I recently performed, or “read out”, a piece I’d written for Reads Like A Seven, at the kind request of One Life Left‘s Ste Curran. What I wrote was a mixture of sincerity, confession and juvenile scatology, and because it’s 2,500 words, I’m not going to blather on here. TL:DR; I shit on my balls in Austria, I’m sorry, and am going to run a pub in Nottingham.
Because this Reads Like A Seven was part of the Stoke Newington Literary Festival, I will be using fancy dividing graphics. And there’s footnotes, because I’m Terry Pratchett now and there’s nothing you can do about it.
I recently resigned from my role as Associate Editor on the Official Xbox Magazine.
I had no idea what an Associate Editor was, until I was made one. One who associates freely with editors, perhaps. One with access to the editor’s restroom, where one is spritzed with editorial fragrances by a team of beautiful publisher-funded swans, who time their honking to conceal your editorly farts.
It was only when my duties and salary didn’t change, that I realised that Associate Editor, in my case at least, is what happens when your boss thinks that having a forty year old staff writer on the team is beginning to make the whole magazine look tragic ((This is unfair to the boss I’m talking about, and I suppose, myself. The role was offered honestly, and taken thankfully. I’m basically conjuring self-deprecation.)).
I’m leaving the games industry to run a pub in Nottingham, but before I leave, I wanted to get my affairs in order. And the only appropriate way to do that is with a list of apologies.
ANYONE WHO READ MY PREVIEWS
I’m sorry to anyone who missed my gently coded warnings. When I said “we can’t wait to find out more,” at the end of a passionless regurgitation of a feature list, that was the closest thing I could professionally say to “I don’t even know what this game is”. The first time I heard someone say “we’ve really listened to our community”, I was impressed, and reported keenly on this consumer-orientated and responsive attitude. By the end of my career, all I wanted was one developer to say “we’ve ignored our community, as they are plainly fucking idiots”.
And when I said “this game isn’t going to change the world” in the last paragraph, I meant “I’m sorry I waited this long to try and tell you that this game looks utterly shit”.
I didn’t mean to generate unwarranted hype, and I’m sorry if you feel like your life is burdened with a hype surplus. But from inside my cell, I was trying to warn you.
PEOPLE WHO USES VIDEO GAME REVIEWS AS BUYER’S GUIDES
I will apologise, for one last time ((My Spore review has been an ongoing joke between me and a few PC Zone readers for a long time, and I worry that the joke of “owning it” has run its course)), to anyone who bought Spore as a direct result of me scoring it 95.
In my defence, it wasn’t a terrible game. It was good, even. But when magazines score out of 100, the 90 percent zone works like Star Trek’s warp speeds, the exact science of which was refined in The Next Generation. Every percentage point above 91 is an exponential leap, tending to infinity at Warp Factor 10. If PC Gamer ever scored a game 100 per cent, time space and human thought would almost certainly collapse.
In this environment, a score of 95 was scientifically reckless, and I’m sorry for using percentages that I clearly didn’t understand.
YOU
I’d like to apologise to you, for making an over-long and 27-year-old Star Trek reference. But that’s how I’ve survived these last eight years. Drop one grenade of relatively niche information, then wade through the rubble of assumed competence.
There have been many times when that assumption has slipped.
A time that’s lodged in my brain was at the Codemasters office in Guildford. I was previewing a racing game for a prestigious magazine. It was, I dunno – DiRT or something – and they offered me a go on their sit-down driving machine toy with the wobbly chair. You have never seen an assumption of competence slip so quickly and so far. I shunted, careened, and failed to steer at crucial steering-appropriate moments, such as “corners” and “the entire fucking game”.
In the reflection of the screen, I could see the developers glancing at each other, and I tried to laugh, but the noises I made was shrill and strangled. It was a howl of anguish.
I gave that game a psychotically enthusiastic write-up, knowing that I had lost any right to criticise an entire genre for the rest of my career. Racing games: I am sorry.
THE NON-STRAIGHT
I’m sorry to every non-straight, non-conforming person who read my writing. I was given a voice, and I’m not sure I used it effectively.
I’m gay, for what it’s worth. I’ve come out so many times now that it’s easy to assume everyone knows. I’ve had the pleasure of watching women’s and gay issues become more discussed in this industry, and I’ve been excited to see transgender topics getting more and more sunlight. The writing of righteous, belittled and angry people has humbled and enlightened me.
