I've done my research and there are approximately four people on the planet who can skateboard. One of them is Tony Hawkes and he's so good he can even find time to travel round Ireland with a fridge. This means that there are exactly eighty-two billion people on the planet who can't skateboard and that, statistically speaking, the odds were stacked against me. Thus my skateboard adventures were limited to punting myself round the council estate with a big stick not unlike a Venetian Gondolier or placing my arse on the board and pushing myself along the ground with my hands - a bit like a tragically paralyzed monkey.

Well known Travel Writer and Comedian

So I would travel down the "zig-zag" on my backside - the "zig-sag" being a ridiculously steep hill with 45 degree turns and the rite of passage for adolescents on my council estate. Some cultures cut of their teenagers' foreskins with a razor blade, I would risk crushing my whole genitalia under plastic red wheels with some ball bearings in them. This is why we rule the world and have to suffer Live 8.

I mention the ball bearings only because by the time I got to the bottom of the hill I'd left most of them behind (they'd left a trail like a nervous Hansel and Gretel on their way to meet Rosemary West), along with my stomach and I was beginning to worry about how much skin I would be working with by the time I eventually stopped. I was out of control and even at that tender age I was beginning to form an urgent opinion that real world physics were no fun.

It's going to end in tears

Allow me toss another statistic in your direction. 84% of your interaction with real world physics will result in either pain, disappointment or death. Even worse, as you get older the chances of anything good happening because of real world physics decreases by 1% each year. This means that the average 67 year old is 174% likely to have a bad real word physics experience. And whilst we're at it, maths is shit too.

You will stub your toe. You will fail to get an erection. You will fall over and it will bloody hurt like it didn't when you was a kid. You will drop a slice of bread and not only will the bread land butter side down, the vegetable knife that you used to spread the butter will slide from the work surface and embed itself in your foot. You will always drop your front door key when your hands are full. Physics, in case you haven't noticed is an anagram of GOD IS SPITEFUL.

Keep them away from our games

Forgive me then if I express the opinion that anybody who thinks real world physics in videogames are a good thing is an idiot and should probably be shot. You're ruining gaming forever. Your sucking the fun away and replacing it with tedium. And when I shoot you if you dare act like you've been injected with the spasmodic-fit drug of Rag Doll Physics I'll drop a brick on you.

Except, of course, I can't. Because in real world physics land I can't do anything the same way twice. Back in game world physics I could launch a brick into your face and be content in the knowledge it would connect every time. But now, and this is supposed to be fun remember, it could go "any-fucking-where". Why go to the moon they asked? Because we can. Bollocks. We went to the moon to escape real world physics and so I could play Elite. If I wanted to spend my time falling off things, stacking heavy objects on see saws and watching limbs detach themselves from lifeless bodies I'll do it the real world where I can at the very least top myself.

September 2006

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