GADGET GURU’S MAGIC BOX

So, what obsessions has your favourite neurodivergent uncle been battling this issue? One is a deep yearning to get his hands on a C64 – or its modern remake, ‘The C64’ (about £120) if he must make concessions to things actually working. Guru was a Speccy boy as a youth, both in terms of face and home computer preference, and assaulted those who tried to claim that the clearly superior C64 was better than Sir Clive’s hastily-assembled box of crap. This practice, and the fact that Guru was also no good at fights, likely explains some of the mild brain damage he suffers today. GaGu feels he could use a C64 to learn assembly and BASIC programming and such, but he’d probably just play Paradroid a bit and get bored, so he’s given Mrs Guru his credit card for safe keeping.

Speaking of Guru’s excellent wife, she recently dragged him to yet another extremely loud gig in, it would appear, an attempt to both extract Guru from the house and to relive a youth long past. This time it was a pair of Finnish numetal bands performing inside (and this is true) a small metal boat; if Guru’s doctor was to prescribe tinnitus, which is a thing he probably shouldn’t do, this would be the dispensary. Next time GaGu will pack his Flare Audio Isolate Pro earplugs (£30) to lower the level a bit.

Such activities did inspire Guru to crack out the old guitar, which worked beautifully as a way to encourage the younger members of the household to retreat to their rooms. His thoughts then naturally turned towards fancy pedals, something he is explicitly banned from getting but (shh) knows of plenty of ways to conceal. Particularly when they’re as small as the Amazon Basics range, which looks like it’s due to launch soon. At about £35 each, that’s a cheap pedal board.