But I rarely added my own voice. Even something as pitiful as gendered pronouns felt like a bold political choice. For a while, I basically did what Nintendo did with Tamodachi Life: made gay people – more specifically, a gay person, hello – a little more invisible.
Not in my day to day life, of course: I was out and perfectly happy amongst the open-minded folk of games journalism. But it’s too easy to forget that audience of straight young adults who might have benefited from having to think “Oh. So he’s… OK.” And more importantly, it’s too easy to forget the non-straight children who might have clutched desperately at any reassurance I could have offered.
It’s too easy to forget, with a brain tamed by age, what a fragile wreck I used to be. How at 10 years old, I realised I was thinking too much about the wrong people, and made the conscious, rational decision to hide those feelings until there was something sexy I could do about it. And how the daily ratcheting tension of pretence, would make me intense, erratic, and frequently hateful.
Video game magazines were a genuine release for me in those years. I formed imaginary relationships with the outline drawings of Julian Rignall and Gary Penn. Before that, I engaged in one-way correspondence with the actually imaginary Lloyd Mangram. I looked up the home of my favourite magazines in our family’s AA Road Atlas.
Ludlow, Shropshire.
The nonsense words were a lullaby to me, a reassuring whisper that there was something else. I will never visit Ludlow, Shropshire, because I suspect it won’t be the crystal city of sexual fantasy that I still really want it to be.
I gave bigotry a rough time, sure, but I never flew any flags. I’ve abused the privilege of passing for straight too often, and for every struggling child who didn’t get from me what I could have offered, I’m genuinely sorry.
THAT PR I LAUGHED AT
During a demo of a profoundly average game, a PR who used to be a journalist told me that the game wasn’t going to change the world. Recognising the words from my own previews, I barked a sharp little laugh, and it dawned on me that the generous language of the preview wasn’t something I’d invented. It was something I’d absorbed, that had sunk into me like a vapid ghost. Like the time I noticed 72 was the “out of hundred” equivalent of the famously non-committal “seven out of ten”, calibrated from 70 to seem extra scienctific.
I was pointed to an issue of Sega Power ((According to a One Life Left listener and letter writer, it was in fact Amiga Power. In this exciting off-shoot apology, I will confess to making a serious mis-step in this period of my life – I bought an Atari ST. I’m still prone to overstating the benefits of in-built MIDI ports.)), where this observation had been made years previously. Only their number was 73. I spent my career playing catch-up with what everyone else knew. I’m sorry that I briefly had the audacity to think I’d done or noticed something original ((Oh, the humility! Give it up, Log, you think you’re great and everyone knows it)).
YOUNG WRITERS
I’m sorry to the young, passionate, and politically alive writers. The young men and women who watched as an absurd bloke throttled the last coins out of his hobby, occupying a position that they could have used for good.
I’ve always tried my hardest to avoid responsibility. That’s not a juvenile humblebrag: Peter Pan isn’t a role model, he’s a smug immortal prick. It’s not cool to be as childish as I am. It keeps you happy, but…
Let me elaborate: some people tell me that they cry at movies when they’re on a plane – that a combination of air pressure, and the idea that they could be being observed in the peripheral vision of a stranger, judged by a man who’s watching Family Guy, just makes them weep uncontrollably.
I have a similar thing, but instead of crying, it’s laughing. And instead of watching movies on a plane, it’s doing a fart in a public toilet. You may have noticed this is the second time I’ve mentioned farting in public toilets in a talk that’s ostensibly about video games. It’s a real go-to, for me.
You can’t really giggle ironically. So farting in public toilets must be really funny, or I wouldn’t be giggling. There’s only one thing funnier. Allow me to elaborate again:
My first trip in the games industry was to Austria, to see the reveal of a European role-playing game called Gothic 3. Something honestly wonderful happened in Austria. You see, Austrian toilets are different. There’s a little dry shelf, presumably to allow for a good medical rummage before your doings get irretreivably slooshed away.
I wasn’t anticipating – nobody could have anticipated – that my body would weave, in that Austrian toilet, a long solid that perched on that shelf, before actually leaving my, for want of a better word, anus.
And so, connected briefly to the porcelain by a bumbilical cord, I thought “what next? Do I stand up and carry on?” A reflex spasm stole that decision from me, and the treacherously snipped cord toppled forward, and found a new resting place, propped against my balls. I shrieked, laughed at my shriek, and spent a full minute muffling my own mouth as joyful tears shot out of my face. Then I waited another full five minutes to be sure that no-one who heard me would see me leave the cubicle.
