TFI Friday

Blimey, it’s been a long week, and no mistake. Still, we’ve all made it to Friday night and it’s time to relax at last. Friday nights are part of the rhythm of our lives here – listen to the 6:30 comedy on the radio, maybe have a bath with a glass of G&T, play some games, eat pizza or other easy to prepare comfort type food, watch something funny on the tv and then fall asleep half way through the Friday night chat show. As Pop Larkin would say, perfick!

Games wise, Jamie seems to have developed a taste for racing games, so I dug out my old Sidewinder Force Feedback steering wheel and set it up on his pc. He has been mostly playing Need For Speed : Porsche 2000 – a fantasticly detailed game covering the entire history of the Porsche range from the early 356 Cabriolets right up to the modern day 911 Turbos and GTis – and he’s doing pretty well. He’s got the hang of cornering with a good racing line and coping with the notorious Porsche rear wheel drive. Last night I dug out Midtown Madness 3 for a bit of retro action and we had some fantastic Mini races through the back streets of Paris – I think we’ll have to get a DVD of The Italian Job next.

I watched a fascinating and enlightening documentary about the Gunpowder Plot last night. The political machinations of the era were fascinating, with some striking parallels to the present day with young members of a persecuted religious minority planning acts of terrorism. After reading Mary Gentle’s 1610:A Sundial in a Grave it was interesting to learn more about the spy master Robert Cecil and his methods. The plot was always pretty much doomed to fail, given the length of time required to keep it secret, and it seems that there was very little appetite for a full scale Catholic uprising at the time. Still, the simulation of what might have happened if the gunpowder had exploded was pretty dramatic, and the possibility of the simultaneous eradication of the heads of the state, government and most of the nobility in one act is a striking one. It would have been a pivotal moment in the history of England, if not the whole of Europe. Spare a thought for poor old Guido tonight …