Last night in the bar Giles (The Cannibal)attempted to sabotage the tour and my future career by recommending an iPhone game called "New Star Soccer". I downloaded it and when I got back to my room I gave it a little look. And then carried on playing until 4am, having lost all track of time and of reality before finally looking at my watch and deciding maybe I should have some sleep.
It's quite a simple game, not unlike the old favourite of my teen years Kevin Tomm's Football Manager, except that in the game you are a young football player trying to work your way up the football ladder. But it's just the kind of pointless game that is easy enough for me to play and addictive enough to eat up my life forever (or for a couple of weeks whichever is shorter). I have never been someone who likes staying up late dancing at night clubs or waiting for the sun to rise on a beach, much preferring to be asleep, but give me a game like Football Manager or Civilisation II and I will forget that I need to eat, sleep, dress or write my sitcom for the BBC. Like those other games with this one it's very easy just to take "one more turn" to see what happens next and find that suddenly another hour has gone by as you get embroiled in the antics of some tiny pixalated men who don't even exist... sorry I just broke off from writing to remind myself of the game and ten minutes disappeared into a time vortex (though I did make some assists and score a goal and raised my approval rating).
It's a good enough game, even if it might be too simplistic for some people's tastes (I need my video games uncomplicated), but I wonder if Giles knew what he was doing when he recommended this. It was like offering a bag of smack to a recovering addict. I had been getting by on the Methadone of Yahtzee Adventures which I only need to play about five games of before satisfied and now this comes along. Giles works with a lot of other comedians. Could one of them have paid him to win my trust and then subtly recommend something that they knew would destroy my creativity and mean I never sleep? Is he a double agent as well as a cannibal? The man is a monster. Simon Streeting may have been many things, but he had no guile or ability to display anything but a lamb-like honesty (thus revealing his innate arrogance), and Giles seems relaxed, witty and friendly (unless someone cuts him up on the road when he reveals a simmering and otherwise undetectable anger), but a true double agent superspy would behave like that. Without realising it I am paying a man to accompany me round the country who wants to eat my man meat and destroy my career. Possibly. Though I can't think of any other explanation.
Anyway the drive to Durham was unimpeded by snow, even on the Pennines and I was soon in my hotel room where I should have been writing next week's Metro column (but was instead playing New Star Soccer). I did manage to knock an old idea together in the dressing room later before realising that there probably isn't a Metro next Friday due to it being Easter, but there's no harm in being one ahead. The Gala is a lovely big theatre which I haven't been to for a couple of years, but I noted that I had about two thirds of the audience that had come to the last gig. There were enough in to have a good show and to make it financially worthwhile, but it's a slightly worrying development.
Then it was back to the hotel to play New Star Soccer where I was struggling to make my mark in the Premiership, to the annoyance of the fans, the team, the manager and my girlfriend. I don't know if it counts as being unfaithful to my wife to have an imaginary girlfriend on a computer game (who doesn't even physically appear). But if it is and if my wife is annoyed then I will have to divorce her. Nothing is more important to me than my football career and I love my imaginary girlfriend, even if she pisses off the boss by selling stupid stories to the newspapers. This shit is my life.