You’re probably thinking, why is he telling us this story? Well, it’s an apology to my editor at the time, Jamie Sefton, who I put in the position of having to ask me to remove this story from my preview of Gothic 3. Apparently, 300-word shitball asides weren’t “house style” or “relevant”.
The legendary magazine that is PC Zone would go on to close, four years later. I’m not saying that story would have saved it. I’m saying we can never truly know.
YOU
I’d like to apologise to you again, for that story, which probably killed any memory of any worthy goodwill I may have built up with all that stuff about being gay.
MYSELF
I’d like to sneak in a quick indulgent apology to 25 year old me. My video games career started with PC Zone in 2006, but my first opportunity to write for that magazine actually came seven years earlier. Thanks to websites I’d written and contributed to, I was invited to send in a sample review, by a man who would go on to become Charlie Brooker.
This was ridiculous. I’d never been paid for my words before. And what descended on me in those following weeks of opportunity was a chill. Not a “reduce speed by 60%” Cone of Cold, but a full paralysing Frost Nova.
The chill of failure by another man’s hand. Oh, I’m happy failing over here, through my own laziness and inertia. But failing after actually trying? Failure that exists outside your own flagellating tumble-drier of a skull? That kind of heroic failure is for a different, highly successful group of people.
I never sent that review.
From what I can tell from the stories I’ve heard since, told by men who look like they’ve lost something wonderful, I missed true glory. I’ve not seen a truly decadent press event ((Not true. I spent the best part of a week in Monte Carlo for Capcom’s annual showcase event, Captivate. Weirdly, the only game I remember from that event is Dark Void)). None of my colleagues have succumbed to drug-driven nudity in a Monte Carlo ballroom ((Facts deliberately obscured, and Monte Carlo inserted as a subliminal confession to the lie of the previous sentence)). My Spore review didn’t retrospectively earn me the services of a sex worker. My career has remained entirely free of strip clubs. And yeah, press events in strip clubs are a repulsive sexist symbol of what a reprehensible dick-sodden boys club this industry can be, but… it’s nice to be invited.
This regret mostly explains why I’m here tonight. When I was asked, I felt that same nervous morbid fist of ice clutch at my gut. I’m feeling it now, and I’ll feel it until this talk is over. But at least I’ve eventually learned, through an even greater fear of missing out, to tell that chill to go fuck itself.
If this was a Doctor Who episode, and I was Donna Noble, doing this talk would right that old wrong, and former me would send that review. At the end of this reading I should get catapulted back to my true timeline, where I do join PC Zone in 1999, *I* invent New Games Journalism, and rip apart the atoms of the universe by scoring System Shock 2 103 per cent.
THE FUTURE
Well, I’ve made my apologies, and I choose to believe that I’ve secured your forgiveness.
I like to think I’ve learned from my mistakes, and I’ll try to put them all to good use in my new career as a publican.
It’s a real ale pub, so I’ve got to convince my punters I know about ale. That’s easy – I’m an established charlatan, as we’ve seen from that Codemasters fiasco. And I survived for years on the Official Xbox Magazine, and never once spoke my true feelings about Halo ((A cheap shot, for which I’m retrospectively ashamed. Two reasons: first, I was never pressured to say “Halo is great”, so I’m inventing a fake tension that backs up the false perception that OXM is somehow built on lies. It isn’t. Secondly, while I get nothing from the Halo franchise, there are many people far better than me who disagree. Kieron Gillen gave Halo 3 a bleeding 10, for Christ’s sake.)).
All that endless chat about listening to your community: suddenly I’ve got a real, physical community that I can’t not listen to, because they’re drunk and in my house. I’ve got the chance to set the moderation policy. I can do my best to make that pub a welcoming place for everyone.
I can use my new position of privilege to help other people, instead of occupying their seat. Let them use whatever facilities I can offer. Room, equipment, whatever I can reasonably offer. It might not be profitable, but I didn’t get into games journalism to make money. I’m not an idiot. I got into games journalism to make strangers like me. Now I get to meet those strangers.
I know my pub isn’t going to change the world. But changing the world is more responsibility than a man with an ice fist in his gut could ever handle.
