First of all, I really enjoyed the whole day. Highlights for me were Chris Heathcote’s food-tasting masterclass and Alby’s mass mousetrap madness. I had a section too, this year, and having invested so much time in this one, I was, like Russell, incredibly moved by the general goodwill of both punters and performers.

By way of thanks, here’s a very VERY quick bit of behind-the-scenes and some responses.

Hack Circus came about because Russell offered me an hour to do ‘whatever I want’. This is exactly the kind of brief I love, although the result might not have been that surprising to anyone familiar with my usual output! Let me just undermine my gratitude to Russell and everyone involved right now, by saying that this was a massive indulgence for me. It was a treat to be able to spend some time with some of my very favourite people. If anyone else enjoyed it, well, that’s a bonus.

We had an incredible performance from the over-booked, unbearably talented Sarah Angliss. I don’t think anyone was prepared for quite how good that was going to be. She even offered some impromptu (and very popular) theremin lessons afterwards. It’s important to stress: Sarah had other stuff on that day. She’d come up from BRIGHTON, for god’s sake. But she left for a bit, she came back, she played, she chatted. She had time for everyone. Mark Hibbett was wonderful, too, embracing the brief and getting everyone on their feet at 11am on a Saturday. The Nine Owls in a Baguette guys were tremendous sports – the band brought an analogue synth the size of an upturned sofa. In a taxi. AND were all set up by the time I arrived at the hall at 9am. The TNMOC volunteers (volunteers!) had embarked on a week-long military operation just to get me the things I asked, a series of precarious steps further troubled by the fact the principle instigator of the mission, Cray supercomputer expert and teletype restorer Adam, isn’t yet old enough to drive. James Adam had actual meetings with me about what he could hack together out of his receipt printer, and one of my best and oldest friends Sandy made the trip down from Edinburgh with a bulging bag of hardware.

All I had to do was ask them.

The feedback from the performers and the audience has been good…

• Mark Hibbett said the image of the whole room dancing to his song will “stay with him in his heart forever”, and was a highlight for many
• Polargraph-maker Sandy thought fellow circuser Sarah was “crushingly exceptional”
• Anjali considers James‘s semi-aware printer TimmyPrintFace to be the new Bubbleino
• Nine Owls and a Baguette and Dave Cranmer‘s creations were intensely photographed and Dave has already collated some of the pics of his gorgeous tech
• The young volunteers from the National Museum of Computing, and in particular their Domesday machine raised actual cheers from the crowds
• and everyone loved Sandy’s invention, the polargraph.

They are an excellent agency and I’m really enjoying it. It’s creative and interesting, and as a result I’m sure you’ll understand why I’ve now axed everything else I used to do. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all paid off, now, and in a better way than I could have imagined.

I’m still blogging my weekly news and latest thoughts about games or making or whatever, on Fridays, at Final Bullet. I might blog the odd thing here as well, if there’s anything worth sharing.

Feels like things are really, really good at the moment.

If you’re interested in the idea of a newspaper about doing things you’re not supposed to, and you’ve enjoyed or learned something from any of the bits of free entertainment I’ve supplied over the years, then maybe you can spare £4 for a limited edition issue 2 of Hackers!, the first thing I’ve ever had the audacity to charge for, and help safeguard this project, which currently isn’t covering its own costs.

I think this issue is excellent, exactly as I pictured it, and although it’s a lot of work, it’s very much all I want to be doing with my time. There are amazing writers, like Becky Hogge and Alby Reid and Jake Eliot, who have done this for the love of the ideas and nothing more, and thoroughly deserve to be remunerated for their exceptional talent. However, it might be the last issue I can afford to do for a while – the postage and design costs mean it’s not sustainable at the moment. Get it from the website or in person, or talk to me about a bulk buy if you think your office reception should be shipping them in as a regular subscription. You can write it off as expenses, I bet.

I’m interested in hearing from potential sponsors and advertisers, too; this paper goes out to major agencies in London and clever techy companies and individuals all round the world.

I decided I should make something fast, to back up that talk I’ve been doing lately. To that end, my friend Tim and I have spent most of our free time over the last couple of months writing a new humour website called Extreme Acts of Kindness. It’s a bit embarrassing, how much we’ve been laughing at our own jokes. Anyway, Tom built the amazing website – mostly over this weekend when he should have been relaxing – and we think it’s ready to show the world.

When you’ve got the gist of it, you can join in by using the #eaok hashtag on Twitter. We have a couple of spare “Sorry you were…” postcards; if you have a funny concept for a photo like the one above, let me know and I’ll make sure you get a card. The theme is basically “going the extra mile”, to comical effect.

It’s been a bit quiet on here hasn’t it. I’ve been sort of ill again, but I think I’m on the mend. Oh, and I’m still blogging work-related stuff – such as it is – every Friday over on Final Bullet.

