INKY SQUIGGLES

When I think of the first video games I ever played, my thoughts gravitate towards titles like Zelda: Ocarina of Time (my first experience of an epic 3D quest) and Discworld (my first taste of maddening moon logic). These games had a profound impact on me; they opened me up to exciting new worlds that seemed, at the time, without limit. These worlds were so immersive and engaging that they remain firmly entrenched in my memory over twenty years later. To this day, the mnemonic 'twenty-three is number one' (the order in which you need to beat a series of deku scrubs in Zelda: OoT ) is more stubbornly etched in my memory than my own phone number. But when I think back further, it's not quite true that this was my first exposure to video games. The nineties and early noughties saw the increased affordability and mainstream adoption of personal computers in both homes and – for the first time – schools. This led to an edutainment (or educational video games) boom, and my UK p

J. Jonah Jameson, the editor everyone loves to hate, in  Marvel Knights Spider-Man The internet is teeming with people and companies marketing ultra-competitive editing and proofreading services. For the UK market alone, there's Dissertation Britain, British Proofreading, London Proofreaders, Oxbridge Editing, Cambridge Editing... and ever on. Quantity doesn't denote quality, however (Oxbridge 'connection' or no), and such a competitive landscape inevitably breeds unscrupulous individuals who run their businesses like the editing equivalent of a sausage factory. I should know – I worked for one early in my editing career, after all (my ex-employer would probably even agree with this assessment; he 'hilariously' referred to the company as a 'sausage factory' on more than one occasion). While their services might be comparatively cheap, you wouldn't want to pay for a manuscript with the editorial integrity of reconstituted mystery meat (this could act

Throughout the pandemic, one international location in particular haunted my imagination : South Germany. While locked down, I took advantage of my daily exercise allowance of a single socially distanced outing in my local area. However, while I'm lucky to have access to abundant pretty, green spaces, my hometown is also a place where noteworthy sheep regularly make the front-page news. Like everyone else in the world, I craved a change of scenery – so I turned to the immersive worlds of books, films and adventure games to transport me from my somewhat fertiliser-seasoned surroundings. And, with its majestic forests, fairytale castles and melding of medieval and modern locales, the setting of FMV adventure game  Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within  gave me the perfect fantasy fuel. Better yet, it was rooted in reality; this was somewhere I might actually go someday – as fellow adventure game fans  AdventureGameGeek and IPKISS4LIFE had before me. So, as soon as international travel

Spot the difference. Embracing the four-eyed life I'd been wearing glasses for around twenty years, after a short-lived phase in early secondary school of 'forgetting' my pair in an effort to look cool. Somehow the penalty -- squinting in vain across the dining hall for familiar faces -- seemed worth it at the time.  'You really need to wear these at all times,' my horrified optician scolded me after I casually revealed this. And so I came to terms with the fact that some things -- like seeing where I'm going -- should probably rank above others -- like whether my glasses clashed with my outfit. Eventually, I even grew to like my glasses, assimilating them into my style and routinely opting for their familiar comfort over the hassle and waste of contact lenses. So when the time came to refresh my pair, which had -- quite literally -- seen me through multiple job and house moves, a postgraduate course and a pandemic, I took the task seriously. I spent hours combi

What's it about? 'Tsukimi Kurashita has a strange fascination with jellyfish. She’s loved them from a young age and has carried that love with her to her new life in the big city of Tokyo. There, she resides in Amamizukan, a safe haven for girl geeks who regularly gush over a range of things from trains to Japanese dolls. However, a chance meeting at a pet shop has Tsukimi crossing paths with one of the things that the residents of Amamizukan have been desperately trying to avoid – a beautiful and fashionable woman! But there’s much more to this woman than her trendy clothes! This odd encounter is only the beginning of a new and unexpected path for Tsukimi and her friends.' [Kindle edition blurb] Things I loved I'm a sucker for slice-of-life josei manga geared towards an older female audience – they're such unicorns! – so the premise of this and its quirkily charming art style immediately appealed to me.  I was also impressed by its focus on an often overlooked grou