Would you like to read my new Christmas poem to get you in a Christmas mood? Here it is:

Christmas is a time of cheer,
Put yourself in a Christmas sphere,
Roll straight down a Christmas slope, 
"Merry Christmas!" - from his maj' the Pope.

That's a well wicked poem. It's better than you could do - and no mistake!!!

Why aren't there more Christmas-themed games? Well, it's pretty obvious. Why would you ask such a stupid question? Obviously, it's because of their limited shelf-life, and because they would melt on January 1st.

Consequently, most appearances from Christmas in games have been limited to single levels, or the Christmassing is pushed into the background - such as in Robocod - or are mini Christmas-themed instalments of otherwise popular games - such as Christmas Lemmings and Sega's Christmas NiGHTS Into Dreams.

​Here are ten other examples of the non-phenom' that is "Christmas games".

Do you know what's really embarrassing? Many years ago, Mr Steve Horsley and I ran a website called Bubblegun. Steve maintains it as an archive these days, so it's still out there if you want to go take a look. The writing, inevitably, makes me cringe a bit; it doesn't really feel like me anymore. However, there's one thing in particular that I wrote, which makes me cringe so hard I could burst a blood-vessel in my eye; I wrote a defence of The Phantom Menace.

Yes, I know. I was in denial. I wanted to love it in the way that I'd loved those original Star Wars movies, and so... I wrote that piece almost as a way to convince myself. I was trying to find elements of it to hang onto, to reassure myself it was my Star Wars. History has now adopted the consensus that The Phantom Menace is terrible. And I concur with that entirely.

Actually, no. Perhaps I don't. Perhaps it's more that I think The Phantom Menace, and the other prequels, are just really, really weird. Like, sort of bafflingly weird. Like they were made by somebody who had never seen a film before, and had only a passing familiarity with the Star Wars saga.

Anyway, last year I watched Rogue One, and as soon as I got back from the cinema I wrote about it on Digitiser2000, stating why I hadn't liked it. I saw it a second time a few weeks later, and changed my mind: I did like it after all.

So, rather than pen another gut-reaction piece, I have held off writing about The Last Jedi. It was easier this time, though, because I came out of the cinema last Thursday really unsure what I felt about the film.

I'm still not sure, because there are parts of it - that, as a Star Wars fan, as somebody who likes films - which I love. And there are other parts - as a Star Wars fan, and somebody who writes scripts for a living - that I think are, at best, misguided.

It's fair to say that The Last Jedi is proving - amid Star Wars fandom - similarly conflicted. Critics love it. Fans... aren't so sure. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 93% critic score, and a 56% audience score. There's a lot of vitriol on social media about the film... and a lot of websites writing articles about why fans are wrong to be angry. It has split fandom in two.

I say this: everyone who has ever written a single thing about The Last Jedi, post-release, is wrong. But also... completely right. 

Be warned; there might be one or two spoilers below.

The first year of Digitiser was bewildering in a lot of ways. We'd been isolated in our blissful little bubble for months, and been lulled into thinking that it would continue thus forever.

Teletext launched on January 1st 1993, and from the off it was clear that what we did and wrote on Digi could have ramifications on a national scale. Upsetting Amiga owners was the first indication of that reach.

Though we'd never explicitly stated that we wouldn't be covering the Amiga, we had - from day one - made it clear that our focus would be consoles, arcade games, and the PC.

Partly, this was because it was pretty apparent to anybody with a third of a brain that consoles were the future of gaming. Emap's Computer & Video Games had spun off into Mean Machines, and the latter magazine felt more exciting, due to its exclusive focus on console gaming. While we were demoing Digi, in the months leading up to Teletext's launch, Mean Machines itself had split into two - Mean Machines Sega and the officially-endorsed Nintendo Magazine System. A month later, Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and the media coverage had been unprecedented for a console game.

The Amiga had been around, one way or another, since 1985. The Amiga 500+ and Amiga 600 had been released in early 1992, and the Amiga 1200 towards the end of that year, but in terms of home computing, its rival the Atari ST was all but dead, and the PC was fast becoming the home computer of choice. Sales of the Amiga were declining, and there were fewer games being released for it.

