I just opened the studio after a three week hiatus whilst I got the computer games off the ground, only to find I had left a heater on. Not good.
Family stress is likely to be intense over the next six months as I try to preserve my mother against all odds due to the most unreliable friend I have ever had. The fact that this ‘gentleman’ was supposed to be a pillar of the community has just made his common-as-muck behaviour far far more expensive.
Being me, I have decided to make this the springboard for yet another project. It is a salvage operation which is designed to help generate some future income for a community in the Gambia. Not strictly a charitable act, since if the games are successful, this will give me an enthusiastic crew of people to work on future pieces of work.
For those who don’t get it – this is how to make the most of the world the way it already is, and make it sustainable for a population across the globe to actually survive. The ‘liberal’ sentiment that has you demanding more refugees to reduce your income apparently does not understand the concept of ‘labour specialism’ or the benefits of economic variety.
Were I to want to move to Africa, so far I would move to Morocco, which is a bit like the Europe of the 1930s in terms of economy. Ironically, I was made more welcome there than I was in London. As a Scot, this is not entirely surprising but it goes to show that struggling people are a whole lot more welcoming to certain people than people who believe that they have earned the right to be mean-spirited, self protective and bad mannered.
As someone who has worked hard all my life, to so far have next to nothing, with what I have left about to be taken to pay for my comparatively secure mother because of the inaction and snobbery of a lazy old man, it would seem strange to most people that I would choose to use my remaining time to benefit a community in a country I will probably never be able to afford to actually visit. My friend found this very strange, until I pointed out to him that it is in my nature to be practical and helpful before I think about my welfare, at which point he remembered that this is indeed the case.
From an economic perspective, it is most interesting already how people can be financially oppressed by something as simple as lacking a postcode or secure mail service. I am having to come up with ingenious ways of getting around a system in which you can send ten mobile phones in secure parcel, only to find that only three are in the parcel by the time they arrive.
As for the costings from this end, there is a subtle bidding war between parcel companies that has expressed itself via facebook and twitter. The cost of sending my parcel is going down by the day, via adverts that look as if they have randomly appeared on my timelines. We have even automated bidding wars.
Anyway the first two games are going well. I have a strong concept for both, and I think Wolfe, in particular, will be delighted at what I have come up with in terms of infogaming. It is a lot of work for one person.
Ina