Christmas Eve!

The shops are just about to close and it's gone dark outside on Christmas Eve. In a few hours time we'll all be tucked up in bed. Ready to start the day tomorrow in our pyjamas with sleepy heads and tired eyes. We have a quiet night tonight, maybe doing some preparation around the house for the guests we have coming tomorrow. If we don't get around to it tonight, it'll be done in the morning.
We have some present wrapping to do before we go to bed. Not so many now the children are getting bigger though, thankfully. It shouldn't take much time. I don't like wrapping presents very much, only because I'm not a very good present wrapper. I've sometimes received gifts that I felt bad about opening because they had been wrapped so well. They can be wrapped so beautifully with ribbons and bows. I sometimes put ribbons and bows on my gifts but ... mutton dressed as lamb... is all I can say.

Whatever you do tonight, I hope you stay safe and have a very pleasant evening and a wonderful Christmas Day tomorrow! 

My dear fellow bloggers, I hope you get the presents you wanted! Eat and drink whatever you like tomorrow because if you can't do it to excess at Christmas, when can you?

Merry Christmas!

Holiday movie: Home Alone

Last night we had a family outing to the cinema to see Home Alone, we have it on DVD and my children and I have watched it many times over the years. Funny how having it on the big screen makes you notice little details you've never noticed before. Like how beautiful Catherine O'Hara was as the mother. I love the sequence of traps that Kevin lays for the burglars. It's a feel good film.

Christmas anticipation

I've just finished work for the holidays and am on my train home. It's a good feeling I have to say. I'm going to be busy for the few days but its all good family fun.

I used to get so excited about finishing school and waiting for Christmas day. Now, I'm just rather glad I don't have to think about work for over a week.

I hope that I can make the most of my days off.

How Much More Can We Take?

I wake to another day of mourning for innocent lives lost. I was working yesterday and didn't see the news. I opened the door to my wife as she came home and she told me about the shooting in Connecticut. Kids as young as five. I just thought Oh No Not Again.
It makes me sick just thinking how someone could empty a gun on someone else for no reason. Take your own life but don't take other lives, especially ones so young who have their whole lives ahead of them. The next president of America could have been killed yesterday or the next Albert Einstein or a doctor who could have saved many lives, it's just such a tragedy!

Something has to be done about the access to weapons these crazy people seem to have. I don't see any reason why anyone who isn't a policeman or in the armed services requires a lethal weapon. If the argument is to protect yourself surely there are non-lethal alternatives?

Street Entertainers

The other night I was out after work doing some Christmas shopping. It was cold and dark but a lot of people were around. A street entertainer was playing his guitar and singing. I liked his take on the songs I knew and I liked his song choice. I actually felt like his music made me a tiny bit happier. So I dropped some coins into his open case. I felt it was right and moral to do that because he was working and entertaining me. I was only walking past so it wasn't like I stopped to listen but there were a few shops close together and whenever I went in and out I heard him.
It's a fairly rare thing for me to do. Usually though, street entertainers are not very good. That sounds uncharitable I know. It's not that I don't appreciate their effort but equally I don't donate just by default. They probably don't expect that either to be fair but I feel slightly uncomfortable when walking past someone who's trying hard to sing or play to entertain but isn't doing it for me.
In a similar vein the talent shows like X Factor really do contain mostly dross. The audience seem to whip themselves up into a frenzy over something that really is quite poor. I don't understand it.

DIY Catflap (or rather not DIY)

Our kittens are early risers, unfortnately a bit too early. My wife bears the brunt of it because they seem to like sitting on her in a morning, waking her up, wanting to be let outside to go hunting and exploring. I manage to sleep through it, much to my wife's irritation, so for the benefit of marital harmony I have purchased a catflap in the hope that the kittens (8 months old now and looking like proper cats) will be able to let themselves in and out. However, I'm not really a DIY man. I can just about handle a screw driver, some drilling (though I hate it) and very simple electrics (replacing light bulbs and light switches) but for most DIY maintenance jobs I don't have the experience to know how to handle problems and am generally too cautious in case I cause a bigger problem.
I remember a friendly neighbour who, once as I was leaving the house, shouted to me through his kitchen window. When I went over to investigate he had his thumb in a pipe and said he couldn't take it out because water would spray out. At the time, we were fortunate enough to know someone (not close enough to really call them a friend but getting there) who was a plumber and my wife called and he came to the rescue.

