cavalcade

GAME do a decent set of generic ones for 2.99 I use on the Switch and Ally (would probably fit the Switch 2). But those ones in particular are lovely - the indented ones from Skull and Co improve any pad a huge amount.

Gears of War Reloaded. Considering this is 20 years old (vomit) it hasn't really aged. I mean it's stupid, machismo-filled nonsense, but it always was. A sign that shooty action games haven't really moved on in the last 20 (vomit) years?.

I played a tiny bit of this just to see what it was like, and I also had a similar reaction. In many ways it's actually better than some modern games, as it has a real kinetic THUD to every movement and everything makes sense within its fictitious gameworld. Games like Division 2 emulate it nearly exactly, but when you're a thin weedy soldier, rather than a 9ft steroid-muscled chainsaw wielding maniac it doesn't make quite as much sense.

I went to see The Human League, The Undertones and Nick Kershaw live the other day. Perils of dating an older woman (music for me started with the Stone Roses).

Nick Kershaw was OK. The Human League were like a cruise ship band, and all had the dead eyed stares of people who wished they'd given it up years ago. But holy fuck the Undertones were good. The lead guy now looks like Greg Davies, but they absolutely smashed their set.

What, you don't have several flags raised not just outside your home but also inside your own home?

I think growing up in Norn Iron gave me a lifelong distrust of flags and those individuals who use them as territorial markers.

(I am aware, of course, that marking territory is probably the principal purpose of a flag in the first place, but that's on a national or diplomatic scale.)

As I live near the border to NI and the Republic now (and lived near Belfast for a year) I agree 100% with this. The creeping appearance of English flags everywhere on the mainland as territorial markings should terrify people. Because at least in Ireland you see other memorials and reminders of where this sort of nationalism eventually ends up.

It is strange that we've lost that communal stuff in gaming - be it all the social stuff that seemed to spontaneously happen in WoW, or the online communities that played and stuck around on something like Midtown Madness or PGR on Xbox Live. It's a buffet of a million options now. I can see why kids congregate on things like Fortnight or Roblox, as at least there's an element of community and permanency there.