| Gremlin |
SICK JOKE of the month was perpetrated on Christian Penfold of Automata at the Computer Trade Association dinner. Deus Ex Machina was voted Game of the Year despite the complete lack of support received from the self-same well-stuffed assembly when it came to actually selling the psychedelic game.
Penfold graciously thanked those distributors who had bought it ... and read out a list of the pitiful numbers each had taken ...
Blood continues to flow in the wake of St Bruce, the Svengali of the Mersey. Having joined Tansoft to put Oric on the map - Gremlin, February - Everiss promptly resigned when Oric pulled out of the UK. "When I learned the facts of life at Tansoft," explains God., "I thought it prudent to get out." Gremlin thought Bruce learned the facts of life years ago ...
Albert King of Welwyn - with 'moustache' - hands over the executive toilet key to Steve Currah. Can DK'tronics, which hoped to acquire Currah Microspeech, pull the chain on the deal? |
Imagine folk are bursting out all over now it's spring. Dave Lawson and Ian Hetherington, Banderbotch programmers, have been having troubles at Fireiron. Their company has received a multitude of unwanted post, including fire extinguishers and rubbish skips. "Some of the personal mail is disgusting," whines Hetherington. "Letters about plastic surgery and weight loss ... it is causing distress to our families ..."
The real power in software, transatlantic groupie David Ward of Ocean, US Gold, and a half-a-dozen other companies, says he wants to call a halt to his acquisitions. "I now own about 30 percent of the industry," he says. "I think that's about right. Much more and I would have a stifling effect on creativity. Much less and I couldn't afford to run the yacht." From the man who brought Afghan coats and Loon pants to Britain, that's very magnanimous ...
Brazen Backslappers of the Month award goes to Elite, which is what Richard Wilcox started calling himself after Blue Thunder went to his head. A press release for the unplayable Airwolf rants on about selling 50,000 copies in six weeks. The trouble with figures like that is you never know whether they represent a fit of lunacy on the part of a tired and emotional distributor or a reflection on the tastes and intellects of the public.
Anyroad, Wilcox intends to continue his masterplan of buying the rights to dire American TV series and turning them into lousy arcade games with the Dukes of Hazzard. We are promised 100 screens of the General Lee performing wheelies, tumbling, jumping and ultimately, crashing? ...
Selina gets typecast |
Crashing is what Eddie Kidd, the motor-cycle stuntman, should know a lot about. Martech, which produces Eddie Kidd's Jump Challenge, the poor man's answer to Daley's Decathlon, announced the winners of its longest jump competition. Craig Billington managed 25 cars on his Spectrum 48K. His prize? The unlovely Toshiba MSX computer. About as much use as the game is fun ...
Martech is certainly going a bundle on the sweatier end of physical activity. Soon to come is Brian Jacks' Superstar Challenge in which the ageing athlete takes you on at arm-dips and squat-thrusts, whatever they are. If that isn't gruesome enough, try The Living Body and build a blood system with Christian 'spare parts' Barnard. Yeucck ...
Talking of bad taste, fret not about the effect on Sir Clive's tender feelings caused by his frequent appearances on Spitting Image. Gremlin is reliably informed that Uncle was one of the original sponsors of the show, but pulled out for unknown reasons.
Reports suggest the first sketch to feature him, in which he invented the smallest version of something which cannot be printed in a family magazine, had him overjoyed with his sudden fame. "I've become a household name," he crowed, and videoed the sketch. But is it true that he insisted on playing the recording to all his staff? ...
Slugger may not be quite so happy about a new game from Amsoft. The game features two captains of industry hurling computers at each other. If the Clive lookalike loses, he gets carted off to hospital in a C5. What, asks Gremlin, happens if Curry is vanquished? Perhaps he ascends to heaven on an Italian typewriter ...
For Bob Neill, heaven is a typewriter. He has been 'producing exquisite pictures on his typewriter for over 20 years'. He is also a hypnotist, which is presumably why Bob Neill's Second Book of Typewriter Art sends you to sleep.
Bob 'quiet and charming' Neill has had his work featured on Radio Kent. How in the name of Bruce did they broadcast the pics? The book contains instructions for producing artistic portraits of Prince William, the Blue Peter dog, Barry Manilow, and other horrors. No Clive, but we reproduce one of his partner in wax - Gremlin February - to whet your appetites ...