GADGET GURU’S MAGIC BOX

Guru’s family has decided that he really must go on holiday because, to quote the erudite Mrs Guru, his mental state is “careening downhill like a Gloucestershire cheese”.

Fine! A week spent piloting Guru

Jr in order to prevent him from clonking into things as he plays Pokémon Go on his phone. A week attempting to block out the incessant screams of a somehow nine-year-old Guru the Third, which are shrill enough to penetrate even the exemplary noise cancelling of Sony’s incredible WH-1000XM5 cans (£349). A week spent watching money pour from

Guru’s otherwise securely sealed Stealth Wallet (£18), spent on food which his picky brood will barely even touch. What an absolutely delightful idea! The only thing GaGu loves more than his family is spending time away from them.

Thus, Guru has ventured into some virtual domains to at least get a minute somewhere else before he’s forced to leave Guru Towers. He has attempted to lose himself in Meta’s Horizon Worlds, but while a couple of its mini-games are semi-amusing, Guru won’t be back. Rec Room is a slightly more fleshy beast, and plenty silly, though it did little to capture Guru’s long-term attention.

Decentraland, Voxels, Otherside, Upland and Somnium Space all got a hard no from Guru, given that they’re entirely grift-based and GaGu’s stash of virtual cons (er, coins) is basically nil.

Minecraft in VR (included as part of the £25 Bedrock Edition purchase) would be brilliant if Guru could stomach it, which (urk) he cannot. Half Life: Alyx (£50) is a very expensive but cute single-player experience, and that won’t do. So for true out-of-body dissociation Gagu shed the headset and dropped all notion of fancy 3D graphics: his recent downtime (like that of many) has been spent playing online chess. Nothing frees the mind like losing one’s queen to an eight-year-old.