YS2/100

(Sort of.)

Hurrah!

NEWS FLASH! See NEWS FLASH.

What's all this about then?
Well, it's YS2/100. Sort of. Y'see, originally, YS2/100 was going to be this: an updated Where Are They (Being Crap In A Funky Skillo Sort Of Way) Now?, as the ones I've seen are so behind as still to be quibbling over whether or not the YS Shed had a latch on the window; the YS2 Complete Guide To YS; and The YS2 Story, but I grew bored with it after writing, "1. The YS Shed did have a latch on the window, but it was broken."

To be quite honest, I'm fed up with writing about old stuff. (You may know I did it for fifteen months about AMIGA POWER in AP2.) However, it seems silly to withhold things pointlessly (hence the clear-out of those 192 .tap games), so here's a bunch of things that sort of form an index of YS. It's (massively) incomplete and crudely transferred to THNTRNTeiee (there're no pretty indexes, for example, but then you're only going to read down once to the end) and sometimes I'm "Jonathan" but other times "I", and everything is listed by the first letter instead of properly. Pfoo, eh?

Hang on - I've seen some of this before.
Yes, I sent a few entries to YSAC correcting the factual inaccuracies caused by their excellently putting the entire thing together with exactly one ish of YS to hand.

Is YS2/100 - but sort of (or whatever) going to be updated regularly, then? Or what?
No. I may add some more bits from time to time (if I find more of The YS2 Story, for instance - it's scattered all over the place like a face chase), but this is basically it. Sorry, but I'm too busy with new things.

Look, what is your blimmin' e-mail address, eh?
It's YS2 at theweekly.co.uk, except if you're going to complain about your covertape not loading or something. (Lawks.)

Sticky bun?
No thanks.

ABLEX
YS's covertape duplicators, who insisted that you send a stamped self-addressed envelope if returning a faulty one, so basically you had to pay for them to replace something they'd messed up in the first place. Blimey. Not to be confused with Abbex (publishers of Wizard's Warrior, the best, er, "conversion" of Wizard of Wor), Abelard Snazz (a 2000AD character) or Ablex, except a different one.

ADAM ANT
I can't recall Adam Ant ever being played in the Shed.

ADAM WARING
Adam was YS's original official Techy Bloke (see SIMON COOKE). He left to go to Australia, and went to Australia. A bit later, he came back. He wrote quite a few Speccy games, so it ought to be possible to make an Adam Waring Heaps o' Fun Spectacular compilation, except no one can remember which ones they were, and Adam himself has grown a small beard in an effort to forget. He indisputably did Caves of Doom, though. And possibly World Cup Carnival on the CPC, though this may be just an appalling smear. While in Australia, Adam embarked on a campaign of arson, causing in the final reckoning some twenty million pounds' worth of damage and returning to the UK barely ahead of the police, which is just an appalling smear.

ADVANCED LAWNMOWER SIMULATOR
Gardensoft's legendary game, designed and programmed by Dunc MacDonald. I played this for the first time last week. It's excellent. (See also DUNC MACDONALD, CRAP GAMES CORNER.)

AH! AH! AH!
Along with "Hurdy ho!", a phrase made famous by YS. And daily use by the Portuguese and Swedish. (See also WONDERFUL WORLD OF SPECCY.)

ALARMINGLY HIGH PROPORTION OF TECHY STUFF IN THE CLOSING ISSUES
There is a rational explanation for this. It probably involves sun-spots.

ALF FAIRWEATHER
Alf is also the name of Alf, co-author of fanzine The Thing Monthly (see THE THING MONTHLY), heralded by the media as "noticeably better stapled than Irregular Shed," (see STEVE ANDERSON), parts of which appeared in YS2 (see ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE ALTERNATIVE LYRICS). The fifth birthday issue is keenly anticipated, though is as late as a plate crate.

