Adventures in Alternate Realities.

I was sat in my flat, having just reinstalled Planescape Torment (oh, how I hunger for it now with only World of Warcraft on my desktop) when my mate Toller phoned to say he’d been intending to pass through Bath, but the trains were fucked so could he please kip on my sofa, and, oh, did I want a drink. I say I’ll pop out for one, cos I’ve got loads of work on…

…five hours later, we’re sat in the "characterful" Huntsman, opposite three women. Women, not girls. And when I say women, I’m not saying it because I think there’s an implicit patronsing bias in the illiberal word 'girls', which I might, but because they averaged about forty. Which doesn’t mean “I wouldn’t ‘ave” (as chirpy Cockney Toller puts it. the poshest cockney ever, yes, but he was born “wivvin de sahnd ah bahr bewws”, possibly) just that things didn’t turn out that way.

They were up from Devon looking for a husband for the tall, statuesque blond who was their leader, but they were seriously “disappointed at the lack of talent” in Bath. However, the blond, who was a nurse called Rosie, upon hearing that I was in games went off on one about how her two kids, five and seven, had persuaded her to play with them on their computer, and she’s created this tall blond woman (nu?) who could fire ice and electricity from her hands. But the kids wouldn’t let her attack some baddies “because I was level 3, and they were level 5, and I was like no, no, fight, punch, kick, but they can use the mouse better, so they won.” When I told her that I was level 24 and could fly (yeah, yeah, I know I can only jump really high, but it looks like flying. Superman could only jump at first…) she was dead impressed.

Anyway, Toller returned bemused to a table he’d left talking about “can younger men get it on with older women” to find them talking about Superheroes and games.

I have this effect on people, I guess.