Bubbling away

Time for confession. I've become addicted to a game. And it's on my iPad - so I don't even have to visit the study to play it. Bubbles is described as a hybrid puzzle-shooter game combining elements of puzzle, shooter, strategy and action games. I'm glad it apparently involves all these apparently thoughtful things that might keep my aged brain functioning, for it's up there on a par with Tetris in my addiction stakes.

Apart from the danger of repetitive strain injury (I play with the middle finger of my right hand, if you're interested) there's the problem of seeing life as a series of bubbles to be burst. I realised I had it bad when I looked up from losing a game (I don't actually know how you win it) and visualised the black jacket of someone talking on the television suddenly disintegrating as a black bubble hit it.

I've recently found Tetris on Facebook, which may go some way to weaning me off Bubbles, but the lure is strong. Anyone got something else I can waste my time with?

WiiFit has us in fits

One of the more hilarious activities of my week so far involved a visit to my sister to play with her new toy. Saying that makes me sound about ten years old; in many ways that's what it felt like as we explored the joys of the WiiFit.

If you don't know what this is, picture a plastic rectangle rather like a set of bathroom scales, set on the floor in front of the telly to which it is connected by a wire. You stand on this, preferably in your bare feet (ok, your socks if you prefer), holding in your hand what looks and feels like a cordless telephone handset. The difference is that this is securely attached to you by a wrist strap, for reasons that became obvious when I began the sword-fighting game ... but I'll come back to that.

We began sedately enough, standing on the floor pad while the machine calibrated our age as represented by our ability to be well-balanced ("Do you fall over frequently?") and told us how ideal (or not) our BMI was. The balance exercises include such sports as ski-ing down a slalom, ski-jumping and snowboarding, for which you turn the footboard so that you stand with one foot nearer the telly than the other. You get the picture? You direct your skis by swaying your body from one side to another; you go faster by leaning forward; you do a ski jump by straightening your legs and holding the tip-toe pose while your avatar soars through the air - or not.

I've gone through all this to create the scene when Mr B took to the board. By this time my sister and I were getting wellied into the prosecco, and as Mr B swayed and crashed his way down the virtual slopes, we sat on the sofa with our glasses, swaying in unison, shrieking and giggling helplessly. It was wonderful. Later, I brought out an aggressive streak when I attempted the sword fighting, lunging dangerously close to the screen while attacking my opponent to a chorus of "Watch the telly!" The next day I ached in all sorts of strange places. Guess it might even have had some physical effect.

But the best effect of all came from the unbridled hilarity. Go on - try it.

Not '68 then

We're still here. It didn't blow last night, and by midnight was more or less calm. I think the Met Office have been more careful to have us well alarmed since the 1968 storm, when I can remember we were given no hint of the terrifying night to come on the telly that Sunday evening. We were lucky - we lost a chimney pot, which crashed through the skylight but not the interior fanlight, and were kept awake all night by the trumpet-blasts of wind hitting the copper draught-excluder on our bedroom windows. (I remember my fury when I realised that my parents, whose room faced away from the wind, had slept all night.) But the morning showed the devastation all around us: tenements with half the gable-end walls pulled down as the chimney head fell; roofs with gaping holes which were subsequently left covered in tarpaulin for months - years, even - as Glasgow's builders struggled to deal with the damage. I walked to college (Jordanhill - and was I glad I wasn't on school placement after a sleepless night) marvelling at the lives laid bare for all to see - and realising that lives had also been lost.

But today is no longer red on the map, and it is merely miserable - dark, cold, sleety. A day, in fact, to waste a little time bamboozling your brain, or your eyes, or whatever combination of the two results in seeing your skin crawl after thirty seconds of staring at the computer screen. You can have a bash here, at eChalk optical illusions - I found the spiral pinwheel illusion the most disturbing, and I didn't try the gears one that threatens to make you feel sick - too easy, in my case.

As for me, I feel the need to revisit the game I played obsessively throughout my last year of teaching. It used to impress my S-grade boys when I asked for tips; my street-cred was sky-high. As too many of my readership are not 15 year old boys, however, and as the game itself is pretty old-hat nowadays, I will refrain from confessing any more. Guess away, kiddies!

Update: I've just found out that the storm in '68 fell on Sunday night, 15 January - so the equivalent of today, really. How satisfying.