Tech Eye: Xbox of tricks

Father produced his shotgun of an evening and Sister agreed to marry a farmer from a nearby cabbage patch, which was unusual, as she had been putting on a lot of weight at the time and letting herself go.

Two weeks later Father again took out his shotgun to chase my new brother-in-law out of the milking shed where he was caught in flagrante delicto with our Kazakh student-exchange milking maid.

We should have learned our lesson. However, on our 12th birthday, Mother arrived home early of a Saturday, much less gin sodden than usual, and declared she had made a wonderful present for us. We were going on a big trip, and all we had to do was go to the nearest town and sign a form to pick up our tickets. Off went young TechEye, never the cleverest of children, to join the special birthday queue to pick up our Zeppelin tickets in the Town Hall. Little did we realize that Mother, the devious swine, had swindled us again, and we found ourselves at the front of a queue faced with a choice of two forms to sign, one to join the priesthood and one to join the armed forces. Our allegiances, like our hair ends, were split, so we opted for a year in the seminary and a year spent defending strategic turnip fields in the grim north, and deserted both posts at the first opportunity.

So when we heard all the brouhaha surrounding the European launch of the Xbox 360 we were more than a little anxious. Apparently it will change your gaming life, and if you want one it will cost you around zł.1,600 - if you want a 20GB hard drive and other bits and pieces. However, if you do buy one and play it endlessly, you stand a good chance of losing your girlfriend, much like TechEye lost its childhood to national service and the Seventh Day Scientological Branch Davidians. Frankly, we think you deserve everything you get.

LM