The only people who still believed it had a future were Amiga owners - even if there was a sense that they were fooling themselves, like half-drowned passengers of the Titanic thinking that flapping their arms around and blowing a whistle would somehow prevent them from freezing to death.

To everyone else, the Amiga felt like the past, and - while teletext might not have been the most current medium - we at least wanted to try and capture the zeitgeist.

More pertinently, there was a bigger reason why we never reviewed Amiga games...

It was the UK premiere of Star Wars: The Last Jedi yesterday. Did you see the photos? Bruno Tonioli was there. I might be wrong, but I don't for a second believe that Bruno bloody Tonioli is a Star Wars fan. He's not going to appreciate the continuity in The Last Jedi, or have an emotional investment in the characters. Oh, Lucasfilm are always going on about how much they love the fans... but then they invite a bunch of E-list celebs to their premieres.

Why the Hell does he deserve to go to the premiere of a new Star Wars film over people who properly care?

"Because he's a TV personality."

I hate this world.

Look, it's Star Wars week, so you're going to have to indulge me. We've established that I'm obsessed with Star Wars. We've established that Star Wars toys were the only things I ever wanted for Christmas or my birthday as a child. And I've made it abundantly clear that - despite loving Star Wars - I'm not above giving it a kicking.

Therefore, here are the eleven Star Wars toys I consider my favourites... and all the things I found to criticise them about.

I started work at Teletext Ltd in the middle of September 1992 - over 25 years ago now. By December 1992, Digitiser already existed, although nobody outside of Teletext was getting to see it.

I remember the first moment I was introduced to Tim Moore; smart shirt, braces, long hair, loads of earrings. Our features editor once described him as "Teletext's style guru". He was trendy and I wasn't. He was a bit posh, and I wasn't. He was cool, and I wasn't. He was well educated, and I wasn't. I'd been a teenage dad, and he hadn't.

Initially, I found him a bit stand-offish, if I'm honest. I was only 21, and Tim was quite a bit older than me. I wanted him to like me, not least because we'd been forced together to write the new Teletext video games section that I'd proposed.  

On paper, we shouldn't have been mates, but we shared a compatible sense of humour, a similar outlook on life, and it's probably fair to say that neither of us were terribly well-suited to the structure of office work. Neither of us were particularly ambitious either I don't think; we just wanted to enjoy what we were doing.

At some point in those first couple of months at Teletext I started to consider Tim a mate. Though he wasn't as avid a gamer as I had been, I know he shared my feeling that we were incredibly lucky to have landed a job writing about games. We both really appreciated our good fortune.

In some respects, we were the worst possible combination of people. In all other respects... without Tim and I working together, Digitiser would never have happened in the way that it did.

It's a big week for me; the week that a brand new Star Wars film is released. Yeah, I know, loads of you couldn't care less. You think Disney is milking Star Wars for all its worth. Blah blah. Boring. Let's all crap over something that lots of people enjoy.

Unfortunately for you, sufficient millions of people still love Star Wars enough to ensure that Disney/LucasFilm continue the milking for the foreseeable future. 

Star Wars has always been synonymous with Christmas for me. The original Star Wars was released on the 27th of December 1977 in the UK. Though the next two movies were released in May and June, respectively, it began for me an association between Christmas and Star Wars. For my entire childhood, my Christmas wish lists were comprised almost entirely of Star Wars toys.

So, when LucasFilm started releasing these new Star Wars movies in December, it felt right. Furthermore, it sort of adds to the excitement of them.

The world premiere of The Last Jedi was held last Saturday night, which means that people have now seen the film. Reactions have been overwhelming positive (though lest we forget that they were for The Phantom Menace too, until the grim reality sunk in). The thing is, now that those outside of LucasFilm and Disney have seen the movie, there's a big chance that the film's surprises are going to leak.

Unfortunately, my issue isn't one of whether they leak... it's whether I can control myself enough not to go looking for those leaks.