ALL OVERCOMING OF CHRIST
There is a strong YS contingent (Linda, Andy O, JD, Rich, Dave Golder, Stuart) in the famous AP Viking Funeral Video OST, an electric recording version of which is in AP2. Hear! Andy say, "All overcoming of Christ"! Whatever that means.

ANAGRAMS
The last few YS flannel panels (see FLANNEL PANEL) were complicatedly rejigged for a joke. (For example, in one, everyone was credited as Editor, while in another, everyone was called Dennis.) Ish 90's was entirely composed of anagrams. Jonathan compiled these by hand, and at least one has the wrong number of letters.

ANDY HUTCHINSON
Andy "Andy "Andy "Andy Hutchinson" Hutchinson" Hutchinson" Hutchinson left the Shed in Mysterious Circumstances, a skateboard-powered car with a stupid name. He took to the stage, and after a brief spell in Godspell and a god encounter in Brief Encounter, he became a Sixth Day Adventist, which is like a Seventh Day Adventist, except they turned up early. Finding religion held no answers, he joined the navy to see the world, but as this was all from inside a boat, it didn't really help. Jumping ship at Istanbul, which he thought was Barnstaple due to not being able to see, and because he was practising that scrapey wheelie trick rather than paying full attention when they were shouting the name of the port, he joined a troupe of travelling players, and soon found himself exercising Forgotten Thespian Skills, the producer's show-dog. After a triumphant season of playing "Hubey" in the troupe's version of Look Who's Talking Too, Andy had earned enough money to buy his passage home, but lost everything halfway across the Alps to a confused riverboat gambler and had to hitch the rest of the way, in the process becoming the first person to skateboard down the east face of the Matterhorn without oxygen, or, indeed, sensibly warm clothing, since "Kobey" O'McPeepsmimble back in '64. Andy currently divides his time between skateboarding in California and snowboarding at the exclusive "Napoleon's Retreat" in Moscow, using a special board with retractable wheels, although as the wheels are deployed by jiggling your right foot and withdrawn by using a dangling modifier, this isn't as excellent as it sounds. Andy invented the term "god sim," but forgot to patent it as it was raining, an error he has vocally regretted on more than 638 occasions.

ANDY IDE
Andy was successful in his campaign to become a Euro MP. He now works in Brussels, and is in charge of the Van Houten Chocolate mountain. (See VAN HOUTEN HOT CHOCOLATE DRINK MIX FORMULA.) He plans to have it burned on January 1st, 2000, to celebrate the new century, but there is strenuous opposition from Sweden, which fears chocolate ash could drift across mainland Europe for years. (Andy maintains the chocolate will immolate fiercely and leave no residue, and has suggested conducting research into using Van Houten Chocolate as space fuel.) The negotiations are hampered by the fact Andy doesn't know any Swedish except that which he read in YS, and so whenever he's called on to speak, all he says is, "Flurgen splurgen hurgen. Hurdy ho!" then sits down looking pleased with himself. Fortunately, no one has noticed he's saying exactly the same thing each time, because Sweden's Euro MP doesn't speak Swedish either. She is, in fact, Rebecca Norley, due to an administrative error.

ANDY OUNSTED
Not long after YS closed, Andy passed the test for a Stage 2 motorcycle licence (or whatever it's called), entitling him to ride hugely more powerful crap bikes. He acquired the nickname "Streethawk" because the only way he could get his crap bike going in the morning was to ride it down the stairs of the really tall building where he lived and hope the engine caught by the time he reached the bottom, knocked down the back door and wheelied uncontrollably into the alley. Neighbours would set their clocks by his daily appearances and screams of terror. Andy is now a manager of several legendary punk bands and is learning to fly.

Andy's crap bike is no more! (See NEWS FLASH.)

ANTIQUES ROADSHOW BLOKE
Jonathan once wrote to the Antiques Roadshow purporting to be Linda, asking on behalf of her great-great-grandmother for an autographed photo of one of the presenters. He kindly sent one back, which eventually turned up in YS in one of the Special Guest Star spots when there were only two skillo crapsters left doing it.

