On the afternoon of September 11th 2001 I was playing Resident Evil: Code Veronica X on the PS2.
As far as I know. I mean, I'd always believed I'd been playing the Dreamcast version, but all evidence now points towards it being X on the PS2.
Regardless, my playing was interrupted by a call from Gavin, asking the question that was asked so many times that day: was I watching the news?
You don't need me to recount what happened next. The whole world knows what happened next. When those towers came down, the shockwaves radiated across the globe, and they're still radiating - rippling off one another, seemingly with no sign of them abating.
One of the early economic casualties of those shockwaves was the travel industry.
As news programmes started reporting that people were choosing not to fly or travel abroad, I started to get concerned. Teletext was mostly funded by ads for travel companies (in fact, these days, that's literally all it is - now known as Teletext Holidays). I was worried that it might in some way damage the company, which at that point I was still relying on for pretty much my entire income.
In my more nervous moments, I entertained the anxiety that they might start cutting back. For a long time, I had laboured under the belief that Digitiser was living on borrowed time, due to its troubled reputation, and something like this might just ring the bell at the end of the bar.
Unfortunately, I was right. It was time to drink up.
As far as I know. I mean, I'd always believed I'd been playing the Dreamcast version, but all evidence now points towards it being X on the PS2.
Regardless, my playing was interrupted by a call from Gavin, asking the question that was asked so many times that day: was I watching the news?
You don't need me to recount what happened next. The whole world knows what happened next. When those towers came down, the shockwaves radiated across the globe, and they're still radiating - rippling off one another, seemingly with no sign of them abating.
One of the early economic casualties of those shockwaves was the travel industry.
As news programmes started reporting that people were choosing not to fly or travel abroad, I started to get concerned. Teletext was mostly funded by ads for travel companies (in fact, these days, that's literally all it is - now known as Teletext Holidays). I was worried that it might in some way damage the company, which at that point I was still relying on for pretty much my entire income.
In my more nervous moments, I entertained the anxiety that they might start cutting back. For a long time, I had laboured under the belief that Digitiser was living on borrowed time, due to its troubled reputation, and something like this might just ring the bell at the end of the bar.
Unfortunately, I was right. It was time to drink up.
A DIFFERENT PLACE
Teletext was a very different place to the one I'd left; the senior editorial team was almost completely different.
Nobody there knew me, apart from a few long-termers. I never had cause to go into the office, so nobody ever got to know me. I was a disembodied person who wrote the thing that they'd all been warned was a pain in the chuff.
In early 2002, I got the call I'd been expecting. I was summoned to a meeting with the new Features Editor and his freshly-contracted deputy. I braced myself for bad news to a point, though I figured that if they were axing Digi, or firing me, they wouldn't have bothered dragging me all the way to Fulham to do it.
If you've been following this story from the beginning, you might be amused to learn that the new Features Editor and his Deputy Features Editor had exactly the same dynamic as their predecessors. The Features Editor was friendly, warm, almost apologetic. The Deputy Features Editor was one of the biggest J-holes I've ever had the misfortune to encounter. If not the biggest.
When I arrived, he didn't want to shake my hand, didn't make eye contact with me, barely even introduced himself. They led me into an office, with Gavin in tow, and he unsheathed a folder of documents. Bad news was obviously about to be delivered, but it wasn't so much the news itself that thumped me in the gut, as the manner in which it was delivered.
Teletext was a very different place to the one I'd left; the senior editorial team was almost completely different.
Nobody there knew me, apart from a few long-termers. I never had cause to go into the office, so nobody ever got to know me. I was a disembodied person who wrote the thing that they'd all been warned was a pain in the chuff.
In early 2002, I got the call I'd been expecting. I was summoned to a meeting with the new Features Editor and his freshly-contracted deputy. I braced myself for bad news to a point, though I figured that if they were axing Digi, or firing me, they wouldn't have bothered dragging me all the way to Fulham to do it.
If you've been following this story from the beginning, you might be amused to learn that the new Features Editor and his Deputy Features Editor had exactly the same dynamic as their predecessors. The Features Editor was friendly, warm, almost apologetic. The Deputy Features Editor was one of the biggest J-holes I've ever had the misfortune to encounter. If not the biggest.
When I arrived, he didn't want to shake my hand, didn't make eye contact with me, barely even introduced himself. They led me into an office, with Gavin in tow, and he unsheathed a folder of documents. Bad news was obviously about to be delivered, but it wasn't so much the news itself that thumped me in the gut, as the manner in which it was delivered.
