[From Various Tyrannies: An Almanack, ed. David Putz, Putterbum Books, 2042.]
“Tetris in Thurso”
[CAITHNESS]
IN 2034, TEENAGER Allan Gloop, enraged at having his gaming time cut short for inessential activities—taking a bath, attending school, pushing his used dinner plates back under the door—staged a violent coup. Storming into the Prime Minister’s office with a bread knife, Allan caught the ageing leader Greg Rice unawares, causing the unstable 99-year-old to have a heart attack and collapse. Allan wasted no time in issuing the first order: that he be brought seven hundred Pepsis and the complete Nintendo back catalogue. After nine years, an aide recommended that more legislation be introduced.
I was completing the blueprints for a revenge building in Reno shaped like an ex-lover’s penis when I received the commission. I was paid nine million pounds to turn Thurso into one enormous round of Tetris, a classic arcade game where a series of blocks, each consisting of four squares arranged in four formations—right- and left-pointing L-shapes, whole squares, and vertical lines—appeared from the top of the screen, forcing the player to rotate them at strategic angles to create a sequence of lines without any spaces. Each complete line would vanish and lines with spaces would remain on screen and pile up. The objective was to clear as many lines as possible and rack up the highest score. When incomplete lines reached the top of the screen, no more blocks would appear, and the game ended. To begin, I hired Tetris world record-setter, Matthew Buco, who achieved the maximum score of 999,999 with 207 lines, to advise me on the practicalities of this operation.
Our first challenge was to create the Tetris “blocks” from Thurso structures. The most useful were functional square-shaped buildings such as council prefabs or high-street shops, or vertical ones like office buildings and middleclass houses. For the average block, we measured four metres in width, nine metres in breadth, and eleven in height (we had the added problem of a third dimension). The Prime Minister sent a task force to each street, measuring each structure and suggesting alterations for those over our recommended dimensions. The most common “alteration” for homes was the removal of roofs, their triangular sloping shapes proving inadequate for the formation of the required shapes. Those larger homes, with a little shaving off either side, made perfect square-block shapes. Tower blocks were not suitable for Tetris without the structures being severed at various points. These were, of course, perfect straight-shaped blocks, alongside the various office towers in the area. Factories or warehouses required mass severing into squares. Each structure was either altered or welded to others to create the L-shaped squares required for the game.
This process took nineteen months. During this time, the affected citizens were relocated to camps. Once the structures had been made into Tetris blocks, the residents could return to their altered homes until needed for use in an ongoing game. A field was purchased from local farmer Robert Hobbes, where two 50ft metal supporting beams were erected, into which the blocks were to be lowered or placed by a fleet of heavy-load-bearing industrial vehicles. Whoever was playing the game would relay instructions to the crane operators, who would manoeuvre the blocks to desired places.
The first player, chosen in a raffle at the town hall, was Alison Weathers, a Tetris virgin. Her first few moves were terrible: two L-shaped blocks (one a cathedral) were placed atop each other, and two straights atop those, creating a huge space below. The execrable play continued, with the next ten moves sealing her doom in under fifteen hours. “Oh! That’s not what I meant to do!” she said as the onlookers booed. The next player, Brad Orf, had experience with the original NES version, and conducted himself with more skill. Playing live-action Tetris was in varying respects harder and easier. Because the cranes took so long to position each block and the player could see what block was coming in advance (this was true of the original NES, which had a small preview of upcoming tiles for the quick-thinking to plan a next move), making the planning easier. However, unlike the original NES, the crane operators needed the angle in advance of lowering the block into place, meaning the last-minute angle-switching was not an option. You had to gauge how each block might fit into place.
Another notable change was that, unlike the NES, completed lines vanished from the screen: an impossible feat to recreate in the live-action game without the demolition of individual lines, which would upset the whole balanced structure and ruin the game. And straight lines, if placed so that three squares “hung” in the air, had a tendency to capsize, whereas in the original these would remain unbothered by gravity. The cranes would be required to keep these blocks suspended or “held up” while others were lowered, which could be awkward and cause occasional inadvertent ruining of a game. So a restriction was placed on the players’ moves, meaning each would have to be verified by the crane operators as to whether such a move was physically possible, and if it was, would be permitted. This slowed down play, but prevented structures from becoming completely destroyed.
The victor of live-action Tetris would complete a faultless series of lines with no spaces to the top of the beams, rather than a maintain a low level of lines to achieve a high score. The first to achieve this was Max Moppingson who had watched the seven preceding rounds and made notes as to which structures were liable to appear, those the crane drivers would refuse and when, and achieved a perfect pile-up. PM Allan Gloop handed over the bread knife he had used to seize power as the star prize. This victory proved bittersweet, as one man who refused to leave his property ended up crushed during an accidental capsizing of a hair salon as part of a post-game clean-up. His name was Dennis Wilson.
[‘Report on Live-Action Tetris in Thurso’, Frances Ursule, in Tetris: A Global Legacy, Nintendo ibooks, p.39, 2057.]
