Thersites Writes

I was sitting on top of St Giles's Hill yesterday. The view as ever was superb, if overcast and windswept. But I was more interested in the bench I was sitting on. As is usual these days, park and public benches are sponsored by private donors, and usually in memory of someone who has since died.

This one was no different. On it was a plaque that said:

IN MEMORY OF
JOAN MARY CLINTON (NEE BLAKE)
1919-1997
WHO LOVED TO SPEND TIME ON 'THE HILL'
It was the first time I had been aware of this woman. But she must have been alive when I was still an Undergrad student at King Alfred's. For all I know, we may have walked past each other every time we went shopping on the high street. I may have even seen her sitting on a bench on St. Giles's Hill when I went up there from time to time, but never really paid attention to her or vice versa. And yet, I only came to know of her via a plaque on a bench, seven years after she died.

Above the skies were slate grey and overcast. Light seeped through the whiter parts of the cloud. Around me, a cold breeze wove around the hill, Winchester and all that dwelt within, as it had always done and would continue to do so.

I decided to go home. On the way I walked past a two-parent, two-young-kiddies family sitting on another bench, also dedicated to a person or persons now dead. The toddler - a boy - looked at my army surplus clothes and said, loudly, "Daddy, is that Action Man?" "Shh, son!" said Dad, with urgency - not harshness - in his voice, and more than a bit of embarrassment on his face. I tried not to laugh as I walked down the hill and back to town.

I was in my local boozer tonight with some other people who took exception to the loud, drunken idiocy of the undergrad oafs on the next table. To cut a long story short (I was clenching my fists in expectation while one friend baited the other lot by saying we were more intelligent 'cos I was doing a PhD and the one who was arguing with them had an MA), no violence took place. But we made our point clear.

I also learned something. Oh yes - pubs can teach you all sorts of things. Like how karaoke reveals that 90% of the UK is tone deaf. Or that latrines were not designed for men too drunk to aim properly.

But also, I found out the true origins of the word, 'Berk'. Now, according to my dictionary, this is slang for 'a stupid person' or 'fool'. It's also a shortened version of 'Berkeley Hunt', which is Cockney rhyming slang for the 'see-you-next-Tuesday' word and much of the Labour front bench.

Or so I thought. So I was a bit annoyed when I heard them call my friend one. But as he told them, this is a common misconception. The word 'berk' is in fact a corruption of the Old English word 'Berserk', which as any Viking Metal fan will tell you, is a crazed, frothing madman with lots of facial hair and an odd passion for battle axes.

In that sense, I really was a 'berk' as I was in the mood for a bit of a scrap. But they were 'berks' in the erroneous sense, at least until they got it through their pissed-up skulls that my friend was too cool and level headed to lose it, while I looked like I was all too willing. That sort of combination made them think again, so they quickly finished their drinks and scuttled back to whatever dank garret their fathers spend good money on for them. But then, what else do you expect from a bunch of ‘berks’ like that?

Oh, and as an aside, my hated ex-home town Slough is based in Berkshire, which is often abbreviated to 'Berks'. Which sums up the area perfectly. Ironically, just a train ride away is the town of Maidenhead, which shares its name with a medieval term for the hymen. Overall, these names all seem to make sense - Berkshire is full of sinkholes, despair, violent nutters and twats anyway.

How ironic that everyone's fave sawn-off little hitler David Blunkett has been caught being as human as the rest of us. Perhaps next time he'll think before getting so bloody self-righteous with us 'Liberati' poofs again. My only concern is that the families of Blunkett and his lover, Kimberly Fortier, don't suffer as a result of this. But knowing the invasive, bullying scum in the tabloid press, it seems doubtless they will.

But on a happier note, did you know this was all prophesised in the stars? It's true. Out of curiosity I fed Blunkko's date of birth into Astromart, and got the following predictions for today:

505 Conjunction Mercury - Venus
You will certainly have an amorous adventure, you will travel to see your heart's choice, you will be in a good mood

-88 Square Neptune - Venus
You will certainly have a secret affair and, if you are married, this can really complicate life... You could fall in love with a very feminine woman. She will bewitch you and you will lose all common sense, all your critical faculties, you will drink in her every word, completely admiringly. She will be able to do whatever she wants with you, and she will not miss the opportunity. You will accept no criticism from your circle about this relationship. You will be ready to get angry with your best friends for love of this beauty.