Knowing that trying to do things yourself can cause even worse problems, I have hird a man to come and fit it for us. I hope it all goes smoothly, I would like to think the kittens will use it but I suppose that's another ball game for another day.

A Close Shave

I was returning to my hotel after having some food this week when I remembered I had to text a friend to get her new address. The street was fairly busy even though it was almost 8pm, a lot of shoppers were returning to the train station near the hotel. Suddenly, quietly and quickly a teenager on a bike grabbed my iphone as I was texting. My grip was good though and in the seconds the attempt lasted I had a strong enough grip to hold on. I guess he had to control his bike at the same time as trying to get the phone and my grip was too strong. Fortunately I didn't have my woolly gloves on, which would have been slippier. The rubber bumper around the phone also helped although it got broke in the attack. Seconds later he let go and rode off giving me an evil look without my phone. Nobody around me stopped to help and I didn't have presence of mind to shout out or do anything other than hold on. If he had of got my phone it would have been awful. I had photos of my children and it could be used to buy stuff. Aside from the personal side the phone was an expensive gift from my wife. How dare a stranger just try to get it by passing me in the street! I feel affronted!

First snow of Winter

I woke up to snow falling this morning. On my commute the roads were jammed and traffic crawled. It's only light snow as well. Don't think much of our chances if the snow gets much heavier. Here's a photo of some fields I pass. I'm heading North for work and it is snow free. I wonder for how long?

Mid-life and happiness

I was reading a magazine feature that suggests there have been research studies that demonstrate similarities between humans and animals when looking at a dip in happiness in the mid-life period. I find that interesting. What is that all about?
I wonder whether it is something to do with awareness in middle age that life is actually quite short and fragile? And that the clock is ticking on you having the means to support yourself later in life whilst also having dependents (maybe) who are your children and your elderly parents?
Or that you realise you are not young and hip, no matter what you do to your appearance or the lifestyle you lead?

I don't consider myself unhappy but at the same time I would agree that I am much less carefree and happy go lucky than I ever was. I am much more measured in what I do than when I was young, less spontaneous and much more conservative. I guess as you get older and can think about retirement I can imagine you do feel a bit more carefree and less responsible for others - a bit like being young again.

Royal Pregnancy

William and Kate are to have a baby! Funnily enough my wife saw a photograph of the Duchess of Cambridge just a few days ago and said she thought her face was looking puffier. She casually, almost jokingly, put it down to being pregnant and it turns out she was right. I think that's either luck or what I call an excellent process of deduction.
So there it is, another member of the royal family. It's great! Something to look forward to in August or September.

Advent

I like advent calendars. Always have. The ones I had as a kid were simple and basic and there was no chocolate or gifts inside them. Still, I liked opening up the little windows to see what was inside. So to remind me of those days, here's a candle...

Diet and Exercise

After being unwell last week I lost extra weight, a couple of kilos. As part recovery I have been eating a few things that were considered off menu. I need to be very careful that I don't let a few treats become a habit.

Now that I'm feeling more myself I am also starting to think about exercising again. I have a strong suspicion that a yoga pose known as the Cobra on Wii Fit was what actually strained the muscles in my back. So that one is not something I'll be returning to. But at the moment I've stopped all exercise, which isn't good either. On Friday I think I'll start doing exercises again on the Wii Fit but I'm going to pick the safer ones.

Wet

The rain has been pouring down over the last few days. Fields are so wet because the water table is so saturated. There is nowhere for the water to drain off to. On the train I noticed a golf course flooded out - it would require a canoe to navigate the course!
My garden lawn is a squlechy horrid quagmire, not nice to walk on at all. The wet weather is moving North, where I work. I live in the South, so wherever I go it seems to follow me.
This is a photo from my train station, lovely isn't it? Nice and grey and wet! I'm joking, can't stand all this wet weather.

Car: the decision

I decided last Sunday on the car to buy, it was actually the first car I went to see, so perhaps that was more impetuous than I thought it was going to be. I had made up a few cards and was literally expecting to have to see a few cars before deciding, trying a few out. But I didn't. I liked what I saw, thought it was a good deal and that was that. I had more or less made up my mind on paper anyway. So I decided to get a city car, the Hyundai i10, it's the Style edition so has a few neat extras such as heated front seats, slide and tilt sunroof, front foglamps, rear spoiler with integrated brake light and an interior trim with two tone dash. The car has electric windows and aircon as standard, there is a CD player and MP3 player connection so I'm happy.
I picked it up today and the weather was so dismal and wet that I had to do something to jazz up the photos a bit, so forgive my poetic license with the photos. It's tiny but has a high body so the headroom and relatively high driving position makes it feel larger than it is - like the Tardis in Dr Who!

