome ghost-racing capers.
Having played Mad Skills Motocross (available for PC, Mac and Linux as well as iOS), I am now OUTRAGED that all other racing-type games don't let you go to the online leaderboards and go head-to-head against the recording of anyone's best run. I'd write to my MP about it, but he's a treacherous cunt.
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Hopefully you may be able to present evidence for your revised thesis that Scotland is not now a colony? Much…” Sep 18, 20:51
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Yes, Malgrati in his review does not quite get as far as ‘Doun-Hauden’ which would have helped him explain the…” Sep 18, 20:20
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “If you should ever choose to stand for office in Scotland, New Northy, I’ll be paying close attention to your…” Sep 18, 20:04
Northcode on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “When posters invoke antisyzygy, they’re not using it as a literary concept. They’re using it as: – a psychological explanation…” Sep 18, 19:56
Northcode on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Pathologising dissent isn’t just rude — it’s a form of control based on authoritarian logic. It’s the same manoeuvre used…” Sep 18, 19:29
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “@TURABDIN As recently as 30 years ago, you could have gotten away with claiming the allegations of primitivism and moral…” Sep 18, 19:07
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “There’s no oppressive reality in my neck of the woods, Alf. Maybe you just need to move house.” Sep 18, 18:57
factchecker on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““why else would certain elements of the oppressed group (the more assimilated etc) reject their own liberation and deny their…” Sep 18, 18:18
TURABDIN on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Maybe a wee oversensitive? Considering the west has been lecturing, and worse, my part of the world for centuries about…” Sep 18, 18:10
Old Bill on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “The Duty of Candour is already activated in the Police Scotland Standards of Professional Behaviour and to avoid this, carelessly,…” Sep 18, 16:50
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Informative exploration of MacDiarmid’s use of the term ‘antisyzygy’. (I don’t necessarily endorse Malgrati’s entire pitch.) ‘ANTISYZYGY’: AN ESCAPE ROUTE…” Sep 18, 15:51
Spartan 117 on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “There’s something stunningly ironic (some would even say offensive, but I’m not easily that way) in a non-Scot lecturing *me*…” Sep 18, 15:47
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “…and this is why the colonizer (and his group acting collectively btl here) ‘hates theory’ (Memmi) – because it unveils…” Sep 18, 15:07
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““being in denial, stubborn pride maybe, regarding Scotland’s current status is a psychological aberration which the thinkers you quote would…” Sep 18, 15:04
Mark Beggan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “But all you get is the C word nicely feathered in a word salad. Maybe you could ask him to…” Sep 18, 14:51
TURABDIN on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “@ ALF BAIRD Those who attack you make your case. Scotland did not start out as a unionist colony but…” Sep 18, 14:13
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Naw, Mark. Every time Alf reads one of my posts he starts choking and somebody has to perform the Heimlich…” Sep 18, 13:37
Spartan 117 on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Ah Alf, so it’s somebody else’s fault ye huv tae yaise thon Coloniser’s tung, nae yur ain? An whit “Scots”…” Sep 18, 13:34
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Book review: ‘SUPERHERO COMICS AND SCOTTISH IDENTITY: The Comics Art Of Frank Quitely’ « The authors are academics, interrogating Scottish…” Sep 18, 13:20
Aidan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “@Alf – repetitive, excessive, and largely meaningless writing focused relentlessly on the same subject, often to the point of becoming…” Sep 18, 13:16
Aidan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““There are several others regularly contributing BTL who post nothing but hate, single-minded psuedoacademic wibble or just plain unintelligible drunken…” Sep 18, 13:07
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “@ Alf Baird says: 18 September, 2026 at 12:34 pm “The main point here is the need for a colonized…” Sep 18, 13:02
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “The main point here is the need for a colonized people to understand the linguistic and cultural impacts of colonialism,…” Sep 18, 12:34
lothianlad on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “They are mnoe starting to really panic. Their attempt at distancing and evasion wont work. They will be held to…” Sep 18, 12:27
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “@ Spartan 117 says: 18 September, 2026 at 10:34 am I think Alf finds himself in a bind. Although he…” Sep 18, 12:07
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““Is this tae dae wi’ thon Colonialism yur aie haverin’ aboot?” Colonialism is ‘obscured by assimilation’ (Memmi), and the colonized…” Sep 18, 12:06
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““a culturally-intertwined political identity (Pettigrew), which creates ‘a manufactured being’ (Memmi)” As always, Alf, you give us much to think…” Sep 18, 11:54
Spartan 117 on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Ah huv tae sae Alf, how come ye’ve nivver gien ony o’ yer lectchurs or speeches thit ‘uv been watchin’…” Sep 18, 10:34