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We have a lean-to which, once we have sold off a load of stuff (or put things in the loft) will be for her to paint and draw in. We have a spare room for guests and I turned what used to be a gaming room into a study (which I'm in at the moment printing and annotating about 40 documents).

Twitter tells me we could be looking at a hung parliament

I’ll be voting labour but I’m not expecting anything outside of the predicted outcome

So I finished the main story arch for Arkham Knight and, contentious gameplay aside, the game has a really good ending. I didn't 100% the game, so I've looked on Youtube for the 'good' ending, but either way it was very well done. Now I can focus on RE2 properly and then go from there!

The latter my phone is on the way out and the sides of the screen aren’t responding any more

Yet more Arkham Knight, however I'm quite close to finishing it. I do have to say, despite the impressions that I've read, I didn't really mind the Bat Mobile combat and found it a perfectly OK diversion. I've always enjoyed the series and, on finishing this, will have finished all the console entries, however I still feel it peaked with Arkham Asylum, obviously not combat wise, but the setting for me was preferable over a large city. The reason I'm keen to finish it, is so I can get back into RE2 properly, especially as Christmas is coming and apart from visiting family, I'll have my first proper time off, with no work, for the first time in 6 years, which is nice. I can then also look through the various PS+ games that I have in my library and decide on what to try next.

I turned thirty two weeks ago, so far so good

Also agree, it has however been a while since I've read The Shining and it would be interesting to compare the two outside of the vague memory that I have of it.

Just in case you are going, or know someone that is, don't read this. Don't spoil anything for yourself. "What is Secret Cinema?" I hear you ask. Well, it's an event that's run over a few months, I think only in London, where select movies or television shows are brought to life and allow you to take part in them and experience them in a different way. I've previously been to a Moulin Rouge secret cinema, where an old warehouse was turned into 1890's Paris, with shops, bars, actors and then a screening of the movie taking place later on (admittedly, I drank two bottles of Champagne and about 6 absinthe cocktails and my memory is...limited). For the Stranger Things event though, I had no idea what to expect (I wasn't sure whether they would show the first episode, the last, something else...). This was my thirtieth birthday present from my wife and so, I can give you not just the regular experience, but the V.I.P one. We came out of the underground to partly follow a variety of people dressed in their 80's finest, partly be directed by some events team members to a large white building, which was about a 10 minute walk from the station. The entire front facade had been remodelled to look like the Starcourt Mall (same sign, vintage cars out front). We queue jumped about 300 people and were taken into a holding area, to be told that it was Independence Day and that Mayor Kline had put on an event for all of Hawkins. After we dropped off our bags (to a very enthusiastic cloak room staff who hoped we had 'just a super, fourth of July weekend' we followed a Lady to a secondary area. She then told us that the entry badges we had been given were in fact press badges as we were there to help promote the weekend and find any scoops that the Hawkins News Network might be able to use. We then met the Editor of the newspaper who gave us a similar message, but said that we can come back to where we were (as it turns out, it was a Media Tent) to write up our stories. We were also told that in our plastic holder, we had some drinks and food vouchers to make use of. From there, we were told that we had a team building activity to take part in and so followed one of the staff members. As we waited, she walked away, then ran back a few minutes later to say there had been a change in plan and we had to go through the backstage area. We were taken down a long, dark tunnel (maybe 60m long) with some suitably creepy flickering lights and noises and then met Murray Bauman (as a common theme, he wasn't the actor, but his clothes, hair, beard and accent were very good) and he gave us a mission to follow during our time. We had to keep an eye out for the Silent Man, locate vodka posters and try to unravel the Russian conspiracy. After a few jokes by the guy, we were left to it. We (my wife and I) were quickly approached by of the attendee's to ask if we were reporters, as they had a story. We went to the tent, my Wife gave a filmed interview that was screened on all the television screens and we carried on. We then went to a cabin in the woods, where we were told to keep an eye out for someone lurking about by a police officer. It turned out, after a 5 minute wait that it was Hop's cabin and Maxine and El were having a party. We all went in, danced to Madonna and then went over with Max and El to a chair (well, the 70 of us in the cabin). We all sat down and they played the scene on a small television of when El eavesdrops on the boys. It was well done and quite funny (again, the actors looked like the characters) and at it's culmination, El accidentally taps into the upside down, causing the whole cabin to shake, which was a nice touch. We then played a few games in the fair area, watched some singing and parades and took part in an aerobics class (where at the last song, the whole area went completely dark, then the noise the Mind Flayers makes was played, all the lights were flashing, people screaming - very cool and fun). We then stumbled across a group of people hanging outside a Fortune Tellers tent, where the actual Fortune Teller herself stood on top of a box to announce they had found one of the missing children of Hawkins. We were then ushered towards the main stage area, where the Mayor was giving a speech. During this time, all of the located missing children stood on pillars and we were encouraged to yell things like "Truth not lies" etc. Then the Russian Hit Man appeared, killing one person with a gun and then having a fight with Hopper. Murray then appeared speaking about Truth and the lies of Mayor Kline and a big ticker-tape thing went off and confetti filled the air, however this changes gradually from being large to very small (almost like ash). We were then asked by the security to move towards the screen area. The room itself was probably 100m x 100m and was built in quite an interesting way. About 3 metres off the ground, around the whole circumference was a stage, with a sort of fine netting across the front of all the sides, then a series of large screen across the back wall (with the netting showing some general swirling projections and the back a night-sky pattern). This was then one of the best parts. They ran the main story of 11 and other main characters using a mixture of live actors, videos on the back wall and then projections across the netting (one great example being El trying to close the gateway in season one being played on one wall, with an actor playing El replicating the moves, then on the opposite wall the footage of the gateway closing, with a fire effect projected onto the netting along the sides, showing the movement of her 'power'. This lasted about 50 minutes or so, fully covering the series, showing the Demogorgon, the Mind Flayer, the change in Billy and the fight with him, Dustin and Suzie singing - all backed up with a mixture of television images, projected effects and occasionally utilising some hoists so the characters could move off of the ground. The whole performance took place across all areas of the stage (so you would need to keep turning and moving to see what was happening around you). All in all, it was an amazing experience and I could easily write three times as much writing about all the finer bits of detail that I saw. For those who live or are going to London, here's a link to the event's page https://tickets.secretcinema.org/stranger-things/

