Stuart Burnside

@RupertLowe10 You’re a tube

More tube driver strikes announced. Restore Britain's policy is clear: AUTOMATE. THE. TUBE.

@MemEnglandhokey When you get to the press first and control that narrative 🧑‍🍳💋

Awful: dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1… Seems to be two ways of thinking about this whole thing. - One child being abused is too many. - Didn't happen to my child and I didn't see it so I don't care. What a shit world this is

@exquizitely Ah thank you that’s kind of you to reply. I see what you mean by the arcade feel now I’ve watched the video. I remembered KoS as 1990ish too - early enough anyway that I think it’s where I heard Eine kleine Nachtmusik for the first time!

@stuart_burnside Knights of the Sky came much later so it's a betetr flight/combat sim and doesn't have the little arcade sequences in between. Knights of the Sky is more "pure" you could say.

Wings (Cinemaware, 1990) takes you back to to World War I. Being a newly assigned fighter pilot, you go on missions against the German empire between the years 1916 to the end of the war in 1918. In typical Cinemaware fashion, the graphics look stunning, and the game unfolds almost like a mini-movie, with cutscenes, mission briefings and reports, medal ceremonies, and links to historical events, like the shooting down of flying ace Manfred von Richthofen (known as a the "Red Baron"). The game was a huge success both critically and financially, yet couldn't help Cinemaware from going under one later, in 1991.

It’s Keir isn’t it

@GeoffNorcott A new show called “Can you reach it”?

I’ve been filming something. Any guesses? (Hurtful answers only pls)

@jamiesont Been a while but I think that’s the type you put in your lawnmower

Slightly obsessed with Jet2holidays Radio ad for the summer hols offering a wide range of 2 -5 star hotels... What are 2 star hotels???

@JimDMiller @MerelMilou @RasmusJarlov If you knew anything about Greenland, you’d realise that referencing those cliches is a fast way to cause a Greenlander to dislike you.

@MerelMilou @RasmusJarlov Get $$$ now is a lot better than having the promise of future government benefits. The alcoholism and suicide rates in Greenland are so high it should currently be seen as a failed colony and an embarrassment to Denmark.

Denmark will not hand over Greenland even if the USA threatens us with nuclear weapons. I am not saying this to stump our chest and try to be tough. We are small and no match for the USA. We know that. But we are not doing it under any circumstances.

@exquizitely Good points with which I agree. I’d add that the actual gameplay is a greater proportion of the game itself if graphics, etc are technically limited. So a greater emphasis on making something fun rather than pretty perhaps leads to a better game.

I often think about why older games (80s and 90s era) have such high emotional value to me, while modern games (almost everything after the early 2000s) do not. I think it's not just for one reason but several. The first one is pretty obvious, the second one became clearer to me today, the third one is the reality we live in today. 1) When it comes to the past, we tend to remember mostly what was good and what we liked. It's just how the human brain and memory works. It's also true for movies, music and other things from our past. 2) Games in the 80s and 90s didn't have to compete with the mass media and sensory overload we face today. Games in the 80s were more "magical" in a sense that they let you dive into a fictional/fantastic world, just as you might have done with a great book or movie. They didn't look realistic by today's standards, but they stimulated your mind and senses, so you could fill in the blanks and create your own world, while playing the game. We had 3 TV channels in the 80s, one rotary phone, obviously no social media, Internet, mobile phones, or streaming. I know, the Internet grew in the 90s, the first mobile phones were available, more TV stations emerged - but still, no social media, no streaming, no "media overload" as we have it today. A game in the 90s could still have that magic, because it didn't compete with other digital distractions that much. We had to read about games in print magazines first, then wait to buy them (a physical product, in a shop), the anticipation and joy was all connected to that process. 3) Today, the gaming industry is a billion dollar business, often based on micro transactions, addictive gameplay, fully grown up, mostly run by publicly listed companies where CFOs reign supreme. We have endless choices when it comes to streaming, we are constantly connected/online, and social media (and AI junk) is ever present. Our brains can only process a limited amount of input, while today more games are available than ever before (think Steam, Roblox, and so many more). No wonder we don't form the same emotional connection to games these days. At least that's how I see it. If you ask me about any pre-2000 game, I can tell you a lot about it and what it meant to me. Ask me the same about any game after the early 2000s and you will get mostly a blank stare from me.

@exquizitely I played it. It confused me (I was young) and like you, I didn’t get far.

Most people associate the Bitmap Brothers with Speedball 2, Xenon 2, Gods, and The Chaos Engine. One game that feels lost in time among the hits is Cadaver from 1990. In the original Cadaver, you control Karadoc, a gold-hungry dwarf hoping to find treasure. He's on a mission to kill necromancer Dianos, Castle Wulf's sole inhabitant. The game has five levels for the castle's floors. Entering via sewers, Karadoc ascends from dungeons through guard chambers, the royal hall, king's chambers, and battlements to Dianos's sanctum. I started it many times back then but never got far. The logical, non-linear puzzles and quests require outside-the-box thinking sometimes. It wasn't mainstream for its time, perhaps why it's rarely mentioned with Bitmap Brothers games. Did you play it?

@PurkaitIshan Or in your browser: madtv-online.com

Papacy Simulator loading screen tip

Inconceivable

The lady at the charity shop today told me that she wishes people would clear out their children's old toys in the lead up to Christmas rather than after because she always sees a number of parents in the days before Christmas looking for toys for their little ones who might be strapped for cash. She said there's very rarely anything in just before, but that they get inundated with toys in the days after. And it really made me think about it in a way I never would have before. If you know your child is going to get lots of presents from Father Christmas this year, by clearing out your cupboards a few days early, you could make another child's Christmas a lot more special too. Saw this & thought I'd repost.

@ruaraidh1985 @ofcoralcaves @DanNeidle Yes I’m starting to realise we aren’t helping you understand. Have a good evening.

VAT on financial services = VAT on everyone’s mortgage payments. Mr Polanski does know that. Doesn’t he?

@ruaraidh1985 @ofcoralcaves @DanNeidle No one is equating the extra interest for the product fee with the VAT, it’s about how you are being charged and whether the VAT is easily avoided. Which is why what you describe wouldn’t work and is why Dan is saying there would be a risk of VAT on mortgage payments.

@ruaraidh1985 @ofcoralcaves @DanNeidle When people gently try to help you understand something better, it reflects poorly on you if you start being rude. What you are describing is an ineffectual tax system because you are giving the financial services company two routes to charge the same fee, one VAT free.

@ofcoralcaves @ruaraidh1985 @DanNeidle Precisely. Glad someone gets it.

@ruaraidh1985 @stuart_burnside @DanNeidle Wouldn’t mortgage providers just remove the product/arrangement fee and increase the interest by a few % points?

@ruaraidh1985 @DanNeidle @ofcoralcaves That’s why for example the same lender will offer you mortgages at different interest rates depending on whether or not you pay them a separate product fee - which in your last tweet you considered should attract VAT.

@ruaraidh1985 @DanNeidle @ofcoralcaves So what you may be missing here Ruaraidh is that there are a number of financial services that are paid for wholly or partially through the cost of the product itself. Mortgage interest is one example. Another is the bid/offer spread when changing money.