Hey - remember that 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony? You know: when Mr Bean was ferried around the Olympic Stadium on Prince Phillip's shoulders, while The Queen ate fish and chips off of a Union Jack picnic blanket, and Stephen Fry filled a red, white and blue bowler hat with chicken korma, as Coldplay - dressed as Beefeaters and Pearly Kings - performed Jerusalem with JK Rowling?
Remember how proud we all were to be British, for a month or so? Never mind, eh.
Anyhow... later this week, we can all be proud to be Brazilian instead, when the 2016 Rio Olympics kicks off (what's their opening ceremony going to be? A load of carnival performers in thongs eating Brazil nuts, while Pelé gives a talk about the country's rich biodiversity? Pfffft!).
I can't say I'm hugely thrilled at the prospect of several weeks of sport filling the telly schedules. Still, I'll probably watch some of it, time differences permitting, just to say I have. You know: so I don't feel like a complete leper.
As I've previously stated on here... that gene which makes people interested in, and good at, sport... well, I don't have it. I have the opposite of that gene. I have a big hole where that gene is meant to be, and it's filled with Star Wars trivia, and pictures of sloths, and the list of controls to Far Cry Primal.
Remember how proud we all were to be British, for a month or so? Never mind, eh.
Anyhow... later this week, we can all be proud to be Brazilian instead, when the 2016 Rio Olympics kicks off (what's their opening ceremony going to be? A load of carnival performers in thongs eating Brazil nuts, while Pelé gives a talk about the country's rich biodiversity? Pfffft!).
I can't say I'm hugely thrilled at the prospect of several weeks of sport filling the telly schedules. Still, I'll probably watch some of it, time differences permitting, just to say I have. You know: so I don't feel like a complete leper.
As I've previously stated on here... that gene which makes people interested in, and good at, sport... well, I don't have it. I have the opposite of that gene. I have a big hole where that gene is meant to be, and it's filled with Star Wars trivia, and pictures of sloths, and the list of controls to Far Cry Primal.
LET'S (NOT) GET PHYSICAL
My family love to watch sport, but none of us have ever been particularly physical.
My dad apparently played basketball before I was born - he tells the story of how he competed against an American team the night JFK was assassinated - but since I've been alive he has always been a passive spectator.
Growing up, I tried so hard to like football, to show an interest, but it just wasn't there. I had a Watford FC scarf, I went to the 1984 FA Cup Final, I had the Panini Stickers, and a pair of football boots.
But none of that made me a sports fan any more than standing on a rock with a bucket on my head, shouting "NEIL ARMSTRONG!", makes me an astronaut. When it became apparent that football slid off me like butter on a heated iron, I would tell myself that it was my way of rebelling against being raised in a family where football was religion.
That way it could feel like a conscious choice, rather than what it really felt like: a defect. Y'know: in the way that some people don't like ketchup. And it isn't just football - it's all the sports. Every single one of them.
Believe me, I know - I worked for Ladbrokes, then Wembley Stadium; two of the most sport-heavy environments it is possible to conceive of. It was the equivalent of a ketchup-phobe working for Heinz, in addition to coming from a family where in lieu of breakfast, lunch and dinner, they just ate ketchup from a trough.
It seems I just can't escape sport. Heck, I'm even in the process of acquiring a former Olympic athlete as a father-in-law, adding further insult to injury. I mean, I'd rather it wasn't the case; I take no pride in having no interest in sport. It'd make life so much easier, socially, if I was able to engage with other people about the... y'know... the thing about the footballer who did the thing at the weekend..
But I can't. Unfortunately, when writing Digitiser it meant that, sometimes, I had to.
My family love to watch sport, but none of us have ever been particularly physical.
My dad apparently played basketball before I was born - he tells the story of how he competed against an American team the night JFK was assassinated - but since I've been alive he has always been a passive spectator.
Growing up, I tried so hard to like football, to show an interest, but it just wasn't there. I had a Watford FC scarf, I went to the 1984 FA Cup Final, I had the Panini Stickers, and a pair of football boots.
But none of that made me a sports fan any more than standing on a rock with a bucket on my head, shouting "NEIL ARMSTRONG!", makes me an astronaut. When it became apparent that football slid off me like butter on a heated iron, I would tell myself that it was my way of rebelling against being raised in a family where football was religion.