AP2
The ultimate experience in gruelling self-aggrandisement. Stand by.

AP2 LEGAL CAPERS
(Snip! - AP2's legal representative.)

ARNIE SPEAKS!
A semi-regular feature during the Andy H Era was Arnie Speaks! in which Arnold Schwarzenegger dropped his science on those assembled. Each column would open with a cheery, "Oh no! It's zat Your Zinglair compooda magazeen again. Go avay! I vill not speeg to you." He made a final cameo appearance in ish 89, giving tips on writing tunes with covertape prog Music Synth. ("Hö hö hö! It is zo much fun, zis compozink of moozik.")

BADGES
YS had hundreds of badges. And they were really good ones, too, that didn't fall off or split after about a week. Possibly the earliest YS badge was the "Your Sinclair - Deadlier than a Three-Second Egg!" one; certainly the last was the frankly beautiful oblong pin one that kept knacking the post room franking machine if you put it in a normal envelope (see MYSTERY OF THE PRE-TORN ENVELOPE). In between came "YS - Moderately Cool," "I've Got Big Tips" and some others. Oh, and the Ocean tie-in ones, like the hand from The Addams Family and Robocop 2 or something.

BADGERS
No, badges.

BARCODES
When Marcus Dyson, later of Team 17 fame, was convinced he was about to be fired from Amiga "Sieze The Future" Format, he concocted an elaborate plan of revenge whereby his final issue's barcode would be altered using the freely-available Barcode Font font, so that every time a copy was swished with one of those electric pens at the WH Smith's checkout, the till readout would bleep, "NYER!" (Except clearly not "nyer," but you get the idea.) He wasn't fired, so the plan fell apart like a Team 17 lawsuit.

BARRY THE YS GUINEA-PIG
Intended to resolve whether or not a contentious reader letter received a YS badge by being held underwater in a fishtank while Matt counted to 180, Barry was accidentally forgotten in the confusion following Matt's breakdown. (See GADGY THE NINJA DUCK.) Discovered during a spring-cleaning of the Shed two years later, Barry had survived merely by holding his breath until the water evaporated. Last seen in Prague as trumpet for the "King" Whimsy Jazz Hamster Trio under an assumed name. The fishtank, replenished amply with privet, was later used to house Bert The Stick Insect. (See BERT THE STICK INSECT.)

BIG FINAL ISH HOUSE AD
Such were the extravagances lavished on the Big Final Ish, we were even allowed to have a House Ad in sister mag AMIGA POWER. Exactingly we laboured over it, attempting to put across YS in a page, but it was deemed too long for an ad. (Eventually, just the final plug-o-bit was used.) Here then, it is seen in its original slightly wrong intend-o-form for the first time ever. But not the pictures, obv.

Colonel 'O' And The Masked Cavaliers
Final Chapter

The story so far:

The small town of San Martique is at the mercy of the evil Baron Warner, henchman to mysterious criminal mastermind The Hooded Tiger. Elsa, a woman of the town, contacts her friend Colonel 'O', the leader of that noble band of freedom fighters, the Masked Cavaliers, and asks him to free their town from the Baron's oppression.

The Baron, learning of the arrival of the Cavaliers, sets a trap for them, but thanks to the timely warning of Little Jimmy, Elsa's son, the Cavaliers escape. Meeting up with Elsa, they discover that Baron Warner is planning to drive out the people of San Martique in order to turn their town into an incredibly large hotel.

The Cavaliers vow to foil the Baron's evil plot, and drive away the Baron's lackeys with the help of Captain Wells, Elsa's fiancé following her husband's death at the hands of the villainous Baron. Captain Wells reveals that Warner is holding a banquet that night for potential investors in the hotel, and the Cavaliers decide to strike there, unmasking the Baron for the scoundrel he really is. But the banquet is a trap, and, after a fierce battle, the Cavaliers are captured.