NASTY PEOPLE
There was a degree of preamble explaining that because some nasty people had destroyed the World Trade Centre, Teletext was having to make some savings.
To this end, they could no longer afford to pay me as much money, and consequently would be cutting Digitiser back to three days a week.
This only made a certain degree of sense, as the amount of content wasn't being reduced - instead, the content that previously would've run on Tuesday and Thursday would be spread across the Monday, Wednesday and Friday updates.
I was too shocked to really know what to say about that at the time; all I could think of was that my salary was being cut in half.
What happened next had absolutely nothing to do with terrorism, or money.
I was told that, after coming to the conclusion that they could cut Digitiser, they'd been asked to take a very close look at the section's editorial content.
Among the documents that were produced as evidence were print-outs from Digitiser, articles from the Digitiser pages on Teletext.co.uk, copies of my contract, and pages from several Digitiser tribute websites, which had been set up by fans, including Chris Bell's brilliant Super Page 58. They ran through Man Diary, various reveal-o-jokes, even the way we linked to other sections on the site.
They laid out a case that Digitiser's humour "excluded" people, that it was too obscure and "Pythonesque" (as we all know, Monty Python's Flying Circus was a massive flop due to its obscure "Pythonesque" humour), that it wasn't "funny".
At no point did they flag up that it was offensive, or might upset people - simply that it was too weird to be on Teletext. They wanted it to fit in with the rest of the service, and for it to stop feeling so distinct. As it stood, in their eyes, Digitiser was out of place.
Then they started going through my contract in forensic detail. They wanted to know why I was being paid for articles on the Teletext website, when they were ones that had already run on Teletext. I explained the deal I'd been offered when I left.
All of this was delivered with a level of aggression that - I felt - was wholly unnecessary. This replacement Evil Deputy Features Editor - still new in the job at the time - missed no opportunity to go for the jugular, while his supposed senior manager sat there sort of shrugging, and apologising, and explaining that they'd been asked to do this, and he was sorry. He left all the hard work to his attack dog.
It was clear that this was more a case of someone trying to prove himself to his higher-ups, and I was the fall guy. Again, it did little to endear me to corporate power dynamics.
There was a degree of preamble explaining that because some nasty people had destroyed the World Trade Centre, Teletext was having to make some savings.
To this end, they could no longer afford to pay me as much money, and consequently would be cutting Digitiser back to three days a week.
This only made a certain degree of sense, as the amount of content wasn't being reduced - instead, the content that previously would've run on Tuesday and Thursday would be spread across the Monday, Wednesday and Friday updates.
I was too shocked to really know what to say about that at the time; all I could think of was that my salary was being cut in half.
What happened next had absolutely nothing to do with terrorism, or money.
I was told that, after coming to the conclusion that they could cut Digitiser, they'd been asked to take a very close look at the section's editorial content.
Among the documents that were produced as evidence were print-outs from Digitiser, articles from the Digitiser pages on Teletext.co.uk, copies of my contract, and pages from several Digitiser tribute websites, which had been set up by fans, including Chris Bell's brilliant Super Page 58. They ran through Man Diary, various reveal-o-jokes, even the way we linked to other sections on the site.
They laid out a case that Digitiser's humour "excluded" people, that it was too obscure and "Pythonesque" (as we all know, Monty Python's Flying Circus was a massive flop due to its obscure "Pythonesque" humour), that it wasn't "funny".
At no point did they flag up that it was offensive, or might upset people - simply that it was too weird to be on Teletext. They wanted it to fit in with the rest of the service, and for it to stop feeling so distinct. As it stood, in their eyes, Digitiser was out of place.
Then they started going through my contract in forensic detail. They wanted to know why I was being paid for articles on the Teletext website, when they were ones that had already run on Teletext. I explained the deal I'd been offered when I left.
All of this was delivered with a level of aggression that - I felt - was wholly unnecessary. This replacement Evil Deputy Features Editor - still new in the job at the time - missed no opportunity to go for the jugular, while his supposed senior manager sat there sort of shrugging, and apologising, and explaining that they'd been asked to do this, and he was sorry. He left all the hard work to his attack dog.
It was clear that this was more a case of someone trying to prove himself to his higher-ups, and I was the fall guy. Again, it did little to endear me to corporate power dynamics.
AND SO...
I've had a lot of difficult meetings in my career, but have never had another where anybody has behaved in a way that felt so wholly unprofessional and unpleasant.
Ultimately, they left me no choice: I either quit, and lost all income there and then - as a freelancer, I had no notice period - or I had to suck up the new deal I was being offered: continue writing Digitiser, but with no "excluding, weird humour", no "surreal characters", running nothing controversial, and doing the same amount of work (albeit over three days instead of seven), while getting paid half as much.