“Hey, am I remembering correctly? Did you take on holiday to Tunisia a hardback copy of Bravo Two Zero?”

I’m afraid I did, and thanks for remembering that I had it in hardback. This was 1994 and probably the first ‘grown up’ book I read, and I loved it. I loved everything about it. I loved the astonishing war story, and I especially loved that it was the size of my head and had textured flames on the cover. Brave Two Zero came out in 1993, when I was 13. Now clearly there are many questions here, and to avoid asking them we were trying to remember what my brother took on that holiday. We think it might have been the equally literary Gridlock by Ben Elton.

Something weird happened between childhood and the burgeoning adventure of adulthood – something marked by that Bravo Two Zero fascination of the 93/94. I think the gear-shift that takes place every so often in the unravelling of childhood can be felt – even re-experienced somewhat – through our memories of the books we have loved. And sooner or later we must all abandon the dog-eared tales of magic animals for the charms of an unlikely squaddie. Or must we? Yes, we must. Here’s how it happened for me…

Before Bravo Two Zero, back in 1993, there was a lot of Douglas Adams in my life. There were all the Hitchhiker books, the Dirk Gentlys, the stupid Meaning of Liff thing, and Last Chance To See, all in a matter of months. Off the back of that I flirted with other easy sci-fi like John Wyndham and the Red Dwarf books, but honestly, Robert Rankin? I couldn’t go through with it. Terry Pratchett was something that happened to other people, too. But there was something else, something with puns, what was that? Was it this? It was! (And having read that Wikipedia page, I may have to give it another go.)

And yet rewind just one year, to 1992, and suddenly it’s all ponies, as far as the eye can see. Saddle Club was the anodyne horse girl’s brand of choice, but my best pal and I thought Jinny was wonderful. The series by Patricia Leitch (who I see was just as obsessed with horses as we were) starred a petulant teenaged girl living in gorgeous rural Scotland who rode to school every day and sold her prodigious drawings of horses via the kindly proprietor of the local shop. She really was living the dream, but I loved her because, brilliantly – and like me – she was also kind of a loser:

“Jinny and her Arab mare, Shantih are well matched. They are both temperamental: neither of them like listening to anyone other than themselves. Jinny’s early history with Shantih is one of hopeless longing. She longs to be able to ride the mare, but cannot. To make her hopelessness as a rider even more obvious, Ken, who lives with them, can handle Shantih effortlessly”

Zip back to 1991 First year at secondary school. Do you know, I went in for the book review prize every year but never got it. I pushed it as far as I could. I even read The Naked Ape to try and get their attention, but the bitch just didn’t believe me. Anyway, before I get too angry – in 1991 I think we did The Ghost of Thomas Kempe in English lessons. There’s a thing in it about everyone’s footsteps having a different signature, which stayed with me. The Owl Service was creepy, but ultimately unsatisfying. I am David and The Silver Sword were, to be honest, simply magnificent. Must revisit them.

1990 The Usborne Puzzle Adventures were a huge favourite with me and my pals (pictured). Anything with adventures, crimes, etc – we were there. Around this time, my brother and I were both very into The Three Investigators - a series of unusually perilous kids’ books which, oddly, featured frequent cameos from Alfred Hitchcock. (The Austrians seem to have filmed it?) I found my reading record from the time, and evidently this was the year of the inspirational yet practical My Side of the Mountain, dreary Greyfriar’s Bobby and took-me-all-year-to-finish Watership Down. Blitzcat was quite serious, but a treat because all little girls love WWII. They actually do!

In 1989 I loved Blind Flight – a novel about a blind girl who has to land a plane after a bird strike, and the Mirrorstone – a gorgeously illustrated kids’ book by Michael “Monty Python” Palin with actual HOLOGRAMS in it! I devoured Jan Mark’s creepy short stories Nothing To Be Afraid Of, and unwittingly borrowed the strange almost-child-abduction story Your Guess Is As Good As Mine from Droitwich library, along with a book on how to be a hairdresser – which was the plan at the time.

1988 I am quite little now. At bedtime we had things read to us like the Hobbit and The Once and Future King but I couldn’t really follow any of it. I loved the Woof! book(s?) regardless of whether it was any good, purely because I was very keen to turn into a dog. For years, I could think of nothing better, so how thrilling when someone actually made a show about that exact thing! Then there was The Worst Witch – they were great, great. I stole a book about medieval knights with funny names from Weston Super Mare library. Oh, and Choose Your Own Adventure, of course!

1987 Hm. This is going back a bit. Can’t think. Where did we live in 87? I definitely remember my brother had the Frosties diary for 1987. I probably read that.

1986 Stories on tapes, rather than in books. A lovely story about a girl who loses a golden ball. The one about the mean giant who hates children playing in his garden. The cat who lied about feeling ill. Something about a black and white dog whose colours flip when he gets dirty. Stories from ballet. It’s all merging into one big wobbly gas, to be honest.