This is a lovely thread isn’t it

So I started on The God of Small Things again and despite the acclaim, I just don’t care for it. I got a kindle for my birthday and read a Christmas Carol yesterday. I’ve now started on 10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world which is good so far

.I’ve never played Titanfall so really looking forward to it

At that point they're remade and sold for the subsequent console.

I had no interest in this game until I watched the IGN review and now...this may well be my Christmas holiday game.

Wife is still enjoying the game and about to start Chapter 4. I remember when I was about 7, of all things I bought a copy of N64 magazine and it described Pilot Wings 64 as a game for those "...who appreciated the little things in games" and my wife is that person. She enjoys the challenge and pressure, mixed in with the ticking over of the actual goal of the game (at least so far). It's also a great game to have in the background as I finish school work.

I'm aiming to finish Arkham Knight soon, not because I want it to be over, but because I want to really commit to RE2. It has been good though, maybe they patched it, but so far I've not felt the drone sections feel intrusive. I'm going to wait until the December PS+ games are released, then either play that, or start to work through my two accounts worth of games, whilst I have time at least.

My OT has been playing the game and has put about 7 hours or so into it so far. She says she's enjoying it and has been playing pretty much non-stop. She does however quite like games like; The Sims 4, Minecraft, Stardew Valley, where there's a lot of things to do, but not necessarily cinematic things.

That open-world template did lead to some fantastic, story driven, cinematic (and ultimately great games). It did also lead to huge fatigue in the genre and it ending up quite stale and boring. Still though, those games are worth everyone playing at some point.

Channel Four have bought it in the uk and so won’t be shown until 2020. Looks like I’ll be watching on my laptop

So this was a lot harder than it had any right to be and I feel that I will return back to this list in a few days and edit it. However, I've chosen 7 games, with a number of "could have been on the list, but weren't quite there. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii) It's been 8 years, but I still haven't played a more fun game on any console. For me, it's about as close to being the perfect game (I say based on memory, not after playing recently). Portal 2 (Xbox 360) The writing and the design are just incredible. Mario Kart 8 (Wii U) An odd choice for some (possibly) but a lot of my favourite gaming moments are shared ones. I played this over a winter with my now wife, pretty much every day and it's such a nice memory. Until Dawn (PS4) For the reasons above. Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS) Definitely cheating, but I never did finish OoT on the N64 and the three or so weeks I dedicated my free time to this was wonderful and worth while. Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds This falls very much in line with Super Mario Galaxy 2. An incredibly well designed game that has perfect pacing and gameplay. Journey (PS4) For me, the most important game of the last decade. I played it, I think in about 2016, when I was moving away from gaming as a hobby (I hadn't picked up anything for maybe 8 months prior). This came along and gave me back that love of the medium. The rest below, either were games that I loved,played a huge or have some sort of nostalgic memory for (I'm sure you can see, I love playing horror games with an audience, hence the inclusion of a few). Batman: Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360) Rocket League (PS4) Resident Evil 7 (PS4) The Last of Us Doom (PS4) Dead Space 2 Skyrim Red Dead Redemption Mass Effect 2

I've just picked up the book (I read the Shining when I was 13 or 14 and loved it, so this was way overdue) and I could imagine, like pretty much every Stephen King story, it takes an awful lot to make them into successful movies.

I'll be continuing with the stressful fun of Resident Evil 2 and balance it out with Overwatch. Although, I do have Arkham Knight to finish and the temptation is to absolutely marathon it so I can polish it off (as it would be nice to play RE2 with my wife and then try out Nioh).

I used to really dislike people touching my back, though I couldn't tell you why (outside of not liking it once then acting like a cock for several years). Suffice to say, I'll never be an overly cuddly person at the best of times.

Another good month (which at the moment means I'll put the games in my library and dream of playing them all one day).

I've read quite a few of the 'Last Kingdom' series, but now after taking a break I can't remember which is the next book I need to read (my copies are spread out at my parents house, my mother/father in laws and mine so I have no clue). At some point, I'll bite the bullet and just buy a few and just see.