I was still reeling from battles fought on the homefront, and scarcely had the strength for another fight. I just sat there and took it, defending Digitiser as best I could with the resources I had, but it was clearly a done deal. There was no negotiation to be had.
As I left I shook the hand of the Features Editor, and though I'd given the New Evil Deputy Features Editor no reason to dislike me personally, I'd been polite and compliant - excessively so given the circumstances - he turned his back on me.
If I was going to take anything with me from that room it was the moral high ground. Plus, the idea of shaking my hand - after how he'd just behaved - clearly made him uncomfortable.
So I made sure it happened, whether he liked it or not.
I've had a lot of difficult meetings in my career, but have never had another where anybody has behaved in a way that felt so wholly unprofessional and unpleasant.
Ultimately, they left me no choice: I either quit, and lost all income there and then - as a freelancer, I had no notice period - or I had to suck up the new deal I was being offered: continue writing Digitiser, but with no "excluding, weird humour", no "surreal characters", running nothing controversial, and doing the same amount of work (albeit over three days instead of seven), while getting paid half as much.
I was still reeling from battles fought on the homefront, and scarcely had the strength for another fight. I just sat there and took it, defending Digitiser as best I could with the resources I had, but it was clearly a done deal. There was no negotiation to be had.
As I left I shook the hand of the Features Editor, and though I'd given the New Evil Deputy Features Editor no reason to dislike me personally, I'd been polite and compliant - excessively so given the circumstances - he turned his back on me.
If I was going to take anything with me from that room it was the moral high ground. Plus, the idea of shaking my hand - after how he'd just behaved - clearly made him uncomfortable.
So I made sure it happened, whether he liked it or not.
ON BROADWAY
I sat on a bench at Fulham Broadway station utterly numbed, feeling like I'd been mugged.
If they'd picked up on any innuendo, or stuff that was offensive, I'd have held my hands up and said "Fair enough". Instead, they zeroed in on everything that had made Digitiser popular: its character, its uniqueness, its sense of fun.
The first people I told were the Panel 4 columnists: as part of Digitiser's de-funnying, they were to be axed. Stuart Campbell, quite rightly, was appalled, and went online to say as much.
At the time, I felt his anger didn't help the situation - I was scared, and worried that he might tip them over the edge.
There was going to be period of scrutiny and probation, essentially, and I didn't want to draw any further unnecessary attention to Digitiser, or make it feel like the section was even more trouble than they already seemed to view it as.
But then, Stuart had just lost work... and I was probably just watching my own back in case I lost my income altogether.
The next people I spoke to were those who ran the Digitiser tribute sites - the ones which flagged up all the weird humour and strangeness that audiences seemed to love. I asked if they could, until the heat subsided, take them down. They had every right to tell me to get lost, but were all perfect gentlemen about it.
And then I had to decide how I was going to continue to pay all my bills.
I sat on a bench at Fulham Broadway station utterly numbed, feeling like I'd been mugged.
If they'd picked up on any innuendo, or stuff that was offensive, I'd have held my hands up and said "Fair enough". Instead, they zeroed in on everything that had made Digitiser popular: its character, its uniqueness, its sense of fun.
The first people I told were the Panel 4 columnists: as part of Digitiser's de-funnying, they were to be axed. Stuart Campbell, quite rightly, was appalled, and went online to say as much.
At the time, I felt his anger didn't help the situation - I was scared, and worried that he might tip them over the edge.
There was going to be period of scrutiny and probation, essentially, and I didn't want to draw any further unnecessary attention to Digitiser, or make it feel like the section was even more trouble than they already seemed to view it as.
But then, Stuart had just lost work... and I was probably just watching my own back in case I lost my income altogether.
The next people I spoke to were those who ran the Digitiser tribute sites - the ones which flagged up all the weird humour and strangeness that audiences seemed to love. I asked if they could, until the heat subsided, take them down. They had every right to tell me to get lost, but were all perfect gentlemen about it.
And then I had to decide how I was going to continue to pay all my bills.
MOVING ON
Over the ensuing days, it hit me hard.
It made me realise how much Digitiser still meant to me. How much it was a part of me. How true to me it had always been.
In tearing it apart, they were tearing me apart. If Digitiser was wrong in some way, I was wrong. I'd already had my fill of feeling that way. I was already at a low, and this pushed me further down. I had to find a solution, but in the meantime I did what I was told, and went through the motions, producing a version of Digitiser that was the antithesis of the one I'd been writing for almost nine years.
