Philip Larkin was right. Sort of.

One of Larkin's most famous lines of poetry is "They fuck you up, your mum and dad." This is a blog about some of my childhood, particularly the influence of Doom, and how it could've gone horribly wrong.

The computer game Doom came out in 1993. I was 10 years old. I think we got a demo of it free with my dad's computer magazine, and then my parents bought it. I was allowed to play it even though it's rated for players aged 16+. However, when I played it I was usually under my mum's supervision. Either she was playing it and I would watch, or I would play it but she had to sit next to me. This was not her doing, it was mine. I was too scared to play it on my own because of what monster might be around the next corner! That was until I discovered the cheat for 'God mode' which makes you invincible.

Now, you could say that my parents are terrible for letting me play such a violent game at such a young age. The graphics may look terrible now, but in 1993 they were amazing. Doom wasn’t the first violent computer game I’d played. Before Doom, there was Catacomb Abyss 3-D. The sound for this used the internal PC speaker so all you got was a series of weird beeps. It also featured text information, such as “damaging blows!” when you were being attacked by zombies.

I don’t remember there being as much concern about children playing violent games back then. Maybe there wasn’t as much, or it could be that I was less media aware because I was a child. Violent video games get the blame for people (usually teenagers) behaving violently. They probably have a bit to do with me being weird, but I’m not (especially) violent.

For example, in Doom, when you kill things with a rocket launcher (as shown above) or blow up a barrel the monsters explode and make a squishy noise. I love that noise. Also in a follow-up game to Wolfenstein, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, you can shoot people in a much more accurate manner i.e. in specific body parts. My favourite noise was associated with shooting someone in the throat.

So yes, that is a bit sick and wrong but I don’t go out and try and recreate those noises in real life. Shooting up freakish monsters and Nazis doesn’t make me want to shoot actual people. If I am feeling angry, pissed off and like I might lash out at people I don’t do a Dexter, I go and play a computer game. I could imagine there being more violence related to Pong, a very early computer game.

How can a table tennis game be violent? I might be able to hear you ask. Well imagine you have the score of 0 and the person you’re playing has the score of 9. They beat you every time you play. That would be frustrating and would make me want to lash out more than if I’d been playing at shooting things.

However, the most influential thing about Doom for me was the music. I have downloaded the MIDI files so I can listen to the music without having to play the game. It’s an influence that has made me a lover of metal. That and dad’s 70s vinyl collection. Plus it has to be the greatest influence on me liking Rammstein.

Doom didn’t just influence my tastes in music. Back in 1993, some of the members of Rammsteinvideo. You get to hear the exploding squishy noise about 2min 15s in. were also playing it. In fact their drummer is nicknamed Cristoph “Doom” Schneider for copyright reasons. If you’ve never heard the Doom music, then watch this On Rammstein’s first album, Herzeleid, the opening track ‘Wollt Ihr Das Bett In Flammen Sehen?’ features some of the sound effects from Doom – the sound of the shotgun cocking (which you can hear at around 2min on the above video) and also the death scream of your character. Also note that the repetitive guitar riffs are reminiscent of Doom’s music. A lot of Herzeleid sounds like Doom music, in particular ‘Der Meister’ and ‘Asche Zu Asche’.

So I’m a sicko who likes gruesome death noises and I love killing things. But only in computer games. Oh and I like Rammstein. It could’ve been a lot worse. I could be a mass murdering weirdo that likes Rammstein.

Feel the fear and do it anyway...

...is the title of a self help book my mother mentions from time to time. It is what she sometimes says when I ask for advice. It annoys me because I know it's what I should do, it's just difficult! I suppose I always hope she'll come up with an easier solution, a bit like being a child again. I think most adults want this from time to time, or when you stop wanting this does it mean you're a grown up?

I'm an anxious sort of person. I'm not entirely sure where this came from because as a child I'm sure I was irritating as hell. I wanted to be the next Bonnie Langford and used to dance and sing all the time. I used make dens out of the old foam sofa and jump off the top onto the cushion from the papasan chair. In part I blame educational safety information films that I was made to watch. I could have done without most of these - as an intelligent girl I knew that train tracks, fires and farms were dangerous (especially growing up in one of the most rural counties!). I did not need to see people get electrocuted (trains), run over (trains), beheaded (head out of train window), burned (fires), suffocating (fires), maimed by machinery (farms) and drowing (in a slurry pit). My mum telling me not to do such things without graphic representation would have been enough, absolutely no need to fuel my overactive imagination.