-79 Square Uranus - Jupiter
You will greatly need independence, you will feel a prisoner, trapped. You will rebel in order to gain your independence. You will not be able to stand the humdrum everyday existence, you will want to change your life. You will feel ill-at-ease and have the feeling that something amazing is passing you by. Often no big change comes about, so you are left with being ill-at-ease

-59 Square Mars - Neptune
Negative aspect: You will be in the power of very strong emotions. Your actions will be unreasonable, irresponsible, inexcusable and indefensible. You will certainly do stupid things that you will later regret. You must be as prudent as possible in this period.

-44 Opposition Pluto - Neptune
You will not be able to stand any constraint.

...So just remember, whatever happens, YOU READ IT HERE FIRST! Oh yes.

It looks like Manhunt has had a second lease of life... But not in a way that makes me very happy.

Everyone has missed the point of the game. It is very, very violent but it's also a very good satire. You may indulge in huge amounts of killing, but the game makes you feel like shit for doing it. At one point, one soon-to-be victim can be heard grumbling about how he wants to go home to his wife. Another mutters about how he was abused by his father. Yet another, if you beat him to death rather than 'execute' him, moans how glad he is that his life is finally over. This is in many ways more disturbing than the gore. And who can't help but feel pity for Pigsy? Even if he is chasing you with a chainsaw.

The media with all its shallow tat and cheap thrills are mocked too. The 'director' - the one who orders to you kill or be killed - is a disgraced member of the Hollywood establishment. He even tells you to hurry and kill someone as "we need this in the can by dawn". Ironically, he even slags off one victim as "a fat fuck watching porn", even though that applies to him too, and perhaps many of the game's players. He simply takes Hollywood's passion for the lowest common denominator and its power structure and takes it to its logical conclusion - cheap thrills mixed with real deaths. The reporter who exposes the snuff film ring isn't quite a Woodward & Bernstein either. She is shallow, bland and more about having a nice smile and a glossy finish as she makes her rather banal reports. In the end, she's not much of a heroine - in Manhunt, it's simply one part of a rotten media taking out a rather more rotten part of it.

And the game is about voyeurism. You spend the whole game killing while under the glare of CCTV cameras. We get to see gang members on the toilet. At one point, the main character has to watch his family getting murdered on video. We even get to look in to a clean, well-lit shop window - selling porn. But the bleakest moment is in one of the prison levels where the player finds himself in an execution chamber. There's still a dead prisoner in the electric chair, his eyes empty and vacant. And the base of the chair there is a huge dried puddle of piss and shit (which oozes out during such executions). It's not a pretty sight, so the player turns around and tries to leave. And it's then that he realises he's looking through a window into the viewing room, where people go to see the executions take place... Not very nice of course - some may even snort about this being a very 'American' way of doing things. But isn't that, in a sense, what the player has been doing throughout the whole game? Watching death after death in the safety of a 'viewing room' and getting a kick out of it..?

Manhunt is indeed very bleak, but in ways the media hasn't quite worked out. It leaves you wondering whether the real monster in the game is the one playing it.

What's the weather in Winchester like today? Outside my window, it is 75 degrees Fahrenheit right now. Tomorrow, it will be 77 degrees. Sunday will be hotter still – and could hit 84.2 degrees at its peak. All in all, I am a bit parched and will be hotter still when I go up St. Catherine's Hill later on this afternoon. Yet it will not as hot as it was in August 1990, when the temperature at Cheltenham was a blazing 98.78 degrees..!

But consider this, all those who moan about the heat. It'll be much, much nicer than the weather we will have in October. And it will be much colder still for the next five months thereafter. Never mind. All in all, it will give us lots of time to complain about the cold too...