Recovery food

My back completely froze up this week and I've spent most of the time in chronic pain. It has gotten a lot easier today but it's been a hellish week.
My wife brought me home a MacDonalds McChicken sandwich and it cheered me up. I haven't eaten much this week at all. Funny how MacDonalds can help sometimes isn't it? What food or drink makes you feel better after being unwell?

Cheese 2

Well here we are again. Another week and I'm here talking about cheese. This time it's about a cheese taster pack I was given, surprisingly enough. I was given the pack just after lunch last week so I put it in my bag for my commute home. I opened the pack and got a nice surprise. There was some oat biscuits, onion marmalade and three chunks of cheddar cheese. The company that was generous enough to give out these lovely samples was The Lake District Cheese Company, ironically we had a pack of their cheddar in our fridge at home. I hadn't tried the cheese from our home before I gave the samples a go. I have to say the cheese was very lovely. On an oat biscuit with the cheese and the onion marmalade the sample was delicious - that's a Deeee-licious!

Stargate SG1

Last weekend I saw a box set of DVDs for this sci-fi series and it was season 1, I've never really watched any of it before (I know, where have I been?!). I am quite liking the episodes I've seen so far. It is a bit more, how should I put it, anthropological than I was expecting!

Soup

It's autumn now and the weather is getting cold and damp. For lunch I've been heating up soup from a can. I've been eating Heinz soups from a can for years since I was a kid. I just wonder, what with soup becoming more of a specialty food and more fresh product variety on the supermarket shelves, whether you still eat the same soup from a can that you did as a child. Is it even around?

What's your favourite soup? I like the beef broth because it is thick and more filling.

Christmas approaches

Time until the Christmas holidays is slipping away. I'm a little unnerved by how fast it is approaching. Have you started buying for it yet? I've bought my wife some art glass ornaments but she chose them, I'll wrap them up for her for Christmas.

My wife is a lot more organised than I am generally, she has started but I am more of a slow burner. Things are so expensive. I wish people had lower expectations and that there wasn't so much pressure to spend so much. I think I'll have to be pretty cautious with my gift spending this year. I'd rather give out Christmas spirit than presents!

Cars

I'm planning to buy a car in December, to replace the one I have. It's not that there is anything very wrong with my current car but it is not very fuel efficient and I do less miles and spend less time in it. The fan in it has never been very strong so things like the heater and the air conditioning aren't very good. I find it relatively comfortable on longer drives and it can go fast when I push it. It has a big boot that has been useful and the seats fold down for times when I need to transport large items of furniture for example. Aside from the expense of fuel, I find it is expensive to insure and work on it is never very cheap. Being an older car I'm worried there will be work needed on it fairly soon that will be costly. My needs have changed since I bought the car, I really bought it because I was doing up to 500 miles a week and I needed a vehicle that would be comfortable on distance drives. Something smaller and more fuel efficient will do nicely, I don't think a 3 door is practical with my kids so I'm looking for a 5 door model.

My biggest question to settle is whether to stretch and go for a basic model of a brand new "cheap" car or buy a used car and get something a little bigger but with a history that I don't know about. Warranties are pretty good these days, so the former option seems better but I know I'll have to stretch my finance a bit even for a "basic" model. I could use a finance option but I'd rather go short for a while and own the car outright, not the easiest option but one I think is less stressful for me personally. I've no problem with other people who choose the finance option, it's whatever suits you best I guess.

I've never bought a new car. All of my cars have been at the cheaper end of the used car spectrum. The same was true for my wife but she saved hard to get herself a new car back in May. We are lucky enough to have jobs where we are able to afford two new cars but we have both been driving cars that are twelve/thirteen years old. Some basic models don't have air conditioning and I would really like to have it, which might add a few hundred pounds to the cost. The climate in the UK is not too bad but AC really helps in the middle of summer.

Here are some of the small, "cheap" cars I've been looking at - what do you think I should do: go for new or get a used car?

Kia Picanto

Citroen C1

Hyundai i10

Volkswagon Up

 

Chevrolet Spark

Toyota Aygo

I'll have to take a few test drives to see what I prefer. If I go for a used car then I will have an almost unlimited choice.

