If my calculations are correct..

When two become notes.

…you will receive this newsletter immediately after me and my wife jumped on a plane to New York to celebrate our one year anniversary, where I’m most likely playing Metroid Prime Remastered high in the skies as you read this.

It’s been a while huns.

When I saw Substack introduce its ‘Notes’ feature this week, I instantly thought, ‘Here we go.’

And then BOOM - like Ryu’s Super Hadouken in X-Men vs. Street Fighter, the floodgates opened of many declaring that this is the new ‘Twitter 1.0’ the name for pre-Elon Musk.

While I believe this will go the way of Hive in about, 3 days for many, the one positive is that it made me check this newsletter, that I originally set up in 2020, and, as it’s a week off, I always have to write something, regardless of currently being on holiday. As work will raise many eyebrows if I’m spotted in the CMS, these two factors compelled me to write some words, and what’s coming up.

---

In January, I was invited to go to the Computer Museum in Cambridge to talk about me, the book, and the future. And after creating a presentation and showcasing it like Bruce Forsyth of the Generation Game at the end of March, it was a really fun time.

The video went up over the Easter weekend, so you can watch it on your 75-inch 4K TV to your hearts content. Do ignore the comments.

After really enjoying it, I’m currently looking into doing it again at several places, and with changes to the presentation, so no one gets the same show twice. If you have any ideas of where these could be, offline or online, do holla.

I also got a promotion at work in January, moving from TechRadar to iMore as its Features Editor. Very surreal, as I remember reading the site and listening to its podcast back when I was at Uni in 2013, around the time I was just discovering that writing is what I wanted to do. If you’re new here and you haven’t looked at what’s been published (and how dare you), you can read more detail of that here.

I was also asked to host a panel about ‘Tomb Raider 3’ with a bunch who were involved in its development for October, at Derby’s annual Tomb Raider convention by its organiser, Luke Earle.

TR3 is a game that’s always felt like a missed opportunity to me - but at the fault of Eidos, not CORE Design, due to its insistence on a yearly release schedule. So it’ll be good to ask questions that haven’t been asked before, and go into what they’d have changed if they were able to release it on the PS2 as intended.

I’ve also just moved house, which was stressful but, worth it for the lack of noise, odd smells and undesirables that the old house brought, and it’s great.

Alongside other things, there’s been a lot going on, but it’s been fun.

With things calming down, I’m tempted to revive this newsletter that has content which would be impossible to feature for the day job. While others may be too focused on moving platforms and indirectly losing followers, I enjoy Substack, and its UI is one of the best.

I’m, at the time of writing, typing this on an iPad in Safari, with a pint by the side and Pipers’ Sweet Chilli Crisps (its best) , and it’s ideal - no bugs, no stress, and inserting media is a treat compared to other platforms I’ve used in the past.

So I’m mulling ideas.

Perhaps a monthly thing?

While I’m very glad to be on holiday, that still doesn’t stop my mind from thinking about what’s on the agenda, writing-wise, family-wise, Jolly-wise, so tell your friends across the land if they’d like to hear about my musings and subscribe.

Or, if you’d like me to talk about certain topics - going from freelancing to full-time, the perfect omelette, Jolly for example, do let me know.

However, one of the first topics here will, as the YouTube talk has now confirmed, be covering - Book 2.

After 18 months of prep, writing and now editing for an early 2024 release, it feels good to have it out there after lots of denials.

…But what is it? And why has it taken 18 months?