“Quiz”
[DUNBARTON]
ARE YOU A REAL Dunbartonista? Do your hackles rise at the 50p price hike on malt loaf at the Auld Kirk Museum? Does the three-hour RSPB response time to a wounded mallard by the canal make you seethe? Would you wait until the pishing rain cleared the queue before pedal-boating? Do you order the cheapest thing on the menu even on your anniversary? Do you know your Baldernock from your Bellsmyre? Take our quiz to find if you are a real Dunbartonista!
Q: If you visit Lennox Castle and a wheelchair user needs access to ramp, which of the following actions would you take?
a) Block the ramp with your capacious rear, and wiggle that rump in their wheelie faces
b) Step off the ramp, apologise for your thoughtlessness, and tug their little cheek
c) Move aside without comment and allow them to pass
Q: If you visit Campsie Hills car park and there are no spaces, do you . . . ?
a) Accept the car park is full and explore something else
b) Create a makeshift parking space by partially blocking two other cars with your Land Rover, leaving a barely navigable gap for others to pass through
c) Park in a ditch by the side of the road
Q: If you visit a newsagent and your favourite newspaper is not available, what do you do?
a) Purchase another paper espousing similar views
b) Strop out the newsagents muttering “bloody typical” under your breath, vow never to return to the premises ever again, and make a point of walking an extra twelve minutes to the next newsagent instead of the usual forty seconds
c) Lightly upbraid the newsagent in a tone that sounds friendly, but conveys real disappointment
Q: When passing through Renton, what do you remark?
a) “Looks like the backside of a horse, and I mean the backside of a horse that is excreting, and I mean the backside of a horse that is excreting a violent unrelenting stream of diarrhoea, following an ill-advised chilli in its sugar lumps”
b) “This deprived area could use an ample shot of investment so that locals can start businesses, improve the community, and make the place a cleaner and more welcoming conurbation in which to dwell”
c) “I’m so pleased I don
’t live here!”
Q: What is your philosophy of life?
a) Misery is the river of the world
b) I eat at a lochside bistro to avoid the hoi polloi, therefore I am
c) Live, laugh, love x x x
Q: If you are driving up a farmside road and spot a sheep stuck in a barbed wire fence, do you . . . ?
a) Stop the car immediately and free the sheep painlessly from the fence
b) Remark that it is a shame, but a farmer or somebody else will probably intercede
c) Drive on without helping the sheep, believing deep inside your heart that man’s brutish nature is what makes him the most magnificent species, and woolly liberal acts of tolerance for foolish creatures are what is sending this country to the dogs
Q: If you were staying at a B&B for a romantic weekend, and the view of Loch Lomond was not as splendid as you had seen in the brochure, would you . . . ?
a) Ask to speak to the manager at once to demand an upgrade and, if refused, spend the entire romantic weekend in a huff, refuse to eat in the restaurant or order any drinks at the bar, spend as long possible outside the premises and, when inside the room, keep the curtains closed, leave all the towels out for washing, and refuse to have sex with your partner in protest
b) Accept that the views in the brochure are photoshopped somewhat to improve the B&B’s trade, and that this is inevitable part of the business
c) Maintain an aloof attitude to the staff for the entire stay, transmitting your irritation through a system of shrugs and nods
Q: What is your opinion on Lennoxtown?
a) “It’s like having fishhooks in your eyes, fishhooks that remove your eyes, then maim the underside of your brain through your empty eyesockets, then rip your brain from your head and feed the maimed mush to a rabid alsatian”
b) “It would be radically improved by a phalanx of gendarmerie thrusting their French truncheons into the inhabitants, shooting up the buildings with their automatic weapons, and flooding the streets with the blood of puppies”
c) “It is the sort of crumbling village where hope is bundled into a sack, driven to the woods, clubbed to death by four soulless mob killers, set alight with paraffin, then poorly covered with nearby twigs and lazily shovelled mud”
Q: What is your preferred method of exercise?
a) Far into the forest away from other mortals, where I can listen to my own thoughts and opinions ricocheting around my superior mind, where I can avoid families, dog walkers, and other irritating presences to whom I would have to affect being pleasant
b) In a running group, where I can socialise with likeminded people, have a tremendous laugh and shed pounds in beautiful locations
c) On a treadmill in a local gymnasium, preferably one overlooking a pretty forest trail
Q: What is your opinion on youth hostellers?
a) One or two of them are polite, but they are basically not to be trusted
b) They are constantly traipsing with their backpacks around my forests, making loud European noises, muddying the old trails with their clodhoppers, clogging up the village taverns with their self-satisfied faces, asking for directions to Inchmurran Island, which isn’t even in this country, and rubbing their youthful energy in my face
c) They enliven an otherwise quiet rural location every spring and summer with their enthusiasm, humour, and provide a necessary kick to the local economy
Q: If a family of refugees moved into a vacant house next to yours, what would you think?
a) It is wonderful that these people who have suffered unimaginable horrors can find refuge in a safe, welcoming community like Twechar
b) They are simply replacing the misery of their war-torn plutocracies with a lifeless, mundane plutocracy so tedious, eventless, and drab, that the sound of an approaching exocet missile would bring huge relief
c) I would live in fear that one morning I would awake to my children’s heads on spikes, the whole village lying in rubble, and my wife turned into a sex slave as I walk at knifepoint into a hospital with a timebomb strapped to my arse
Q: What is your opinion on literature?