Shropshire blue cheese

Cheese is lovely. I was watching a TV show that was attempting to show the variety of English cheese on the market. Asking people on the street to name some English cheeses and most could name only two or three, which is not great! So I thought I'd try to invest a tiny amount of my energy into trying cheeses from around the British Isles that I might not have thought about trying before. My first one is Shropshire Blue cheese. It has a nice orange colour and has distinctive blue veins. It tastes creamy and has the bitter blue tang to it that stays in the mouth long after eating it. It's a great cheese to eat with food (like most cheese). I had mine cubed and dropped on to a plate with some salad leaves, ham and broccoli omelette and balsamic glaze. I drank a can of Pepsi Max with it but a nice wine would have been better. It is a cheese that will go well with other cheeses in case you are thinking of hosting a cheese party in your own mouth!

Photo Challenge: Autumn

I had a day off at the start of this week and took my kids out with a camera and asked them to take autumn photographs. I took my iPhone and did the same. These are my results. The kids photos were much better.

US Elections

It's very near the end of the race for the presidency and it seems to me catching headlines here and there over the last week that the encumbant president has the edge. However, I guess it all depends on who turns out to vote on the day.

I don't really have anything intelligent to say on the subject or otherwise, except that isn't it time for a female president?
One thing I find amusing is when they show the candidates going to the polling station to vote - who are they going to vote for? Their opponent? Can they vote for themselves? If they can, it doesn't quite feel right.
Another thing is when the winner on the podium thanks his opponent. And 24 hours before was slagging them off. That's just two-faced!
I am probably not a very good voter, I just go with gut instinct and ignore all the hype and words and promises. I know once they're in power they'll try to do whatever they like and the opposition will be opposed. Best that can be hoped for is that things aren't screwed up any more than they are and that the average person on the street can get by without feeling they are losing money everyday. I think the word is hope.

Bonfire night

There is a tradition of celebrating the day Guy Fawkes attempted and failed to blow up parliament with gunpowder. The 5th November is traditionally bonfire night in the UK but it has become less common for households to have their own bonfire parties. Instead many people attempt mass firework demonstrations run by local companies or community groups. I remember as a kid always having our own fireworks, they were more a demonstration of coloured smoke than today's fireworks. Nothing like the fireworks of todays professional displays.

The big local demonstrations of today usually fall on weekend nights. This evening we had some friends over and went to a local display. The fireworks were great, some screamed, some exploded with massive bangs and some made a type of camp noise that was very amusing.

Happy Halloween!

I hope you all have a great Halloween. However you are celebrating!

Here are a few ideas...

• Watch a scary film
• Read a scary novel
• Dress up in a themed costume
• Decorate your desk
• Conduct a seance
• Go on a ghost walk
• Visit a haunted house
• Go ghost hunting

Nerdy Audiophile Teen Years

I blame my brother to a large extent. He introduced me to the world of vinyl record collecting in my early teens. By the time I could pay for things myself I had quite a few albums, many purchased in sales for ridiculously cheap prices or in secondhand record shops. I don't see so many of those these days but I used to like nothing better than catching the bus to Birmingham and spending most the day in second hand record shops rifling through boxes of vinyl records hoping to find some classics at a cheap price.
My equipment for listening for hours and hours on my own in my bedroom started out with some pretty rudimentary hand-me-down stuff. I was given my dad's old Sony stereo system. The tuner, tape deck and amplifier were all in one box and it had pretty decent turntable, I used to treat the amp with scorn but thought the turntable was passable. When I had saved up enough money I bought the components of my first stereo system. It took me a long time and I bought audio equipment magazines to read reviews, to try and find the best matching components - to hear the music at its best, you needed a separates system not something mass produced by one manufacturer in a stack. No, no stacked hi-fi system would do. I had to go and hear what I was going to buy before I would make up my mind. I bought my turntable first. It was manufactured by a small British company called Rega Research. It looked amazing with a square black plinth, smokd perspex lid and the turntable was heavy because it was a thick glass disk covered with a felt mat. My amplifier was made by Denon, I think they are a Japanese company. My speakers were made by Mission. I couldn't afford a tape deck and I thought tapes were a bit past their sell by date, even in the late 1980s. Instead I bought a Marantz CD player for which, I have to admit to you now, I bought Soul Provider by Michael Boulton and thought it sounded lovely. I couldn't afford a tuner either because all my money went on the pieces I saved up for. I had to make some compromises, not like a friend of mine who spent what must have been a fortune at the time on a Bang & Olufson system. I heard it one lunchtime from school in his small bedroom and I thought it sounded naff. I was probably being a bit sniffy because B&O made systems not separates. I had to admit though, the B&O systems were very pleasing on the eye - like the Ferrari of the hi-fi world.
I loved my hi-fi set up. It didn't last for long though. I moved away from home to university and apart from some brief spells at home after that I had left home to get a job and boxed up my system. My wife has never seen it. It has been in my folks' loft for 20 years. I'm going to be reclaiming it finally. I am in fear and trepidation because this plan is a secret from my wife, who will probably not speak to me if I bring it into the house. Am I right to reclaim it and bring it into my family world? I want my son and daughter to hear the wonderful sound a record can make. They have never heard music from such equipment in their life.

