Nerdy Emails

When I was little I loved a couple of of cartoon annuals, 'The Willy The Kid' books by Leo Baxendale, who I later found out invented 'The Bash St. Kids.' They were anarchic and chaotic and I was fascinated by the intricacy of the cartoon strips with their asides and little jokes. I had a new look at them a few years ago and they were still good.

I saw that the author had hidden some swear words in them. In each book there was a letter from Willy himself, full of spelling errors and scribbled out words. One example of a hidden word that I remember off the top of my head is 'count dracula' being mentioned, only it follows a scribbled out misspelling of 'cunt dracula.' I think that it's quite interesting that the author of a comic book for children hides swear words in it, no? Quite strange?

Well, The Projects toured the UK with Broadcast in 2003 and James and Lisa got on very well. As a result James remixed one of our songs 'Accidents Will Happen' and I also had a remix by Matt/Simon and I thought that a 7" with them both would be super. I sent Leo an email and asked if there was any possibility at all of him doing a quick sketch of the band in the style of Willy The Kid. He wrote back saying that arthritis had forced him to give up illustration in 2002, it prevented him from holding a pen properly. Isn't the inevitability of ageing the saddest thing?

I have also received a couple of other celebrity emails. I wrote to Bjarne Stroustrup, the inventor of the C++ programming language saying only 'thanks for inventing C++' to which he replied 'No problem!' I had just completed a perfect copy of the ZX Spectrum game 'Manic Miner' by Matthew Smith that I wrote in C++. I then went on to make a fast 3D engine (I was pleased with it, for those who know C++ it used only pointers, it was slightly clever.) I also had a brief exchange of emails with Matthew Smith. Rumour has it that he took too many psychedelic drugs after writing his smash hit 80s computer game and lost his marbles.

I wanted to go on to become a programmer at some place or other making playstation games but after a little while I lost interest and carried on with my employer on Charlotte Road in Shoreditch and later freelance, making crappy games for the internet.

I also had a brief email exchange with Gary Gygax, the inventor of the role playing game 'Dungeons and Dragons,' who died a few years ago. I wrote explaining that I had enjoyed the idea of role playing when I was a child, studying the books and adventures, but usually no one wanted to play it with me.