It was Walt Disney's birthday yesterday. He probably wasn't celebrating it, because he's dead. Well, unless they throw parties for the frozen heads in cryogenic storage facilities.

Still, you've got to hand it to him; the feller spawned a company - and an empire - that has endured. Of course, such is the reach of Disney that it was inevitable that its tendrils would stretch into the world of video games. Admittedly, not every Disney game has been a classic - but when they've been good they've been very, very good. And when they've been bad they've been Disney Extreme Skateboarding.

​Here are ten of the better ones. 

We've all had that discussion about what we'd do if we were a millionaire. Do actual millionaires sit around talking about what they'd do if they were billionaires? And do billionaires talk about what they'd do if they were God? Or do they just run for president? Ha ha. Topical.

I don't tend to dwell on the old adage that money doesn't make you happy. Mainly because I'm pretty sure that the only real issues I have in my life could indeed be solved if I paid off my mortgage and cleared up a bunch of long-standing debts. 

Beyond that, I'd probably get a larger house - because we're cramped in here like voles in an old lunchbox - give a chunk to my sisters and parents, a bigger chunk to my kids, get married, support a cause, take the family on a holiday to Disney World, float around in Zero-G on the Vomit Comet, buy a Dalek, and grant myself the freedom to do a whole bunch of creative things. Just for starters anyway.

I guess, though, if you're unhappy - like, unhappy deep inside, or you suffer from depression or anxiety - no amount of money is really going to fix that, no matter how many Daleks you own. So, in that respect I'm pretty blessed. Still... as I've said, I've a pretty solid idea of what I'd blow it on if I did win the lottery. I doubt I'd remove myself entirely from social media, but I'd hope that I'd be too busy living a remarkable life to spend too much of my time engaging in silly arguments on the Internet. 

As the creator of Minecraft, Markus "Notch" Persson is a very wealthy man. A billionaire, according to Notch himself. He's also a prolific Twitter-er.

​With that money he could fly to the edge of space, explore the world, travel down to the wreck of the Titanic, have a picnic at the North Pole, cruise the globe, and give generously to charity. Maybe he does do some of that, but he clearly also enjoys provoking a reaction from people online.

​I guess... I'm just fascinated as to why.

Sounds; they truly are foods for your ears. And just as you never forget a good - or bad - casserole, you never forget a good - or bad - sound. Graphics and gameplay are but two of the elements which make up a game; another, perhaps less appreciated, is the sound. Yet think of your favourite games, and the music and effects are synonymous with the on-screen action.

Here 10 examples of video game sound which have stayed with me - sometimes for close to 30 years.

I love Disney almost as much as I love Star Wars. When my kids were younger, I spent far too much money taking them to Disney World. I've spent the years since I last visited wanting to go back, and I dream - almost daily (and that's not an exaggeration) of being able to afford to.

It's hard to pin down what it is about the place which got under my skin.

I think, partly, it's because, for an organisation of that size and scope, Disney has an incredible ability to make every customer feel special. It would be easy to be cynical, but until you've experienced The Happiest Place On Earth, I urge you not to judge. There's something unique about the Disney parks, that comes from a singular approach to customer service.

I mean, go to pretty much any UK theme park and it's night and day in comparison with Disney parks. They might have the rides, but they don't take things to the next level; theming will be the bare minimum, food will mostly be bog-standard fare, staff are more likely to spit at you than engage you in conversation.... Disney fans can be obsessive, but they're obsessive because Disney treats them like they matter. 

When Disney bought Marvel, and then Star Wars, I was optimistic. I couldn't think of another company  that could handle those properties better. I knew that they would put pleasing audiences, by emphasising the creative side of things, at the forefront of the movies. By doing that they knew that profits would follow, but - as it has proved to be - the product always comes before the bottom line. 

So you've got to imagine, given the unprecedented backlash against Battlefront 2, that Disney and LucasFilm are regretting ever handing Star Wars over to Electronic Arts to look after; a company that very evidently puts profit over product.