My Hi-Fi Separates System

Denon amplifier

Mission speakers (not quite the model I have but very close)

Rega Planar 3 turntable (a beauty)

Marantz CD player

I'm Lovin' It!

This is a photograph I took last November of the outside of our local McDonald's restaurant early one morning. I haven't eaten at the restaurant since starting the diet. I do think McDonald's food is enjoyable to eat but too much can be bad, just like too much of anything can be bad.

 



The fast food restaurant I did go to on Saturday with my son was Subway. I had a 6" sub called the Italian BMT, BMT standing for Big Meaty Treat and yes it was three different types of meat with melted cheese. Mmm lovely. It was enough to last me from 10:30 until 5:30pm. Food on the go is nice, when eaten in moderation.

The Hunger Games

Our local library is open again after being closed for refurbishment for several weeks. I have to admit that I'm usually a big fan of libraries but this one is a bit of a disppointment. I guess I might have been spoiled by having such a cool library where we used to live. I still haven't given up my old ticket, so could in theory still use my old one. Anyway, I was going past with my son on Saturday and I asked if he'd like to pop in to see if there was a book he'd like to find to read. He said yes, so in we went. I borrowed the DVD of the film The Hunger Games. I have a sample chapter on my Kindle to read but have not delved into it yet, I read a comment from a friend who said it was really good. The books have been marketed at the younger generation but my friend thought they were too good just for a teenage audience to enjoy. I have to say that I thought the film was well made and acted beautifully. Well worth watching, if you missed it.

Sour into sweet don't go!

I was watching The Food Network channel on Saturday morning and in particular a programme called Andy Bates American Street Feasts. He's a British chef who picks out great American street food vendors, it's a great because he finds these amazing little places which serve food that is to die for. He also cooks up his own American inspired variations, which also look pretty great.
I decided one of his recipes looked so good I would give it a try myself, it also seemed to fit well with our diet. Here it is from memory:

• Add a splash of oil to a pan
• chop some onions and add to pan
• chop some tomatoes and add to pan
• chop up a sweet potato into chunks and add to pan
• Pour a tin of red kidney beans into the pan (don't drain it beforehand)
• Pour a tin of drained sweetcorn into pan
• Fry until all is soft
• Add a couple of tablespoons of smoked paprika
• Leave to simmer and reduce down

Next you make some pancakes, I made vegan pancakes because I thought I'd give them a go without any eggs. They're not bad actually and the best part is that they're quite filling too, moreso than pancakes made with egg. Well, the idea is to spoon the filling into the pancakes.
When done it should look like this:

My only problem is that I made the pancakes with just a bit too much sugar, they were sweet and for breakfast that's fine but it just didn't work too well with my filling. I'll know if there is a next time. If you want to try out the vegan pancakes you can find the recipe at the site I linked to, just look for the New York episode.

99.9F

The album 99.9F by Suzanne Vega is a particular favourite of mine. For me, this is my favourite album by Suzanne Vega. I love her voice and the originality of the poetic lyrics. I had liked My Name Is Luka and Tom's Diner. I remember watching the TV when I first saw her appear as a thin, frail looking young woman from America with thin, lanky hair and a huge acoustic guitar. She was certainly an unusual and surprising export from America at the time. I wasn't sure what to expect but I was blown away. When I first got this album, it was around Christmas time and I think it was one of the first CDs I actually bought only on CD. Up to that point, I had bought brand new albums only on vinyl. I put the CD in to the player and was blown away, this lady had a loud band! And was she  becoming a rock star too? Well, the unassuming songstress was really showing her fragile looks were misleading, this album has some powerful songs on it, like all of her songs actually. This album actually makes me want to dance, it is very rhythmical. She's a beautiful woman and really deserves much more airtime than she gets.