That way it could feel like a conscious choice, rather than what it really felt like: a defect. Y'know: in the way that some people don't like ketchup. And it isn't just football - it's all the sports. Every single one of them.
Believe me, I know - I worked for Ladbrokes, then Wembley Stadium; two of the most sport-heavy environments it is possible to conceive of. It was the equivalent of a ketchup-phobe working for Heinz, in addition to coming from a family where in lieu of breakfast, lunch and dinner, they just ate ketchup from a trough.
It seems I just can't escape sport. Heck, I'm even in the process of acquiring a former Olympic athlete as a father-in-law, adding further insult to injury. I mean, I'd rather it wasn't the case; I take no pride in having no interest in sport. It'd make life so much easier, socially, if I was able to engage with other people about the... y'know... the thing about the footballer who did the thing at the weekend..
But I can't. Unfortunately, when writing Digitiser it meant that, sometimes, I had to.
PONG PING
The first sports game I ever remember playing was - I suppose - Pong. Or whatever variation of it I had on our Binatone TV game. That scarcely counts though; it was as much a convincing simulation of tennis as a worm writing on a sandwich would be a faithful recreation of the Battle of Agincourt.
The next one I can remember was World Games on my mate Phil's Commodore 64, and that's only because it made me laugh when the guy doing the cliff diving hit his head on the rocks.
The rest of the sports on offer in that collection... I couldn't handle the way you had to tap the buttons like a mentalist over-squashing an ant, and waggle the joystick back and forth (please... we're past those sort of jokes, aren't we?).
That button-mashing was also in evidence on the Track & Field cabinet at my local leisure centre. Boys - that's not sexist; they actually were boys - would gather around it after games, and do their tapping.
I hung around on the fringes, still sweaty from my judo lesson - the one sport I was ever any good at, (because all it basically involves is falling on top of people and just laying there while they try to push you off them) - knowing that this tapping was a skill beyond the dexterity vacuum with which I'd been blessed.
The first sports game I ever remember playing was - I suppose - Pong. Or whatever variation of it I had on our Binatone TV game. That scarcely counts though; it was as much a convincing simulation of tennis as a worm writing on a sandwich would be a faithful recreation of the Battle of Agincourt.
The next one I can remember was World Games on my mate Phil's Commodore 64, and that's only because it made me laugh when the guy doing the cliff diving hit his head on the rocks.
The rest of the sports on offer in that collection... I couldn't handle the way you had to tap the buttons like a mentalist over-squashing an ant, and waggle the joystick back and forth (please... we're past those sort of jokes, aren't we?).
That button-mashing was also in evidence on the Track & Field cabinet at my local leisure centre. Boys - that's not sexist; they actually were boys - would gather around it after games, and do their tapping.
I hung around on the fringes, still sweaty from my judo lesson - the one sport I was ever any good at, (because all it basically involves is falling on top of people and just laying there while they try to push you off them) - knowing that this tapping was a skill beyond the dexterity vacuum with which I'd been blessed.
DONALD TRUMP? HOCKEY HOCKEY OI!
I would do whatever it took to get out of reviewing the sports games on Digi.
The first time I enjoyed a proper sports game was EA Hockey, but I enjoyed the fights more than the hockey... and lost interest in the series when EA signed a deal with the NHL, who insisted that the fights should be removed.
I bought John Madden Football, but never really knew what was going on. And I tried various racing games, but I've never been very capable at them (unless you count Mario Kart - even then, I enjoyed the balloon-bursting more than the racing).
When I used to freelance for other magazines, I once got commissioned to write a 3,000 word lead review for a motorbike racing game, the name of which escapes me.
Without the necessary knowledge of the sport, or any incentive in learning about it or the intricacies of customising and fine-tuning my bike, I struggled. I'd pretty much said all I wanted to say within the first 300 words. What followed was an exercise in padding that turned a 32AA into an unconvincing and lopsided 42FF.
Super Tennis on the SNES was different, though. It was a gateway to an enduring appreciation of other tennis games. I also discovered - through reviewing them for Digitiser - that I liked snowboarding games, much to my surprise. That was as much the aesthetics of the setting as anything; I liked the sense of isolation, the sounds, and the feeling of gliding. As snowboarding games became increasingly sort of 'ski dude-y' I drifted away from them.