a) I only read travel books with pictures of hills in mist, hills at dawn, hills with snow, hills in bloom, and hills at dusk
b) I love the dark and twisted crime novels of Ian Rankin, he’s a terrific storyteller, always writes compelling plots, clever scenarios, and his characters become part of your life, deserves every penny he’s made
c) There are too many people wanting to write, and there’s no money in the book trade, these kids are throwing their lives away with their degrees in books, the future lies in wholeselling, whaling, and trouser-stencilling
Q: If eternal darkness descended on your village, how would you react?
a) I would leap up, fistbump the air, and yowl “Finalleeee!”
b) I would accept the upcoming extinction of all life with a resigned sigh and allow myself to slowly backslide into the hornèd hindgut of oblivion
c) I would cry horribly, weeping for weeks, if I had weeks, for the loss of such a wondrous and spectacular planet, wailing “O poorest Earth! Woe is thee!”
Q: You have the power to punish the kids who vandalised Balloch Castle. What do you do?
a) Have their fingernails removed with pliers, their necks nailed to trees, and their knees chewed raw by hogs
b) Administer a verbal caution and ask them to remove the graffiti
c) Arrange for a furious front-page headline to appear in the tabloids with the culprits’ names and faces, have their homes surrounded for months by loudspeaker abusers, their mobiles sent a constant stream of violent and graphic texts, and hound them through a sustained campaign of hate to their graves
Q: If a friendly retired scholar moved into the house next door, what would you do?
a) Say hello politely at first then make sneery, sarcastic remarks about how uppity, smarter-than-thou the man thinks he is, and that intellectual snobs are among some of the worst people on the planet, and refuse the many invitations to his evening soirees, where he would no doubt sit around quoting philosophy, and make you feel like an ant cowering before his colossal brain
b) Smile politely at his stories while partaking vast quantities of the kind man’s port
c) Welcome a distinguished man to the community with a homemade apple crumble
Q: It is sundown and you are stood before a beautiful sunset at the basin of Loch Lomond. What do you remark?
a) “What an incredible reminder that we live in the midst of rare natural wonder, and how salving these precious, painterly scenes are to the soul”
b) “We had better head back before it gets too dark”
c) “At last, the sun buggers off behind the horizon, and we can cool off and escape this irritating heatwave for another eight hours, before the sticky hell resumes for another long long day”
Q: You are born. What’s your first thought?
a) I will probably only tolerate sixty-four years of this
b) How wonderful it is to be anything at all
c) Sweet infant Christ, push me back into the womb and spare me from this accursèd life, this pig-swill planet with its seething cauldrons of boiling excrement in which I must bathe from birth to death
Answers:
1. a), 2. b), 3. b), 4. a) 5. a), 6. c), 7. a), 8. b), 9. a), 10. b), 11. b), 12. c). 13. a). 14. c). 15. a), 16. c). 17. c).
If you scored between 0-7, sorry, you are not a true Dunbartonista! Your outlook is too positive and open-minded, your horizons are too wide. Try shutting the blinds, not returning your phone calls, and changing your news feeds!
If you scored between 8-13, you are on the way to becoming a true Dunbartonista! Your face is locking into the required scowl, that spring in your step is changing into a slow, weary shuffle along the pavement of resignation!
If you scored between 14-17, you are a true Dunbartonista! You awake to watery porridge, you begrudgingly drag yourself into your socks and shoes e
veryday like a prisoner on the morning of his execution, and you inflict your smelly life’s failures on everyone unfortunate enough to encounter your repulsive face. Well done!
[From The Dunbarton Herald, June 12, 2044.]
“Aleatoria”
[NAIRN]
MARCH 30
Citizens vote for acts of parliament to be picked at random from a thousand public contributions placed in a stetson hat.
MARCH 31
Sandra Kennington to be bulldozered and replaced with a crocus.
APRIL 1
The coronation chicken sandwich to be recognised as a knight of the realm.
APRIL 2
All citizens to listen to The Fall for twelve hours straight.
APRIL 3
Public urination into kittens’ eyes mandatory.
APRIL 4
An hour’s silence to be observed for Arnold Wilson’s stubbed toe.
APRIL 5
Banks to dispense unlimited £100 notes to men named Eäåmðn.
APRIL 6
Public holiday for those with helical avatars.
APRIL 7
A state of emergency to be declared if one happens.
APRIL 8
Sprechgesang banned.
APRIL 9
Friends who convince you to attend an opera version of Kafka to be barbecued.
APRIL 10
Brutal merciless violence to be replaced with cress.
APRIL 11
All citizens to draw the homeless a picture of a house to boost their morale.
APRIL 12
Politicians to cough on occasion.
APRIL 13
A mild slice of unease everywhere.
APRIL 14
Pixel rate to increase by 300dpi.
APRIL 15
Desiccated corpse chosen image for national flag.
APRIL 16
Scotland Before the Bomb Page 17