The song 99.9F is a song about flirting with someone with the possibility that it might head in a promising direction.
I love all the songs on this album, ones that I would pick out though are Blood Makes Noise, (If you were) In My Movie, As A Child and When Heroes Go Down.

Fast Food, Fast Service

Not that we're eating fast food. We have cooked or prepared every meal for about 4 or 5 weeks now. This is the effect of our diet. We haven't eaten out for what seems like ages but I have lost weight, so its obviously working.

Anyway, the inspiration for this post comes from fast food restaurants that have staff who give very poor quality service, as if they don't care whether you like the food or not and just see you as a number. It doesn't always happen at busy times, sometimes I get great service even when the counter is busy. I'm not even sure the environment has everything to do with it, it does play an important part though. There is usually a fast food outlet at train stations, what I dislike about these is that there are some tables on the concourse and pigeons getting on tables when people leave. I just feel that I've not found a decent fast food restaurant at a train station. The service I get tends to be pretty bad usually.
The local restaurant to us is so different, the service is usually great and the staff are friendly and it has a nice atmosphere. It is a roadside restaurant set off to the side of a service station. I've not been to a town centre restaurant as good as our roadside one either.
There is nothing like the great taste of a good burger and fries in my opinion. I like it to have a good, well cooked beef patty and good cheese, onion and lettuce. I quite like the MacDonalds Big Mac sauce. My wife cooks an awesome burger that has spinach in with the beef too.

Brown Out Saturday

On Saturday my wife and I got the rare pleasure of some time to ourselves. We took a walk around town and browsed the local market stalls, purchased some fresh fruit. There were some French market stalls we took a look at, the food looked lovely, bread and cheeses but as we're on the GI diet we couldn't buy any of it, such a shame.
Later on we were in a newsagent and I was about to buy a newspaper for me and a couple of pens for my wife when the power went off. The whole town was affected, unfortunately the cash registers went offline so nobody who was queueing could pay for their goods unless they had the correct change. The worst thing was the doors of the newsagent were electrically controlled so we were stuck inside for a few minutes until one of the bigger blokes at the front worked out how to get them open manually in an emergency - really just a case of pushing hard in a particular spot.
When we got outside the whole town centre was practically just walking around. Some of the market stalls weren't affected, the ones who needed generators had them anyway.
My wife took a call from my daughter who said the power had gone off at home too. We looked at each other, my phone signal wasn't on. I wondered for a minute or two if England had been hit by some kind of EMP bomb and the start of World War 3?
Eventually the power came back on. And everybody went back to their normal Saturday activities. At least it was only 10 minutes and we weren't in a lift! That would have been awful.

Call of Duty (the videogame series)

I'm a big fan of videogames as a form of entertainment. This November there will be a new release in the Call of Duty franchise. I'm not sure I'll buy it when it first comes out or not but I will likely end up buying it at some point. The first COD game I bought brand new was Modern Warfare 4, which was a departure from the WW2 theme. It was a release that broke new ground, not just technically with graphics and gameplay speed but in picking up a modern day military story. I eventually purchased COD Finest Hour for the PS2 and then later COD World At War, which came after Modern Warfare and was set in the Pacific Theatre of War. There have been two software development houses involved with the franchise. Treyarch, who published COD2, COD3, COD WAW and COD Black Ops. And Infinity Ward, who broke the mould with Modern Warfare, MW2 and MW3. COD Black Ops was the first Treyarch COD game I bought when it was first released and next month they release Black Ops 2.
The games are all first person shooters. They are fast and frantic and brutal, with knife kills, grenade kills and all manner of different weapons.  The single player campaigns last 15/16 missions or so but some people can tear through them in 10-12 hours. The multiplayer is really where it's at. On Xbox Live it's possible to encounter players who have spend thousands of hours playing the games and developing their skills to kill those like me who join for some trivial entertainment. I have spent far too long playing these games, I'm not quite sure why I find them so alluring. I think it might be because they enable me to fantasise or play at soldiering without actually having to get close to real violence. Are games like this good for society? I don't know, the jury is still out on that one for me, they are a guilty pleasure for me because yes I do feel a bit of guilt over enjoying them. I sort of feel I should know better, which means that yes I should probably know better and give them up. But then you read the sales figures and realise that millions of gamers have bought them, including men as old as I am. I don't think they're kids games but unfortunately they fall into the hands of kids all too easily.