Elsa, with the aid of a false leg supplied by Monsieur Beaumont, the local theatrical merchant, poses as Archibald, the Baron's unusual son, and orders the Cavaliers' release. Storming the Baron's quarters, they are surprised to discover Warner plotting with Captain Wells, who is in reality The Hooded Tiger. An exciting swordfight ensues, ending with Baron Warner run through by Colonel 'O'. The Hooded Tiger, in a final diabolical move, attempts to plunge the Cavaliers through a concealed trapdoor into an underground river, but Elsa intervenes, and the master criminal tumbles to his doom. The townspeople celebrate, and a feast is held in the Cavaliers' honour.

Now read on...

Your Sinclair, the world's loveliest Spectrum magazine, is going out with a tremendous sort of bang. The final, ultimate and amazingly last issue, containing a bumper 68 pages of spectacular wonderfulness, goes on sale on Tuesday 3rd August. Go on, buy it. You owe it to your Speccy. Or something.

Your Sinclair. It's crap. In a funky skillo sort of way.

BLIM!
The famous useless information blobs on reviews thought up by Andy Hutchinson and apparently an exceptionally rude word.

BLOKE WHO WON A SHED
Excellently, Andy and Linda arrived with the Shed when yon bloke was at school. So he came home to find a shed in the garden with Andy and Linda sitting outside, drinking tea. Hurrah!

BROKEN PURPLE TELEVISION, THE
As befits a bit o' Shed equipment, when YS's TV broke down, it couldn't even do that properly. Instead of, say, exploding, or going blank or something, it just made all the colours shades of purple. This was enough for the publisher to justify not buying a replacement, because we could imagine it was black-and-white, except purple, or something. For the last eight or so issues, YS's reviewers could only see the graphics correctly when the screenshots were plonked on the page. Amazingly, three hours before the huge Chaos tournament in the Big Final Ish, the set spontaneously decided to work properly, although it went purple again forty minutes later. Jonathan offered the broken television as a crap prize in the YS Subs Club Win a Crap Prize (It's a Broken Television That Only Displays Shades of Purple) Compo, but no one entered. The set was last seen in an elaborate photoshoot joke for the television premiere of acclaimed drama The Colour Purple, at which point the screen went blank and it exploded.

COLIN CULK
Dunc's hard drinking friend (grammar) Culky's Game Zone (see GAME ZONE) column invited readers to challenge him to fights. A typical letter would read, "Dear Culk - Here's a picture of my garage, which me and my dad have cleared a space in so we can kick you in"; the reply, "Culky's added somefing to your drawing - chalk outlines of you and your dad, which is what'll 'appen after I'm finished with you, an' that." The challenges increased in complexity, involving power tools, an appeal for peace from a nun ("Oh yeah? Well why don't you come down to my manor? And bring some of your nun mates with you - as many as you like. Then we'll see how hard this Jesus geezer is"), driving over Culk in a car (he just drove over the reader first in his tank) and building sites. Perhaps the finest Culk exchange is here reprinted in full.

Dear Culky You poof. Boz Boswell, Harrow, Middlesex Culky says: "I've got your full address and I'm coming for you Tuesday week. You'd better be tooled up an' that, cos I will be."

CONFUSE-A-FRENCH-CHILD STORY
Simon Kirrane told this in the Game Zone office, so I put it in the mag. Now I thought I'd credited Simon, but when I bumped into him recently he told me I hadn't. (Maybe it was preying on his mind, or something.) Anyway, there you go. Simon Kirrane wrote the Confuse-a-French-Child Story in Game Zone.

