Further explorations of the central cavern

Happy birthday spec-trum,
happy birthday spec-trum,
happy birthday sinclair spectrum 48k,
happy birthday to you.

Hip hip hooray,

hip hip hooray,

hip hip hooray,

hip hip HURRAH!!!! :o) :o) :o)

Shite man 25 years today! bloody hell! I actually feel quite emotional, the speccy is now another year older. 25 friggin years, like woah man. Now lets get one thing clear, I am proud of the speccy, its much much better than the commodore 64 and the Amstrad put together. Lets here it for the speccy. yay!!!!!

So, the central cavern once more. Its been a while, please accept my most humble apologies for not erm finishing the thing until now. My judgment has been a bit clouded after too much of the old oregano on my spaghetti if you follow me ;-)

By now you should now be able to jump over that yellow thing on the conveyor belt. The thing with a trumpet sort of thing on its head and teeth in its belly. How the fuck did Matthew Smith dream up such a horrific demon I'll never know.

Follow this exactly to the letter. IT IS CRUCIAL I KID YOU NOT. keep jumping up until you are on the top level. Now press 'right' and keep it pressed while also pressing 'jump' and keeping it pressed, this will cause you to repeatedly jump. This might sound crazy because along this top platform are all manor of spikes and deadly bushes, quicksand and shite. But if you trusted me and did exactly as I said you'll jump under and around and thus avoid all that danger and also collect all the keys. Its amazing, the first time I did it my heart was racing so much I thought it would beat out of my chest. Then my hands got clammy and I almost fainted.

Next time I'll tell you how to get back down to the exit and beyond ...

An announcement from our leader

Haroo churnal ulpster readersh, you're ma fu'in besht friends. Glory glory Man United, glory glory man utd. What are you lookin at mishter? Wanna pices of thishh? haaa thought not ya baast. Yeah you! Four nil four nil four nil. Four nil four nil four nil.

(hiccup)

Ie' Upster fugin churnal is now sproud sponsher of Manchester United and we are all lickle tiny winy red devils. Chealshe is the proud shpawn of satan. So there.


Yaaaaahr


Tony

Tales of the 60's - the central cavern - Part 1

Obviously I'm delighted with my victory over Roy Anarchy, which I never doubted. Aaron, Ade, Gus and Maria don't know how close they got to the sack over that one! So yeah pretty chuffed, I've been working hard to get 'ie churnal up to its current high standards. Didn't want some shite spouting punk to come and take all my hard work away. What a load of pish that Roy was spouting about Simon and Garfunkel. What about Uriah Heep?

Anyway this gives me my chance to share my knowledge with those who still cannot get past the first fiendish level of Manic Miner, 'the central cavern' level. I'll have to serialise it probably as its such a fiendish level, quite long and arduous, a bit like me kicking out that Roy Anarchy guy!

So, on the central cavern start walking to the right under a long platform, which you have to jump through and land on. I still don't know how it is possible to jump through the seemingly solid platform but after about 5 years I've just started to do it without questioning it. Also I can safely say that every time you walk or jump into the bush it will kill you, I have tried walking into it from every angle and never yet survived. Its a mystery why but there you go, take it or leave it.

Now you jump again onto a raised platform and keep walking, if the ground dissolves to nothing under you keep going as fast as you can by repeatedly striking the 'walk right' button. The thing I have learned is not to stop at this point or you fall through back to the bottom and get stuck until you run out of air.

If you manage to get past the quicksand, you can then jump and get a key above you. The next bit is one of the hardest bits; you have to jump to the left onto a conveyor belt and before you know it jump over a bush that is on the conveyor belt. If you let the conveyor belt carry you into the bush it kills you. If you have done it right (which I manage about 2% of the attempts I make) then you find yourself on a platform just above the middle.

The next bit is mental. There is a funny yellow creature walking back and forth on the conveyor belt which kills you at every chance it gets. Timing is critical, if you wait for the right timing for too long as I often do you run out of air and die. It may seem counterintuitive but to get past it you have to run towards it. At the last second jump over it. An important thing to remember is to jump to the left off the conveyor belt rather than falling off the end. Otherwise you get stuck at the bottom and run out of air and die.

Tales of the 60's

Timelord Tony here once again. I guess that now seems like as good a time as any to share some more of my fond reminiscences of the 60's, a golden era which will never be repeated, I don't care how many mind altering substances you take, such as er? whats that stuff called again? ... Nutmeg. And banana skins etc, I always say if you can't remember the '60s it means you were there and I can't remember ANY of it let me tell you. So why not roll yourself a nice fat banana skin reefer, sit back, put the tv on mute send the kids to bed and read some more of my amazing tales of the 60's.

