#32 - Childish dreams

Do you ever think back to being a child and all the dreams you had? Did any of them become reality? Sense and rational thinking aren’t really part of a child’s mind, and they are hyper focused on the current moment in which they are the most important person. One moment all they can think of are custard cream biscuits, and nothing else, then moments later be obsessed with getting a new hair scrunchy. The world revolves around them and their wants can be all consuming. All kids have ideas about what their future life is going to be like, but what exactly were mine?

My dream car

It was a huge deal when my mum got her first car. I think it was a rusty green Renault 5, but I can’t be sure. In my memory it looked like a car you’d see in an American movie about a young boy/girl who picks out a car from an enormous scrapyard - the car no one else wanted but they will cherish, tune up, and eventually win a race with despite the car being woefully ill-equipped to take on the competition. It didn’t matter. It was our family’s first car and opened up the world (England) to us. Of course I wanted to have a car of my own when I grew up. Adults drive cars.

At the top of our road was an Esso petrol station (from which I bought an obscene amount of sweets and cola) which had a car dealership next door. Parked out front every day was the coolest car I’d ever seen. It was sleek like a sports car, but big enough for me and my friends. I was convinced that once I was old enough I’d own a Vauxhall Calibra, specifically a black one.

My best friend’s dad used to get a company car, his Vauxhall Cavalier feeling like a limousine on the motorway. The Calibra, to my young eyes, was that car but about 10 times as cool looking.

It was either the Calibra or the equally sweet looking (for a child) Vauxhall Frontera. I’ve since found out that these weren’t great cars, especially the Frontera, but a child’s brain doesn't have those concerns. I’m not sure why I wanted a Frontera to be honest - maybe I fancied myself as a participant in the Dakar Rally.

Child me would be horrified to be told I have never owned a Vauxhall, but mortified to discover I don’t even have a driver’s licence.

My dream holiday

It might not look like it now, but as a kid I was pretty sporty and active. I did loads of after school sports clubs, played football at break, went swimming every week, played cricket for a local club, and was on my bike all the time riding around the local roads with my mates - perfectly behaved I should add. We went on holiday a fair bit, mostly to UK holiday parks like Haven and Butlin’s, and we stayed with the circus a few times, plus a trip to Spain one year. Very good holidays (I even made a pen pal one summer, simply because he had a cool TMNT t-shirt on), but there was one place I envied some school friends for going to.

I wasn’t bothered about visiting the US or going to Disneyland - nothing like that. No, Center Parcs was where I really wanted to go. It looked so cool, with so much stuff to do outside and a sweet pool to swim in. These days, now I’ve got kids, Center Parcs would be back on the table if it wasn’t so ridiculously expensive. Also my kids are pretty anti physical activity, so it might be time to finally file this dream into the scrapheap of life.

I can’t be too sad. One trip to Butlin’s in Minehead resulted in my hand being on the cover of the following year’s holiday brochure. Even as a kid I didn’t dream of that happening.

My dream job

I loved video games as a kid (and still do), but it wasn’t until I was a teenager that I imagined a future in which I was a games journalist. CVG, PC Zone, N64 Magazine - writing for any of those would have been amazing. But alas, despite over 20 years as a games journalist I’ve never been in print. Let me know if you want to commission me for anything!

As a kid, what I really wanted to be when older was a comedian and/or a writer. I was always writing stories that I thought were fun, and loved classic British TV comedy. Who knows, perhaps I’d now be writing a sitcom or performing at comedy clubs if it wasn’t for the reaction to some school work I did in year 4, aged just nine.

We’d been given the task of writing an overview of how Egyptians buried Tutankhamun. Egypt had been a major part of learning that term, and this was going to show much much we’d taken in. Maybe this was not the smartest idea (but I was only nine), but I decided to write this overview in a slapstick style from the point of view of one of the labourers doing the job. I thought this story was hilarious, and handed it in with a wave of excitement.

The following week my teacher (a man who I liked very much until this point) told me off in front of the class for being so flippant with my work and made me write it again properly. I felt ashamed and embarrassed, usually being on the receiving end of praise at school. I can’t say for sure if this incident shaped me as much as I think it did, but it certainly sucked the enthusiasm for comedy out of me for a long time.

I might let myself dream about two of these for a little longer, but I’m definitely not going to buy a Vauxhall Calibra. What about you? Did you manage to live out your childish dreams?

In preparation for the end of year Game of the Year discussions I’ve been playing a few games I missed on release. Most recently this has been Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. While it’s very much what you might expect from a Lego game, almost to a fault, I was quite surprised by the frankly dull and tedious opening. Starting as child Bruce and then an adult training with the League of Shadows, the game isn’t shy on little jokes (some properly funny ones), but it’s also quite boring. No one is playing a Batman game to become a child. Equally, while the League of Shadows section has story relevance, I spent that time desperately waiting for the open-world Gotham City. Then, when that arrived, one of the first tasks I faced was tracking down three pieces of a poster. Has there ever been a Batman game in which the phrase “I am Batman” felt so far from the truth?

This newsletter was mostly about childhood dreams, but I’ve been doing plenty of other stuff. I’ll have a think about some other bits and pieces and round them up in the quick reviews below. I’m a critic, too, you see.

Things I can review:

• Primate (Sky/Now TV): I watch a lot of trash horror films, usually while writing this very newsletter, knowing at worst I’ll get some material to fill in the final “reviews” section. I’m sorry to say that the movie Primate, about some rich kids who are attacked by the family’s pet chimpanzee, is proper absolute trash. The poor chimp gets rabies and then goes on a murderous rampage, including ripping the face off a friendly vet played by Rob Delaney. It’s silly, dumb, and violent, but it’s not fun. One of the worst cinema-released horror movies I’ve ever seen. 1 missing jaw out of 5 rocks to the face.

• The Waitrose Christmas catalogue (Waitrose): I’ve probably mentioned Waitrose a few times on here as our supermarket of choice for the fancy bits we don’t get delivered during the week. So, the release of the store’s Christmas food catalogue is a big moment in my year. It brings me no joy, then, to say that I found this year’s spread to be rather disappointing. Usually I’d have booked a Christmas pick-up slot by now to secure a few items, but I don’t think I’ll bother this year. Nothing excited me at all! 2 £18 cream puddings out of 5 hundred pages of meat we won’t eat.
• Chicago Town Tomato Stuffed Loaded Cheese pizza (shops): I’m all about pizza. I bloody love them. As with everything, though, the prices of supermarket pizzas are climbing to ridiculous highs. This week we turned to Chicago Town, makers of pizzas that more closely resemble American takeaway style than Italian wood-fired, and the tomato stuffed crust variety was excellent. Cheaper, chunkier, and heavier than the others, it fed three of us and was teeming with cheese. Good job Chicago Town! 5 dipping crusts out of 5 slices of avocado on the side.