CRAP GAMES CORNER
Crap Games Corner came about as a direct consequence of the appearance of Advanced Lawnmower Simulator: inspired by Dunc's success (see DUNCAN MACDONALD), exemplifying the Speccy ideal of permitting anyone to write their own game and watch their publisher become fabulously rich overnight then leg it with the royalties, readers hoped to reproduce ALS's covertape-headlining success by sending in their own minimally-altered versions. Famous Crap Games Corner games included Andy O's Crap Bike Simulator (a sort of Super Hang-On where your bike went really slowly and kept breaking down), ingenious Marble Madness Construction Kit entry Funky Testicle by future YS writer and futurer Rare writer Leigh Loveday (see LEIGH LOVEDAY), Advanced Codemasters Simulator (reproducing David Darling with eerie convincingness) and that Greek Myths wargame, which entirely missed the point by being quite good. Crap Games Corner eventually came to an end when Rich couldn't take it any more and overdosed on Spicy Nik-Naks, and the task of making crap games was returned to the professional software companies. Ah! Ah! Ah!

DAVE GOLDER
Dave is the editor of SFX, a magazine that's sort of like lots of Killer Kolumns From Outer Space stuck together. He retired from crimefighting six years ago after someone pointed out that, whatever he thought, the accepted general understanding of The Flasher was not "someone faster than The Flash." One of Bath's celebrity residents, Dave has a small museum dedicated to him on the banks of the canal, where visitors can watch the hourly show of an animatronic Dave leaving the towpath and smoothly cycling into the water. His album, Dave Waves, recorded with Linda B And The Lindas (see LINDA BARKER) consists of thirteen tracks of him waving while the music plays, and has never left the local hospital radio charts, although the video sells considerably better among his fans.

DEJENEUR D'AMOUR
The last YS Photo Story, after some I can't remember and that one about the weather (so one more I can't remember then), featuring two YS readers winning a dinner with gentleman editor Jonathan Davies (see JONATHAN DAVIES), only for one to go off with Rich (see RICH PELLEY) and the other with Andy (see ANDY IDE), who had the excellent line of dialogue, "Yo, JD - I'm your chaperone!" With Adam (see ADAM WARING) as the restaurant owner and Linda (see LINDA BARKER) in a cameo role as "The Washer-Upper." Lizzie, one of the reader stars, has captured the award-winning composition for posterity. (See also ABSURD NUMBER OF REFERENCES FOR ONE ENTRY.)

DOODLEBUGS
Probably the best doodlebug was the Midnight Resistance one, which showed a house at midnight with a voice from upstairs saying, "Not tonight dear, I have a headache." (See also FISHNIGHT RESISTANCE.)

DUNCAN MACDONALD
Dunc MacDonald is one of the funniest people in the entire world. (Funnier even than the photograph of Eric Morecambe in the Chambers Encyclopaedia of the Twentieth Century, which shows him looking into camera with six pipes in his mouth and is captioned, "Is this Britain's funniest man?") Worryingly, he has recently completely vanished.

ED COMMENTS
A couple of issues before AMIGA POWER closed, Mr Penkethman, the creator of possibly the most famous literary device in mags, the Ed Comment, died. A tribute appeared in the next issue. There was a fairly large discussion a while ago about the origins of Ed comments, so the article is reprinted here.

A Tribute to "Ed"

"Dear AMIGA POWER," writes Bill Obviouslymadeupname of Norwich. "Who's this Ed, then?" Just one of the dozens of letters we've had over the years about Ed, the originator of little asides in the middle of a review or feature. It is, of course, the editor. What are you, stupid or something, or what? Haven't any of you the brains to grasp such a simple principle? Have you never noticed there are no asides in anything written by the editor of the time? THERE'S NO SUCH PERSON AS ED.

But there was once. A man who single-handedly changed the way editors were perceived, and who has just died, aged 108, sadly neglected by the industry he helped create. Without Charles Michael 'Eddie' Penkethman (1888-1996), magazines, comics and books would be poorer indeed.