The one that proudly called itself The World's Only Daily Games Magazine - but seemed to be so much more than that to so many people.
One thing I did do was start recycling Turner the Worm. I'd had almost a decade of stories stored up, the kids who'd read the earlier instalments were unlikely to still be reading, and most of the original Teletext staff had moved on. Nobody would notice, and - if they were going to pay me less - I sure as hell wasn't going to do more work than was absolutely necessary.
NEXT YEAR
Over the next year, my TV work picked up. I successfully lobbied for a job writing on the brilliant kids' sitcom My Parents Are Aliens. Then I got accepted onto the EastEnders Shadow Scheme - where you learn the ropes of writing for the flagship soap. As Digitiser limped along in the background, it started looking as if I could actually make a career out of writing TV shows.
As he had before, Gavlar would pop round several times during the week - he lived around the corner from me - with selected mail from the Digitiser postbag. There had been an unexpected upside to Stuart Campbell's public outrage: it drew attention to what had happened.
We hadn't made an announcement on screen that Digitiser was losing its characters and humour: it simply went away overnight. People would've noticed the difference, of course, but because of what Stuart did they knew that it had come from Teletext's managers. They were the ones who had decided to take away a thing that people loved.
And rather than subside, the letters kept coming, in ever greater numbers. And they kept coming... and coming...
...And in the words of the great Alan Partridge: needless to say I had the last laugh.
CONTINUE READING...
Over the ensuing days, it hit me hard.
It made me realise how much Digitiser still meant to me. How much it was a part of me. How true to me it had always been.
In tearing it apart, they were tearing me apart. If Digitiser was wrong in some way, I was wrong. I'd already had my fill of feeling that way. I was already at a low, and this pushed me further down. I had to find a solution, but in the meantime I did what I was told, and went through the motions, producing a version of Digitiser that was the antithesis of the one I'd been writing for almost nine years.
The one that proudly called itself The World's Only Daily Games Magazine - but seemed to be so much more than that to so many people.
One thing I did do was start recycling Turner the Worm. I'd had almost a decade of stories stored up, the kids who'd read the earlier instalments were unlikely to still be reading, and most of the original Teletext staff had moved on. Nobody would notice, and - if they were going to pay me less - I sure as hell wasn't going to do more work than was absolutely necessary.
NEXT YEAR
Over the next year, my TV work picked up. I successfully lobbied for a job writing on the brilliant kids' sitcom My Parents Are Aliens. Then I got accepted onto the EastEnders Shadow Scheme - where you learn the ropes of writing for the flagship soap. As Digitiser limped along in the background, it started looking as if I could actually make a career out of writing TV shows.
As he had before, Gavlar would pop round several times during the week - he lived around the corner from me - with selected mail from the Digitiser postbag. There had been an unexpected upside to Stuart Campbell's public outrage: it drew attention to what had happened.
We hadn't made an announcement on screen that Digitiser was losing its characters and humour: it simply went away overnight. People would've noticed the difference, of course, but because of what Stuart did they knew that it had come from Teletext's managers. They were the ones who had decided to take away a thing that people loved.
And rather than subside, the letters kept coming, in ever greater numbers. And they kept coming... and coming...
...And in the words of the great Alan Partridge: needless to say I had the last laugh.
CONTINUE READING...
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART NINE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART EIGHT by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART SEVEN by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART SIX by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART FIVE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART FOUR by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART THREE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART TWO by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART ONE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: 16-BIT - PART TWO by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: 16-BIT - PART ONE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: THE ARCADES - PART ONE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: THE ARCADES - PART TWO by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: SEGA MASTER SYSTEM - PART ONE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: SEGA MASTER SYSTEM - PART TWO by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: ATARI - PART ONE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: ATARI - PART TWO by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: THE ZX SPECTRUM PART ONE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: THE ZX SPECTRUM PART TWO by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART NINE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART EIGHT by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART SEVEN by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART SIX by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART FIVE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART FOUR by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART THREE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART TWO by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: DIGITISER - PART ONE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: 16-BIT - PART TWO by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: 16-BIT - PART ONE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: THE ARCADES - PART ONE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: THE ARCADES - PART TWO by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: SEGA MASTER SYSTEM - PART ONE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: SEGA MASTER SYSTEM - PART TWO by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: ATARI - PART ONE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: ATARI - PART TWO by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: THE ZX SPECTRUM PART ONE by Mr Biffo
GAMES OF MY YEARS: THE ZX SPECTRUM PART TWO by Mr Biffo
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