I will, however, look into having Austrian toilets installed. Because I want my customers to enjoy themselves as much as I did, that wonderful day.
I hope one day to hear you shrieking in horrified delight from my cubicles ((This is pure esprit d’escalier. I didn’t say that line at the end of the talk. It was more like “I hope to see you there”, or something shit like that. I’d gone wobbly, and wanted off the stage.)).
Thank you.
I never told you I loved your writing, or how incredibly funny you are. Not because you try to be, but because it just happens.
I will miss you dearly.
I can also vouch for the toilets. I grew up in Germany from 10 years of age, presenting me with the same moral dilemma; this shit is simply too big for the shelf. It’s not folding over, and I am not sure how this will end.
Insanely fond memories.
Also, do let us know which pub it is. I’m from Nottingham, so may well know of it, and would love to visit.
Anyway.
I wish you the best of luck, sir.
The best.
Thank you, you lovely sod. I’ll put the name of the pub out there when I’m installed, in July. I want to actually be there if anyone comes to visit!
I’m not sure if this is the proper forum for such a thing, but I figured what better place to ask for games writing advice than from someone who’s done so much of it they no longer want to do it professionally (I mean that in the best way possible). I never get a chance to ask these questions to folks ‘in the know’ – because they want to stay that way, but since you’re ‘in the know’ and now getting out of ‘the know’ I figured it couldn’t hurt!
1. How would you rate the state of gaming journalism in terms of dollars and cents. How realistic is it to make a living writing about media for an outlet like OXM or IGN or Gamespot?
2. How does one get such a position? Is it a “Who you know” kind of thing? Is it better to e-mail an editor directly versus go through the various HR hiring processes?
3. What’s the Over/Under, years wise on the “oh my god I write about videogames for a living” to “Wow this is awful I have to quit”? – as someone who’s been scrapping and clawing and writing and just NOW finally got a paid games writing gig (for Whatculture.com), I kind of sort of see all the free work for various “we’ll pay you when we get big” websites paying off.
I’m worried I do all this, finally land a big-time gig, and then poof, there goes my talent. Is there a distinct difference between HAVING to write about games and WANTING to write about games? How would you rate the offices of OXM – good gaming culture?
4. How important do you think esoteric skills are in this particular field – am I more likely to be successful / needed / a worthwhile employee if I have a video production degree / A+ and Net+ certifications, and almost a decade in Tech Support? Or will outlets look at all these other skills and think the gaming writing thing is just a hobby?
5. At the risk of sounding like a hollow shill – If I’m ‘okay’ towing the company line, and find creative fulfillment writing a preview of a crappy game, what do you consider the best path to achieving proverbially hollow pursuits?
6. Outside of places like Elance, where do you find is the best place to go for consistent games-writing work?
7. Is uh…is that associate editor position as OXM still open? Is that a horrible thing to ask? I travel!
Um, Dear Log.
I have followed your work for about two years now, you have inspired me to write and think differently about video-games and so are probably responsible for the silly career path that I am busy building myself up for. But that’s not why I am replying. I’m replying because I think you have judged yourself to harshly in the “Non-Straight” part of this apology.
I’m 18 and I’m gay, making me 16 when I first started following your stuff. And so say you haven’t used your voice wisely and fantastically. I’ll be honest, the main draw for me to your work at the time was because you were gay and you actually talked about it; something which to 16 yr old me was something unheard of. Not to say that I was crushed and shunned because of my sexuality because when I eventually did come out to people none of them reacted drastically, they all welcomed me and said the obligatory good things.
You gave me the confidence. All my life through various different outlets I had learnt that to be gay was something that shouldn’t be talked about. YOU changed that for me, through your OXM Breakdowns, through Regular Features you showed me that I could be who I was and talk how I wanted to without fear, you set the example for me. My rational was: This guys gay, he talks about bums all the time AND he has friends and has a successful career. You gave me the confidence to be who I was and act how I wanted to. You showed an ignorant 16 yr old boy who had no gay role models that being gay is fine, is good, is fucking great.
Whilst I’m sure this all sounds convoluted and silly I want you to know that you haven’t mis-used your voice and you have offered the 16yr old struggling child of me all I could have ever of asked for and for that I am eternally grateful and as you are leaving Videogames I thought this would be as good as a time to say thank you for giving me the things that I needed to start to be genuinely happy.
Good luck with the pup and stuff.