In day to day life I probably face the fear and do it anyway without even realising it. If I do realise then I often don't give myself a pat on the back because it is something that had to be done, and everyone has to do it. But not today!

My friend Hayley-Jane had mentioned that her cat Missy had been playing in the garden and had unsuccessfully been trying to catch butterflies. I later looked out the window and saw the little black cat, that I have nicknamed Salem, chasing something in part of the closed off school playground (wall repair works due to extreme cold). From a distance I guessed it was a large bee.

About an hour later I decide it is time to do some dishes, so head downstairs to put Rammstein on so the task isn't so unbearable. There is Marwood jumping around madly chasing something. An ENORMOUS bee! I am scared of bees and wasps. Quite a normal phobia as they sting. Wasps are beasts of Satan; bees just bother me if they get too close because I know that they'll fly away once they realise I am not a flower. I wonder if it is the same bee that Salem was chasing.

I manage to call Marwood away from batting it so he doesn't get stung, and shut him out the room. I look to windowsill and bee is not dead. I climb onto sofa to open the window in the hope that it will fly out. It does not. I go into the kitchen to deal with some of the washing up, run away and hatch a plan.

Through the kitchen window I can see through the living room window to the sill. And the bee. It is wiggling its back legs over its behind, much like you see a fly doing. I wonder if Marwood has injured it, and also whether if injured they commit bee seppuku by pulling out their own stings. Bee becomes still. I go to see if bee is dead. Bee is still alive and looks as if it is having palpitations; the only bit moving is the back end moving subtly up and down. I am both happy and sad. Although I still wouldn't really want to deal with bee corpse it is preferable to live bee, but they are apparently becoming endangered and I like honey and don't want the world to end.

I go back to the kitchen to further consider plan and wash up. I decide the traditional removal of creepy crawlies of glass-over-the-top-with-cardboard-underneath will suffice. This means I will have to get closer to bee than I would like. But my only other option is to wait until my friend Jan comes round to knit at 7, which is more than seven hours away, and I might lose bee in the meantime. I would much rather know where bee is. So, I have to deal with bee myself.

At the sink I finalise the plan: glass over bee, may as well be a dirty glass as I'll want to wash it afterwards anyway. Cardboard under bee, take glass containing bee outside and release hoping it will be so pleased by freedom it will just crawl/fly away without wanting to sting me. As I have very sensitive skin I wear gloves to wash up, and couldn't help but think:

WITHNAIL: ...Keep back. Keep back. The entire sink's gone rotten. I don't know what's in here.
A space for the saucepan is cleared. MARWOOD stares at it while WITHNAIL pours water from the kettle and envelops himself in a cloud of super-heated steam. A volcanic growl comes from the fog. Bellowing loudly, WITHNAIL passes at speed with his hand in the air.
MARWOOD: I told you. You've been bitten.
WITHNAIL: Burnt. Burnt. The fucking kettles on fire.
MARWOOD: There's something floating up.
WITHNAIL paces back into the kitchen. A voice laced with revenge.
WITHNAIL: Fork it.
MARWOOD: No. No. I don't wanna touch it.
WITHNAIL: You must. You must. That shit'll bore through the glaze. We'll never be able to use the dinner service again.
He tugs at a drawer stuffed with domestic items.
Produces a tool.
Here. Get it with the pliers.
MARWOOD: No. No. Give me the gloves.
Rubber gloves are handed across. WITHNAIL stares as they go on.
WITHNAIL: That's right. Put on the gloves. Don't attempt anything without the gloves.

(Please note that my sink had not gone rotten, and that I named my cat after the 'I' character, he cannot talk. Well not English anyway).

So donned in my gloves I opened all doors between me and outside, grabbed a glass waiting to be washed and went into the living room trying to find something to slide underneath. At last I found a use for one of the many Conservative election flyers which had been put through my door. Who needs the Power of Grayskull when you have the power of Rammstein! Also quite aptly this track came on, and I had my CD player on shuffle:

Sehnsucht versteckt (longing hides)
sich wie ein Insekt (like an insect)
im Schlafe merkst du nicht (while asleep you don't notice)
dass es dich sticht (that it stings you)

Bee caught, Tory crap placed underneath, out into the yard and FREEDOM! Bee just flew right away so obviously hadn't been too injured by Marwood's paws and claws. And just to prove that I am not overexaggerating, I was brave enough to take some photos once bee was captive.





Sehnsucht lyrics copyright Rammstein, English translation copyright Jeremy Williams, from Herzeleid.
Withnail & I script copywright Bruce Robinson.