1985 aaaand, let’s stop there.

I showed you mine. Come on then – let’s hear about your pre-teen book youth? I’m particularly interested in the unusual ones, don’t tell me you read The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. Also, what are the age-inappropriate things people stumbled across? Alistair reminds me he read “Mario Puzzo at Grandpa’s and Riders at Grandmas” probably before the age of twelve.

I don’t like cartoons at the cinema. For a start, I hold this multimillion pound industry in such disdain I can’t help but refer to its myriad achievements on the shifting landscapes of visual culture as “cartoons at the cinema”. I don’t like films that are for kids ‘but really adults too’. I despise Shrek, hate Nick Park, have no interest in Toy Story, and absolutely can’t watch anything where Robin Williams is doing a squawky voice. It’s the words, definitely, but it’s the pictures, too. I live in a world of graphics geeks, but I just can’t seem to get appropriately worked up about animation.

I tell you all this so you will understand the weight of what I am about to say.

Tangled is one of the most perfect films I’ve seen in a very, very long time. You may mistrust my taste in things, and you may have good reason to. But as I feel certain you’d like Back to the Future, or the first Sex and the City film if you put the hours in and watch all the episodes first, I feel secure in saying: you will enjoy this film. As with the first time I watched Johnny doing Careering on the Old Grey Whistle Test, I wept confused, impressed, emotional, tears from beginning to end. A fresh, funny, vibrant film and a glorious achievement. Well done Disney.

1. My friend Sandy is one of the most creative people I know, and creative in a really interesting and intimidatingly clever way. He programs by day, and comes up with amazing stuff like robot kits, 3D-printed jewellery and concertina lamps in dedicated spare time. There is nothing he will not turn his hand to (you should see his Christmas cards.) Sandy entered a competition on Instructables recently, and quite rightly won a prize for his Linear Clock.

2. James Wallis, games consultant, designer and publisher, put a game idea in for the Spots ‘n Stripes chocolate bar competition that’s been taking place over the last year. James’s “Flick Racer” game has made it through to the last round, and is now up against just one other finalist, Eggomatic. Cadburys have MADE and distributed TWELVE THOUSAND prototypes of Flick Racer, before choosing who gets to be the official game for the campaign. It’s clearly a very exciting thing for James, and it’s lovely for his pals to see his idea do so well. I know him through mutual geeky friends, he’s a great games designer and very into his stuff. He’s also very generous with his time and ideas, and we had some fun chats about D&D while I was working on EOC. You should consult with him.

3. When I was a student in York a long, long time ago, I stalked a company called Stone Soup, because they were behind the most eye-wateringly funny free magazine I’d ever seen. It was distributed through the bars and cafes of York (of which there are loads) – so it was always around.

Every page was packed with fresh ideas. There were pages dedicated to amusing truths – like “Goths walk more upright than normal people,” (quite possibly an early inspiration for my WF site). There was funny, incredibly local stuff about York, with an attention to detail that just made it all the more hilarious. An audit of park benches. A dreamily romantic Mills & Boon-like short story that always took place on the patch of filthy detritus under the bridge which the magazine dubbed “York Beach”…

So one day I met up with the editor, Tom (in a pub, after a surprise power cut struck down their entire office building) – and ended up writing for and working on various things they produced over several years, including a whole comedy festival. They’re the reason I was photographed wearing a ‘Smoke crack, lose weight’ T shirt for a kids’ magazine, and they’re how I met both the Red Dwarf Hollys in one week. Wow, and that was… eight years ago? Where has the time gone? A White Hole?

Anyway, Stone Soup are brilliant, and they’ve just been voted the best advert for this mock-up baby lotion picture, which is ace, and sums up their whole thing of fun and funniness, I think. And check it out, after some regeneration over the winter they’re just about to emerge from their chrysalis, this time as The Beautiful Meme.

This is pretty much the only animated film I’ve had any genuine interest in for at least 10 years. It’s a modern spin on the Rapunzel story, and unlike the gruesome and indestructible Shrek franchise, it just looks so funny, unpretentious and cute. Yeah, say what you like about Disney, they never forget the golden rule: that everything should be cute. I just hope it’s as good as it seems.

(Can’t get any of the embed links on Youtube to work, sorry)

I never ever had Barbie, I was only allowed Sindy – even now, a little embarrassing to admit. If only I’d had Barbies, I can’t help but think, I’d have turned out a different sort of person altogether. More confident, more conventional, certainly more attractive. See, Barbies were so pretty in their spectacular outfits. They had that alluring, creepy, American-ness about them. They looked at me with their funny flat eyes and they promised so much. My friend Joanne’s dad was an airline pilot and she had all the Barbies and the house and the car AND the horse. I went round there a lot. In retrospect, I wonder about my motives for that friendship. I was a tiny gold digger.

