Ever get the feeling you were doing the wrong thing just because of the chair you ended up sat down in? Those eyes glaring daggers in the back of your neck for not being the perfect host? Or worst of all, being called out of the room by a parent to explain yourself while a friend was grappling with the latest release from Ultimate or US Gold? I'm glad it wasn't just me then.

In the ZX81 days the computer and tape recorder moved betwen the main TV in the front room and the specially purchased second and black and white monstrosity in the back room. Or at least until the back room was finished off from being built on the end of the house as part of the grand extension of 1981, decorated and re-designated as a music and fish tank only area of course.

The arrival of the Spectrum meant things had to change. No longer was it good enough to move around and perch on dining chairs with the keyboard on the sideboard, at an uncomfortable angle for many applications. And no longer could we commandeer the back room for an evening's entertainment as Dad would be in there with his Beethoven collection (except on those wonderful two hours of a Sunday afternoon when the voice of Tommy Vance told us the hits and the misses in the charts). A permament solution was required, alomg with a colour tv.

The latter was easy to arrange. We simply stole the portable from Ma & Pa's bedroom. It had only been purchased for the recovery period when Ma had an operation and the only thing I can ever recall watching on it was the raising of the Mary Rose (did that happen on a Saturday, during a school holiday or was I just off sick for the day as well?). And who else thought Tog Mor was a strange name for a crane? Or put up with the disappointment of it not coming up in one big galleon shaped piece in compensation for the odd glimpse of Sarah Greene in a wetsuit on Blue Peter?

Oof.

Anyway, not long after the arrival of the Speccy came the desk. A clear out at Dad's office meant that one day he took Mum's car to work rather than his own (estate vs hatchback) and came home with several lengths of wood and steel and also, joy of joys, a twirly chair. The wood and steel was soon reassembled into a nice corner desk providing space at the end of the front room for spectrum, tape recorder, tv, printer and the old typewriter that Mum used to use. Plus three drawers just the right depth for game cassettes to stand up in with their spines visible and a roll-fronted bit for storing different types of paper. Pure luxury when compared to the old Kitchen table that Karl's Spectrum lived on. Or the bedroom floor home of Howard's Vic.

Of course, the speccy was a small beast. You couldn't really use the keys unless you were sat right in front of it. Which was where the twirly chair usually resided. It didn't take very long for this to be known as the driving seat. Anyone else computing with you still had to pull in a dining chair and sit alongside. Not a problem for seeing what went on, giving advice, reading out listings or playing with a joystick.

So why was it that despite the offering of custard creams (or on a post-shopping day a Sports biscuit), the availability of Sainsbury's own brand lemonade, a selection of top software and the like I was always in the wrong after a friend came to visit?

Simple. I had, it would seem, been hogging the driving seat. A most horrendous crime apparently. Explanations just would not wash. They preferred to be to the side. They don't know how to load games or enter stuff. They were using the stick and me the keys on a two player game. None of that any good at all. And try claiming that if I went to their house I was generally sat on the floor or a bed and things would only get worse. Even if I let them have the twirly chair and used a normal one myself, it was being sat in front of the thing rather than slightly offset that was my error.

In the end I just stopped asking people along. Or at least not to compute anyway. It was just less hassle in the end.

Things were slightly mollified after the keyboard died and a plus case was bought though. After all, we now had audible proof that other people hammered the keys rather than treating them with the gentle respect we had in the family.

When the spectrum gave way to the ST the situation improved again - after all, we had to move in order to let the mouse be used properly - but the ligering guilt was still there when sat in the driving seat.

Thank God for consoles and sitting on the sofa.

Simon

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