Now anyone who remembers GhostWatch will certainly recall the main ghostly antagonist, Mr Pipes. Even now I hate saying that name as it sends genuine chills down my spine and for good reason. We first see Mr Pipes as a rudimentary child’s drawing of a man with a bleeding face, drawn by one of the daughters. Sarah Green then asks the young girl where she saw Mr pipes, the girl then leads Green and the camera crew to the door under the stairs and says something along the lines of “In there…he’s there now”. For some reason this in particular chilled us to the bone, maybe because as we thought it was real then just behind that little door was a real malicious entity. It was actually there. Mr Pipes also makes several physical appearances throughout the program as a man with a bloody face. Reflections in windows, stood by bedroom curtains in the dark and even in the studio with Parky et al. All blink and you’ll miss it appearances but enough to start making you twitch. Another chilling moment was when a recording was played of Mr Pipes talking to one of the girls and that unearthly sound will haunt me till the end of my days.

Certain aspects of the program when watched today seem obviously fake, like the acting skills of the psychology expert brought into the studio, Sarah Green and the two kids in particular. Easy to spot these days in hindsight but when you’re twelve it’s utterly convincing. Even though you know it to be fake GhostWatch still has the power to completely terrify you, I’m even getting slight freaked out just writing about it and I’m in the house on my own which isn’t helping. Terrify the nation it did in such a way that the BBC was probably not prepared for. Thousands of complaints flooded in from the British public, there were genuine cases of post traumatic stress disorder caused by the show in children and most tragically and eighteen year old man committed suicide five days after the program was shown. Apparently there were faulty water pipes in the house and he linked it to the show in some way. It was all rather extreme for a programme shown in an evening family slot and pimped out to kids by Sarah Green on the Saturday morning show Going Live.

Watch the program below, ignore some of the bad acting and you will still witness an utterly terrifying film, from its subtle beginnings to its quite frankly apocalyptic ending which to this day is one of the best scary movies ever made, not just by the BBC but by anyone. Watch it but seriously, I’m warning you now, if you’re at all sensitive to this kind of thing then do not watch it alone. I watched it for the first time since it was first on while writing this article and it still scared the shit out of me.

The following link is from the shows writer’s website.
http://www.stephenvolk.net/page19.htm

After Tony Blair pisses off home, our hero decides to have a bit of a dance to celebrate:

The next day Gordon Brown heads into town to buy some more boring books about finance and possibly even a book about murder. He also goes to the grocery store and buys an egg. Afterwards, he sees a political rival’s car in the parking lot and goes round the back to scratch it with his keys. Unfortunately, as our Gordon isn’t very good at stealth, he gets collared by a local copper by the bins.

He can’t even look at the officer, the shame is too much.

In a humiliation-fuelled rage, Gordon fucks off round the corner where he sees a meathead wearing an ‘I <3 Tony Blair’ t-shirt. It’s all just too much and he snaps, slapping the man in the face.

Jesus Christ…

Enraged, Gordon decides to visit the local library to try and calm down by trolling an internet forum.

It works and he decides to go to the beach for a BBQ cook-off contest.

Nobody talks to him. In fact, everybody steers well clear of the miserable shit, even though his hotdogs win the contest.

Lost in his own thoughts of despair, he tries a spot of night fishing. He doesn’t catch anything.

Then suddenly he spies a glinting from the corner of his eye. Its a chunk of raw silver! He quickly sprints to it before anyone else gets it.

That will add nicely to Gordon’s treasury.

Now then, I’d like to apologise for forgetting to take a few screenshots, as I was too wrapped up in the game.

Gordon’s new political career has surprisingly been going rather well, working his way back up from polishing podiums to a full blown campaign to become the Mayor of Sunset Valley. He has also made a couple of acquaintances and invites them over for a campaign fund-raiser. He even invites Tony. The party gets off to a cracking start with everybody dancing around Gordon’s hovel like people possessed. Gordon even wears jeans!

Gordon and Tony start to get down…

No idea who the child with extremely premature greying hair is. Probably one of Tony’s “friends”.

Tony and Frank Oz do some bizarre dance that I can’t even comprehend but blows my mind anyway.

All the guests and even Gordon have a fabulous time and donate a ton of cash to Gordon’s campaign fund. Overjoyed, Gordon goes to bed and sleeps soundly, without terrible nightmares for the first time in his life.

The next day Gordon is a changed man. Instead of wearing his trademark black suit he wears something a little more casual. He even goes for a bike ride!

He’s so happy that later at the park, Gordon gets back to nature catching butterflies.

Things could really be looking up for Gordon Brown, and for now his face is a little less the pallid grey colour of a month-old rotting corpse.