But, as with so many gold diggers, I had a genuine appreciation for the frills and the glamour. I still think about Barbie’s ear rings, and I still have a thing for princesses. Not real ones, I’m not mental. Pink, fluffy, long-haired, graceful ones. Needless to say, I am very, very excited about the forthcoming Disney Rapunzel film, Tangled. I think it looks absolutely perfect.

So no – no Barbies, but I did have two Popples, at least one Care Bear, and a growing collection of my absolute favourite: My Little Ponies. Ah, the Barbies of the equine world. I got one or two for every birthday and Christmas for years. Here are some of the ones I remember having:

Plus one with wings, a “baby” one, and quite possibly some of these – recently back  on sale at Firebox. I was slightly sickened by any with freckles, and Gusty on the left here was my fave, because a) such pretty colours and b) An actual unicorn! No contest.

In fact, they diversified from the standard pony model quite early on. There were, iirc, babies, flighted ones, sparkly ones, ones with terrifying gemstone eyes, ones with no back legs (mermaid ponies?)… I mean, even on the standard models in the mid-80s, there were dozens and dozens to choose from.

The interesting thing is watching how far they’re prepared to take the metaphor. There must be a list somewhere at Hasbro detailing what these ponies will and will not tolerate.

• MLPs ARE FREE SPIRITS AND WILL NEVER BE RIDDEN.
• MLPs LIKE TO LOOK PRETTY AT ALL TIMES.
• MLPs MAY ATTEND A BEAUTY PARLOUR IN A TRAILER BUT THEY GO TO BED LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE.
• MLPs MAY WEAR LEG WARMERS BUT NEVER A SADDLE.
• MLPs MAY DRESS UP IN ANY OUTFIT THEY SEE FIT, AND EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE HORSES NO SPORT IS BEYOND THEIR REACH.
• MLPs MAY TAKE THE FORM OF MERMAIDS, FAIRIES, SEA-HORSES, BIRDS OR GEM-EYED MONSTERS. THEY ARE DEFINITELY ALL STILL MLPs THOUGH.

You see, the genius is making the horses mute, mysterious characters in themselves, and imposing some fairly strict rules about what they can be, which are then stuck to, rigidly, for decades. NB I have no real idea what’s going on with them these days, and to be honest, I’m too scared to look.

Tell me about your My Little Ponies. I don’t understand people who don’t love My Little Ponies. Why do you hate beauty?

Me speaking at Culture Hack Day, picture by timmitchellphotography.co.uk

Since it’s my year of Saying Yes To Everything, I spoke at the excellent, very enjoyable, very supportive Culture Hack Day last weekend. Here’s a good post about what went on.

The points of my talk were roughly:

a) Things are fun, that you don’t think are fun.
b) Things you’re doing already are fun.
c) Finding something fun doesn’t mean you’re a twat.
d) Even the most banal things in the world can be seen as toys.

I mentioned Chromaroma as an e.g. of layering “play data” over something you’re doing anyway and of using the Oyster card as a toy, and Barnaby Jack’s ATM hacks as an e.g. of the world’s hidden playthings.

I’m currently working on some very exciting stuff for issue 2 of the newspaper. Be the change you want to see! Make the thing you wish existed!

Perhaps I can interest you in some links:

• Big fan of John Graham-Cumming’s work and blog – he writes with a clarity that really appeals to me. He wrote about what a nerd is recently, and supplied some excellent advice on promoting your work through the (old) media.
• I watched Horizon about the nature of REALITY the other day, and like all impressionable idiots, my mind was blown by the idea THE UNIVERSE IS JUST A MASSIVE HOLOGRAM. What can I do with that information?! Well, in my case the answer is obviously: write another mediocre humour book about entropy. I’ll keep you posted.
• The Guardian is obsessed with stand-up at the moment, e.g. this little piece about Tim Vine and writing one-liners. I was interested in this: “Does this pernickety process attract a certain personality type? Compact joke-writing can seem almost mathematical.” There’s something about this gag formula absolutely working or not working, I guess, that might appeal to a different kind of character to the confident, languid storyteller. A lot of story-telling stand-up relies on just putting the audience in a frame of mind to find something funny, and saying something in a funny way, rather than actually saying anything funny. In a sense, it’s an illusion – a lovely illusion. The thing being described is only funny* because of the art that surrounds it, and what works to a crowd braced to be surprised won’t work in print. But you can’t get away with fluffing an audience with the fast lines because that’s all you’ve got – and it works in print as well. Which is why Simon Munnery is the best of all.

(*”Only funny” – it is completely, legitimately funny if it makes people laugh. That’s the definition of funny. But Tim Vine jokes have funniness in their structure, and either make a kind of sense or they don’t…)