Charles Michael 'Eddie' Penkethman. A great child. A great athlete. A great human being. Our story starts when Charles Michael is three years old. While the other children at the orphanage are interrupting their bedtime story to shout out advice to the characters, Sister Helen Boroughbridge notices Charles Michael remains at a distance, his sarcastic remarks displaying a causticity beyond his years. Despite their best efforts, the sisters are unable to break Charles Michael of the habit, and wearily accept lessons will be almost continually underscored with comments like, "You've just got that out of a book, haven't you?" and "Oh, I can't be bothered with this." Furthermore, he quickly develops an unusually emphatic speaking manner.

The sisters are not sorry to see Charles Michael leave at the age of eleven to begin work as a copy-boy for the Kent newspaper The Gazzette. His appointment coincides with an outbreak of influenza, and on his first day he is left single-handedly to oversee printing. The next morning's edition is bannered THE GAZZETTE, 1d. (That's "Gazette," you dolts. - Ed.) Inside, further errors are ridiculed, and in a correspondence column that usually features one full-page letter, there are an unprecedented eight, ruthlessly cut short with comments such as (Another six paragraphs of contradictory examples. - Ed) and (&c. - Ed).

It is impossible to overestimate the impact this would have had. In the unenlightened days of the 1890s, owners and publishers reaped gigantic rewards from the millions-strong circulation of their papers while the staff - perhaps as few as three people for a national title - would commonly work 16-hour days. Unions were banned. The staff were unknown to their readers and had no job titles, referred to universally as 'jacks,' or jacks-of-all-trades, working constantly on all aspects of a paper. It was Charles Michael's revolutionary introduction of personality that inspired creative staff on other papers to fight for better conditions. (You may remember from history the successful 1902 struggle of Arthur Editor and his wife Production to get recognition for designers and proof-readers, in the process giving their names to the posts.)

The furious publisher of The Gazzette sacked Charles Michael without references, but the wily copy-boy supplied his own, bolstered with recommendations like (He's great. - A publisher) and (I agree. - A press baron). At his next paper, The Clarion, the owner was clever enough to give him his head, and circulation rocketed as the public, excited by a fresh approach, watched gleefully to see which innocent correspondent or celebrity feature-writer would 'get Eddied' next. (Charles Michael was constantly enraged at being little-known by his real name. More than one of his biographers have claimed his hurtful irony stems from frustration at never knowing why his childhood nickname was Eddie.)

It is from this period that the Ed/editor confusion arises, for Charles Michael wasn't to be an editor until 1912, a position he held on one paper or another until his retirement in 1987. By then he'd made millions from radical investment and war profiteering, himself owning a string of magazines and newspapers, including The Gazzette, which he bought solely to have the name corrected and the publisher fired and hounded to his death. By definition working in the background, he has influenced generations of writers who have themselves gone on to be editors. The legendary November 7th, 1952 jam issue of The Dryfesdale Times, which had one line of the lead story interrupted by a Charles Michael 'Ed comment' (as the form had come to be known), then the rest of the issue entirely taken up with a battle of hurtful irony between Charles Michael and the six best of his contemporaries, commands upwards of £8,516 from collectors.

Few today have heard of Charles Michael 'Eddie' Penkethman, but no one can belittle the influence of the man who, it transpired at his funeral on March 31st, had directed his tombstone to read simply, (Aaarghh. - Ed). AMIGA POWER joins the world of creative writing in general in paying tribute to this great man. (And that's quite enough of some old dead bloke. - Ed.)

(Picture caption)
The papers of the 1930s adopted the character of Your Editor, a nameless amalgam of the three or four sub-editors per title. Characteristically, Charles Michael despised these uncritical figures (existing as they did solely to publicise the next issue's contents) and often wrote in wishing them all dead. (Possibly an ironic comment on their exemption from call-up during World War One.)

(Picture caption)
A portrait of Charles Michael by 'Otter' of the Herald; probably 1951. The original, recently donated to the Erdington Museum, is signed in an unusually jocular moment, (Yikes! - Ed).