Snow-drifted away from them. Ha ha. HAHAHA.
I would do whatever it took to get out of reviewing the sports games on Digi.
The first time I enjoyed a proper sports game was EA Hockey, but I enjoyed the fights more than the hockey... and lost interest in the series when EA signed a deal with the NHL, who insisted that the fights should be removed.
I bought John Madden Football, but never really knew what was going on. And I tried various racing games, but I've never been very capable at them (unless you count Mario Kart - even then, I enjoyed the balloon-bursting more than the racing).
When I used to freelance for other magazines, I once got commissioned to write a 3,000 word lead review for a motorbike racing game, the name of which escapes me.
Without the necessary knowledge of the sport, or any incentive in learning about it or the intricacies of customising and fine-tuning my bike, I struggled. I'd pretty much said all I wanted to say within the first 300 words. What followed was an exercise in padding that turned a 32AA into an unconvincing and lopsided 42FF.
Super Tennis on the SNES was different, though. It was a gateway to an enduring appreciation of other tennis games. I also discovered - through reviewing them for Digitiser - that I liked snowboarding games, much to my surprise. That was as much the aesthetics of the setting as anything; I liked the sense of isolation, the sounds, and the feeling of gliding. As snowboarding games became increasingly sort of 'ski dude-y' I drifted away from them.
Snow-drifted away from them. Ha ha. HAHAHA.
NO MATES
We rarely got invited anywhere when we were writing Digitiser - despite our impressive readership figures, few PR people really wanted to believe that Digitiser had the reach it did.
It probably didn't help that we often insulted them on our pages.
That wasn't a huge issue, mind; Mr Hairs and I are chronically unsociable people, and wouldn't have wanted to go to most things. It just would've been nice to have been asked.
However, we did get an invite - thanks to our celebrity stalker Violet Berlin - from US Gold, to attend a press trip to Norway in support of their 1994 Winter Olympics game.
I didn't care about the game; I just enjoyed that we got to go on the bobsleigh, and was stunned that somebody would've paid us to go to another country for a weekend.
In fact, it might've been the first time we had any direct contact with other games journos. Violet - though I don't think she had yet started writing her column for Digi - would remain our conduit to the rest of the industry for the remainder of Digi's life.
We rarely got invited anywhere when we were writing Digitiser - despite our impressive readership figures, few PR people really wanted to believe that Digitiser had the reach it did.
It probably didn't help that we often insulted them on our pages.
That wasn't a huge issue, mind; Mr Hairs and I are chronically unsociable people, and wouldn't have wanted to go to most things. It just would've been nice to have been asked.
However, we did get an invite - thanks to our celebrity stalker Violet Berlin - from US Gold, to attend a press trip to Norway in support of their 1994 Winter Olympics game.
I didn't care about the game; I just enjoyed that we got to go on the bobsleigh, and was stunned that somebody would've paid us to go to another country for a weekend.
In fact, it might've been the first time we had any direct contact with other games journos. Violet - though I don't think she had yet started writing her column for Digi - would remain our conduit to the rest of the industry for the remainder of Digi's life.
MONIC THE PLUMBHOG
I've yet to play any of those Mario & Sonic Olympics games, and I won't be bothering with Rio 2016.
In part it's because it makes me feel a little nauseous and sad seeing Sonic and Mario in the same image together - let alone fannying around with one another in a stadium. It's a bit like H from Steps being awarded with a guest vocal spot on a Muse album.
And is my perception wrong, or are they just button-mashers, and d-pad wranglers? I don't want to have to do that. I already know my sense of rhythm is about as consistent as a trapped and panicked fox tapping his muzzle on the inner wall of a skip.
Sports and sports games, then. Probably not for me.
I've yet to play any of those Mario & Sonic Olympics games, and I won't be bothering with Rio 2016.
In part it's because it makes me feel a little nauseous and sad seeing Sonic and Mario in the same image together - let alone fannying around with one another in a stadium. It's a bit like H from Steps being awarded with a guest vocal spot on a Muse album.
And is my perception wrong, or are they just button-mashers, and d-pad wranglers? I don't want to have to do that. I already know my sense of rhythm is about as consistent as a trapped and panicked fox tapping his muzzle on the inner wall of a skip.
Sports and sports games, then. Probably not for me.
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