I think my first concious thoughts after the hangover of the 1960's began to occur in the early 198o's. As I slowly regained cognitave awareness imagine my surprise to discover I was now married with two children and exiled in the north of Scotland. However it wasn't all bad because I also discovered I had bought myself an 8 colour, 48K sinclair spectrum with sound, in the intervening years. Not only that but it had speech too, on the game splat.

At around this time I got addicted to the game that was a forerunner of Grand Theft Auto, it was called 'manic miner'. In this game you have to jump around a whopping 20 caverns collecting jewels and keys and shite like that that these mining automatons have been making for like millenia and stuff.

Well I am proud to announce I have finally managed to get to 'the cold room' level, which I achieved last night at around 4am using an infinite lives poke. This herculean feat was achieved after 24 years of intense gaming. My son Jonathon helped too with the bit about how to jump over the bush. I may decide to share my knowledge of how to achieve this amazing feat in a future entry so stay posted.

Whacky Tony

Hi its me whacky Tony. Yes I'm back already! Not for a full article just now though. Don't worry I can assure you I do have countless tales of the 60's and beyond still to come. Really I just want to set the record straight on something that has been bugging me since I published my first article. I want to be real clear about this. I think Liverpool are the spawn of Satan! OK, got that into your head? Sorry if I mislead you in the last article. I did used to support Liverpool ages ago in the 1980's and again briefly in 2005. Since then I have been a Manchester United fan. Well until a couple of years ago, now I think Manchester United are the spawn of Satan aswell. I am a blue like my son Aaron, except in his case he supports Rangers not Chelsea. Chelsea for the cup!

Tony's whacked out tales of the 60's

We have a big tradition of travel stories in ie Churnal lately. But I'm going to embark on a trip further than you could ever imagine this week. Not traveling through the 3 dimensions of spatial eh ... stuff. No, we'll be traveling through the dimension of time. Thats right! I'm going to take you on a fantastic journey through the fabric of time itself. Can you imagine? With me you will revisit the hey day of the Rutles. Never thought it was possible? Well come with me now and lets travel through time to the year 1960-something.

But how can I travel back through nearly half a century of time? Surely its not possible! Should I get a new physics book as the laws of space and time have been re-written? Possibly. Or get in a space-ship and travel through a worm-hole in space? No way, I've told you a million times don't exaggerate.

All you have to do to enter the unreal dimension of the 1960's is continue reading with me Tony, your shall we say, timelord, and, dare I say it, leader of the Ulpster churnal. The time travel should just happen around you as you read my words of wisdom, and your imagination takes you away.

Anyway, lets now step backwards off the cliff of reality. Or as you might say follow the white rabbit, and it will seem like you are actually there on the moon with Neil and Buzz Lightyear and George and Ringo. Pretend you are smoking pot with Bob Dylan or if like me you find pot difficult to obtain, you can smoke bannana skins for the exact same effect. In fact I've just skinned one up myself. Now lets imagine 'rolling' back the years to the golden era of the 60s.

So now our mental preparations are complete and finally we can begin. Watch carefully with me as time slows down, ever slower and stops and begins to rewind. Lets start by pretending computers are regressing from today's whopping 128K, back down to a measly 48K and then to 16K and then only 1K in black and white and then beyond to 8 bytes, then 4 bytes and finally just one byte, then 4 bits, 2 bits and finally 1 bit! Yes, 1 bit computers. And now imagine VHS recorders turning backwards into Betamax videos and shite like that.

As we zoom through the 90's you notice other bits of technology becoming out-dated and crappier, thats how you know you are time traveling. Come with me now as the seconds rewind backwards, now becoming minutes, becoming years, the 80's now whizzing past backwards and my beloved Liverpool dominating Eurpoean soccer. My hair is now regaining its glorious ginger colour of old. At around this point you should imagine a special effect such as lines of light whooshing into the centre of oblivion until we get sucked up into our own existence, now the seventies, getting quicker, disoriented, time sucking me in..... Woooooooooooooosh.

Don't be scared, remember I am here too. And here we are finally we are in the year 1960!!! Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape! This is the actual moment in history when sex and drugs was invented. People used to put LSD on their cereal in the morning. Smell the air, notice how clean it is? In the year 1960 there were only around 200 motorvehicles in existence! Now, look around, yes thats right the 60's is in colour. Unlike popular misconception, the 1960's were in colour most of the time. It was just black and white TV that was black and white.

Phew, after all that time travelling I'm ready to go back to the comfort of the future or is it the present? and my 128K mean machine. Hope you figure out how to get back to the future yourselves, see you later... maybe !

Zzzziiiiizzzzziiiiimmmmmmmmm