Jack Rowland
Thanks for taking the time to post that. It genuinely made me sag with relief and pleasure. (You and I share the same flair for self-deprecation, and I appreciate that.)
I had the same thing with coming out: nothing in the way of rejection, beyond a clumsy “well of course I’d rather you weren’t” from a mother who saw a life of hostility and aggression that never came about. Kinda deflates the dramatic imagined fantasies, doesn’t it?
Chuffed as fuck that my writing helped you out. All the absolute best to you. If you’re ever in Nottingham, drop me a line.
Yeah, you hear all these stories of people having a horror show of a time and I do feel so utterly sorry for them however with me it seems to just be “well okay have fun just don’t make much noise about it all.” Which in the grand scheme of things isn’t such a bad thing to say however it still isn’t good, that shouldn’t be a reaction. I’m just glad that guys like you are so open about it all because that really does help give me courage to be open and vocal.
And sure thing, I hope it all goes well for you with the Pub.
TLDR: OP is a faggot.
Godspeed sir *slowly stands and salutes*
“Bumbilical cord.”
That, right there, is why you are – or were, I guess – my favourite games journalist. Your writing and videos have thoroughly informed and entertained me for years. I shan’t waffle on, but suffice it to say, this is a big loss for the games industry as a whole.
Please let us (“random internet people”) know where your pub is though – I visit Nottingham fairly regularly and would love to pop in for a pint poured by Log!
I’ll let you know when the pub is when I’m there. It’s a bit of a forbidding beast from the outside at the moment, and I’d like to make it less grumpy first. And thanks!
Hey Log, we’ve not crossed paths much over the years but sincerely, your games writing is some of the most entertaining I have ever read. Funny, smart and you never fail to make great observations. Your departure is a real loss to the UK scene in particular but I hope you find great excitement and new inspiration with your new challenges. All the best with the pub bud!
It seems a shame to me that someone this good at wording will no longer word for a living, for skilled wordatry is a rare art. But the world is a strange and unfair place, and also inconvenient in other ways.
Welling up here. My week as the surprisingly decrepid 30 year old ‘workie’ on the soon to die Zone was made all the better for sharing an office with you.
Best of luck with your ale house.
I think you sum up the feelings of many games journos who’ve been around a while. You will be missed, I;ve, enjoyed your work for many years.. Goof luck with the pub and meeting a real “community”, I’m sure you;ll make a massive success of the new venture.
Log,
I was pretty bloody surprised when I learned you were leaving us for publican duties over your publication duties. I can’t say we’ve talked that much over the years but your writing has always stood out to me as exceptional. I always imagined you’d crossover and follow in the footsteps of Charlie Brooker taking the industry that little bit further into the mainstream.
Hope you keeping writing in your new role (Log’s Local, anyone!?) as it’d be a waste of an *incredible* talent. All the best with the new venture and let us know when the launch party is 🙂
Thanks for never laughing in my face, dozens have,
Stefan
I’ve never really read anything from you but this article made me want to read! Shame you are leaving the gaming industry, specially when you realise what you made wrong and could become an even greater journalist that you were (or I assume you were from this reading)
Best of luck in your life.
You’re great and I wish more people in this silly world were like you — but not too many, because then you’d feel awkward meeting yourself.
Hope you enjoy Nottingham!
El Loggo, I love you man you big grown up Chris Griffin that you are, but dear god you put too much on your shoulders.
You don’t owe anyone any apologies except yourself. You owe yourself apologies for feeling the many things you have clearly felt, regret and some shame at not being a standard bearer for the LGBT community. You owe yourself an apology because you never had to be a standard bearer, you never needed to be and you should never have felt as such. The only standard you ever had to bear was the one of your own happiness and comfort, instead you seem to have turned that standard into a cross that you struggle to bear. It’s like you see yourself a martyr to your own happiness and no one should ever feel that way. You do yourself far too much injustice. You’re a gobshite. To quote Mrs Brown’s Boys “You’re a gobshite, Mammy, because you can’t see what you HAVE done!”. That’s you Log. You seem to feel you owe people an explanation and an apology for just for living, but you don’t credit yourself for the things you HAVE done.