Will Gordon Brown become mayor or Sunset valley? Will Gordon and Tony’s friendship dissolve into chaos again? Will Gordon find true love?

All these questions will be answered soon. If I can be arsed.

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http://resolution-magazine.co.uk/content/review-wolfenstein/

I have to say, I thought it was great and it also has the highest amount of ‘nut-shots’ in any other game I’ve played. I can’t even explain why, my bullets just seemed to home in on the crotch of a vast amount of Nazis, much to my amusement.

It’s a great example of how the straight up classic mayhem of the old style first person shooter isn’t quite dead yet.

and this:

But what about those ‘Inspirational’ auditions. You know the ones. A father of two whose wife has died, or the lady who has just recovered from a life threatening condition – all very tragic stories, make no mistake, but the way the show’s producers exploit this is nothing short of sickening. But I’m not here for an angry rant today. I’m here to just highlight how daft the whole thing is. Take a look at this.

Talk about over the top, and bringing the poor kid on the stage? Well what can you say, really. I bet the producers were stood at the side of the stage with the kid, waiting for the peak of the inspirational song playing in the background at ear splitting levels, “aaaand, now kid! Go go go!” They use music as a kind of emotional bully literally trying to wrench those tears out of our abused tear ducts. My empathy quickly turned to anger as I realised what was happening and the channel was promptly changed to some other crap on the box in the corner of the room. I long for the days when the best thing on a Saturday tea-time was The A-Team.

It really does get worse each series and I think it might have even surpassed the American talent shows for pounding your face into a wall of saccharine sugar bricks.

More of this instead please:

Which is also completely exploiting this man. Still, at least it’s funny.

Originally posted on my blog  as a complementary article to my The Sims 3 review over on Resolution. Follow the misadventures of Gordon Brown in the virtual world of Sunset Valley.

Meet Mr G Brown:

After ‘epic failing’ his last political attempt he has moved to Sunset Valley to start his political career afresh. He arrives at his house on Sunday morning looking as grey and miserable as ever. Whilst surveying his new lodgings he spies his neighbour, who is also moving in this day.

But wait, this guy looks familiar… no, it can’t be… can it?

Oh God, it is him, it’s Tony Blair. Of all the wretched luck! Brown decides to ignore Tony for now and enters his new abode. Feeling peckish he decides to slurp up some very boring soup in a very boring way. Just look at that miserable face…

He then gets a boring bath of despair. Oddly, he appears to be a good mood.

After his bath Brown decides to have a wander round his new town, which looks very much like Hill Valley from Back to the Future.

All it needs is Doc Brown sliding down a wire from the clocktower in a thunderstorm.

Mr Brown wanders around for a while, looking with distain at the people and town he will ruin economically. Clutching his favorite book and trying not to touch anything, he wanders over to the park in the middle of town, where he bumps into his old friend/nemesis Tony Blair!

Tony is chatting up some old tart in a blond wig. Mr Brown ignores her and confronts Tony.

I can’t actually tell you what they were arguing about, because I can’t understand Sim, the gibberish language that these people talk, but I get hints on what might be going down with pictures in speech and thought bubbles – and if ever a picture said a thousand words then it’s this next one:

Prophetic?

Mr Brown goes home in a huff and clogs the toilet up with a massive turd. He attempts to unblock it himself but fails due to being completely incompetent. He phones a plumber to come and fix it.

A female plumber (wha… female plumber?!) arrives and forces  Mr Brown’s epic turd down the U-bend with a stick. Mr Brown, having no friends at all and being tragically lonely,  sees an opportunity to make a new friend and invites/forces the plumber to stay. They sit and watch tv in silence for about two hours:

Finally Mr Brown lets the terrified woman go. He then decides to go for a walk to the park, in the dark, where he sits on a bench, all alone again. It’s a hard life for the insanely boring.

On his boring walk home he decides to stop by and see his dear neighbour Tony Blair to try and patch things up – he needs at least one friend, and if it’s gotta be Tony then that’s how it’s gotta be. Tony lets him in and they have a strained conversation about how Tony likes to play the guitar and how Mr Brown’s favourite band is The Arctic Monkeys. But hang on a sec, look closely at the following picture. See anything wrong here?

Let’s take a closer look.

What the fuck? It’s a teenage boy lying on Tony’s bed (I honestly did not set this up). In this world Tony is unmarried and has no children, so just bear that in mind. Ahem, quickly moving on now.

After disagreeing with each other on many things:

They finally find some common ground and Mr Brown invites Tony round to his place to watch tv (and get away fom the creepy bedroom scene).

Is that a look of affection from Mr Brown, or a look of cold, calculating hatred?

Maybe it’s actually the start of something beautiful, though…

To be continued…