In your tenure at OXM you did your best with every piece you wrote. I have spoken a lot over the last couple of years about how much that magazine and site/forum has improved and your were a crucial part of that. Now I don’t know how much value you put on that, but I have been a part of that community since the launch of the 360 and I’ve seen it go up and down in quality and for a long time before you, Jonty, Gav and Edwin were there, it was an absolute pit. The magazine quality was horrible, the reviews were biased and difficult to read. The flagship publication for the platform in Britain was a joke and you 4 turned it around. Your consistently fantastic reviews, your inspired videos like the series of minecraft ones were integral to changing the fortunes of OXM. You were part of a small team of guys who took this failing publication and made it the premier publication again. That was also crucial to our fostering the fantastic community we have there. It’s no secret that a lot of people now old OXM in very very high regard, both magazine and website. You were a part of that. You have given people a lot of pleasure with your work at OXM. Personally, as a gamer, I think that is a remarkable thing and holds value, it is something you should be proud of.
And then we have your breakdown videos. You lament in this blog post about how you didn’t use the voice you were given better, but you don’t credit yourself highly enough for those videos. I suspect you made them just for the laughs, but what they have actually done is addressed genuine issues and talking points in the industry with both humour and poignancy. You have made some very dry and very hot button topics accessible, raising awareness through performance. As someone with a background in theatre I respect that tremendously. I believe in the efficacy of performance as an educational tool and those breakdown videos were a prime, bit sized example of how effective it can be.
Log, you may feel you have not made the most of your opportunities or have let people down in some way, but really, the only person you have let down is yourself by not crediting yourself for all the good things you have done. You’ll never be Marie Curie (fancy dress parties notwithstanding), neither will I, nor will the majority of us, but that doesn’t make your successes less valid or important. Happiness, laughter, joy, these things, whether ‘cool’ or not, are what make life worth living. You have provided that in abundance over the years. You should never forget that. Be kinder to yourself, you deserve it old bean.
Regards, with affection, Grummy.
When I started writing this piece, it wasn’t what it turned into. It was meant to be a confessional, that I hadn’t got a fucking clue and was just winging it for eight years with a nice turn of phrase. But confession ran dry pretty quickly as a theme, and morphed into apology. And apology turned into a springboard for a range of asides. The earnestness of the LGTBQ section was written, knowing that I was about to do a poo on my nuts. It’s nothing but heartfelt, but there’s some dramatic licence here. Thanks for your kind words Grum, and know that I’m not as down on myself as this might make me seem. If anything, it was one last attempt to put my gay ass out there.
(Even that’s melodramatic. I fully intend to do freelance work, once I’ve arrived and collected my shit)
You’re the gaming journo I always wished I could have been, and always aspired to meet. You were he on the “I’d love to meet him, I just know we’d be mates” list. And then I ran into you at Heathrow terminal 4 about five years ago and you asked if I was someone from Rock Paper Shotgun and boy that was an awkward moment. Funny though.
But you’re a credit to gaming journalism, a thoroughly nice chap, quite honestly the funniest journalist I ever read, and your absence will leave a gap. I believe it would have been nice to have been friends, but now I shall have to simply imagine you yanking pints in an ale house.
All the very best for the future. I hope you continue to blog about life, because it will be the darker without it.
Oh man! Wasn’t it Terminal Five, by the top of the escalators? Or am I just doubling down on awkward, here?
It was T5 you’re spot on, holy Batcrap(TM) you remember.
HI Jon,
I’ve been a fan of games writing and of you for years. You’re one of the good guys so I’m gutted to hear we won’t get any more of your wonderful words on games, do pay us a visit from time to time. I’ll certainly drop by your pub if I’m in the area, I bet it’ll be a hoot!
You were also polite enough to chat to me at the launch event of a plastic instrument game in London when I came over to speak to you, and you even bought me a drink! Top bloke.
All the best,
Robbie
Can’t really place you from the name and the comment, but you were obviously nice or I wouldn’t have bought you a drink. Hope everything’s working out for you, in whatever you’re doing
I’m something of a hermit, so heretofore unfamiliar with your stuff — but this piece is excellently written, redounding with singular style. I understand why Graham Smith at RPS called you “the funniest writer in videogame journalism”.
Good luck with the pub!
Log; I will miss your work you hairy ginger bastard. I also hope you do a version of Joey Deacon’s Wheelchair Racing for the Oculus Rift, with stunt mechanics involving footballs.
This page is turning into a fucking eulogy. HE’S NOT DEAD, HE’S JUST MOVING TO NOTTINGHAM. THERE IS A chemical DIFFERENCE.
Lots of love Loggington. You will be missed. Though the fucking awkward conversations we always have won’t be.
See you in Nottinghamshire, Sheriff. x
I’ll almost be embarrassed to do freelance after this. Almost. From the state of the pub’s affairs, I’ll need the money.
Any time you want to come in and create a highly localised pocket of awkward in Nottingham with me, you’re welcome.
I have never heard of you before in my life but thank you for the wonderful story
Boy, I’m glad you left the industry. This reads like someone drunk AND on drugs.
This is my second favourite comment
Australian Toilet farce is the funniest thing i’ve read in a while, kind of Bill Brysonesque (if that’s a thing) had to stifle laughter and squirting tears of joy in the office. Thank you sir.
Best of luck Log – you’re a brilliant, talented, effortlessly funny writer (mostly about bums it has to be said) and a very lovely man. One of my proudest achievements as PC Zone editor was bringing you to the mag and ensuring more folks discovered what an exceptional, brilliant writer you are. Will sorely miss your words and silly vids – I hope you display all those GMAs in a prominent position in your new pub. Well, has to be the toilet really doesn’t it… xx
You’ll be sorely missed. Really sorely missed. Constantly inspiring, entertaining and an absolute joy to read. I shall have to make a pilgrimage to Nottingham and throw a CamRA membership at you.
You sir, are an inspiration. I suspect that, European poo antics aside, most writers like myself wish we had half the talent, flair even, that you posses for writing. Games Journalism seems to be like a sirens call, where it lures you towards the rocks with increasing power. Only some manage to clear the brain-fog long enough to realise that they’re no longer the captain of their ship speaking their own words, but house-styles and regurgitated (probably by seagulls to maintain the nautical theme) press releases. The rocks firmly in sight.
I frequent Nottingham on a semi-regular basis, as I used to live there a few years ago and still have friends there. I obsess over ale and am the most unlikely CAMRA member you’re ever likely to meet (youngish and female). If I can ever do anything to lend a hand give me a shout, I’ll at least buy a round off you.
Good luck to you, Nottingham can be… Interesting.
Lisa
Wow, Log, sorry to see you go but totally understand your reasons. You helped me start writing for The Greatest Magazine In The World Ever, and while I never QUITE made it into the offices full-time as I’d hoped (five people leave, they hire just one person to replace them all, I’m sure that made sense to someone at Future) I’m still getting paid to write about gaming today (!) and for that I’ll be ever thankful to you. Plus whenever we met at random press events or parties you always managed to make me feel like a good mate of yours. You’re a Good Bloke. Christ, I better stop because I’m beginning to talk like you’re dying or something. Absolutely all the best of luck with the pub, I have a feeling you’ll have a lot of games journos showing up on your doorstep asking for a tab.
Oh, and please name the place “The Austrian Shelf”. Or “Log’s Bumbilical Cord”, that’ll do too.
I gracefully accept at least two of your apologies but you do still owe me a prize from PC Zone. I wrote you something dreadful that I think involved hats. Well, whatever, I’m glad you shit your balls. As testicular beshitting percentile ratings go, it’s easily 96%.
Wait… you’re GAY?
I never had you on the show in 6 years and for that I’m truly, truly sorry.
As to the fear of failing at another’s hands; that’s something I sympathise with utterly. It’s horrific.
Please, do make the occasional video about the vagaries of the retail pub trade and when can we expect the field trip to your hostelry?
You’re fucking amazing Log… Seriously.
I’ll come visit your pub one day.
Let me be the first to say that we can’t wait to find out more!
Hello Jon. We follow each other on Twitter and are not super close friends but I just want you to know that I think you are funny as shit and a good writer man. I am excited for your new ale-based career and I hope to follow it with interest on this or another web site. Please don’t stop writing and good luck!
This is brilliant, Log. Your whole blog is an amazing scatological roller-coaster from office admin through to a different form of office admin. I think the first one I read was you creating a map of your boss’ route to work. That was real commitment. I know you’re not giving up writing blogs. I’m not sure why I’m doing a blog retrospective here. Let’s ask Des O’Connor what he thinks.
I’ve read a lot of your reviews. Top notch. The videos were brilliant too. I was only asked to write one games review for Stuff Magazine. I spent three quarters of the article writing about something else, so I doubt they’ll ask me again.
Your pub. I assume you’ll have the amazing games nights you had in Vauxhall? It will be a huge success.