(Picture caption)
The 1978 Sparky strip, The Sparky People, spoofing the idea of the all-powerful publisher, was probably written by Charles Michael himself under a pseudonym. (Dick the Office Boy is the spitting image of the young Penkethman.)

ER
The "er" in YS was always, er, "er." Latterly, however, Andy O's (see ANDY O) powerful interpretation (a sort of back-of-the-throat high-pitched "erm", so it sounds a bit like "eem") (see SONYA) was so widely adopted that, post-YS, it's been written, er, "erm." Andy's new global standard has brought him monthly royalties of five thousand pounds from Viz (see VIZ) alone. But "er" will always have a place in, er, erm, (cough), er...

ERNIE THE PSYCHOTIC MADMAN
Recently, Jonathan discovered he had the complete run of original Ernie episodes in an envelope. This pleased him tremendously.

FATALITIES
Two YS writers are now dead. Can you name both?

Actually, it turns out that Iolo Davidson isn't dead at all, so it's only one.

FILM THAT'S COMPLETELY TERRIBLE EXCEPT FOR THE AMAZING KILLER BRAIN SCENES, A
Fiend Without a Face.

FILMS THAT EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD WAS TOTALLY WRONG ABOUT EXCEPT JONATHAN, SIX
The Avengers.
Brassed Off.
Swingers.
Escape From LA.
Hudson Hawk.
Once Were Warriors.

FISHNIGHT RESISTANCE
A variation on probably the best doodlebug (see DOODLEBUGS) where the speech balloon read, "Not tonight dear, I have a haddock."

FLANNEL PANEL
This is another name for the credits column.

FLANNEL PANEL FROM HELL, THE
The Big Final Issue's flannel panel (see FLANNEL PANEL) merely listed everyone involved in both YS and Your Spectrum. The list, affectionately known as The Flannel Panel From Hell, contained 358 names, all compiled at Jonathan's hand from looking assiduously through every ish of both mags. He still managed to miss out at least four people, including pioneering YS Ed, Kevin Cox, who'd appeared in that very issue wearing a YS T-shirt, and who pursued him through the Shed shouting, "What about me, eh?" Jonathan was able to escape by throwing unsold copies of Hold My Hand Very Tightly (Very Tightly) at the rampaging executive until a lucky blow left him dodgably stunned.

FLIP!
Flip! was a monstrous error.

FUTURE BUYING YS IN MISTAKE FOR A SECOND-HAND C5
This famously precipitated the train journey to Bath Pssst! where everyone dressed as a guard and pretended to be Swedish because the five pounds delivery charge for the (supposed) C5 wouldn't pay for all the tickets. It was acely funny.

GADGY THE NINJA DUCK
Who Matt thought he was when he went mad, leading to his institutionalisation and the ascendancy of Andy Ide to the editor's chair from the supine position.

GAME ZONE
The mag a bunch of YS people were on after YS, in case you were wondering or something.

HAYLP!
Haylp! was a monstrous error.

HEDGES
No, badges. Tch.

HOLD MY HAND VERY TIGHTLY (VERY TIGHTLY)
I always thought it was called, "Hold My Hand Tightly (Very Tightly)," but it is not. It ought to be, however, as it sounds better. Nyer. Rasppp.

HURRAH!
Hurrah! is the best thing.

I CAUGHT MYSELF A LITTLE CHUCKLE
Another Andy O-ism (see THAT TICKLED OLD ERNIE) indicating a moment of amusement. From a flexidisc celebrating the worst songs ever in the history of all things, of which the religion/fatal birth ditty the phrase comes from was the clear winner. The song does have a happy ending - the singer, who's been asked to choose between saving his wife or saving their child, implores God to take him instead, and, as a doctor runs up with the miraculous news that both live, "Why... suddenly I felt my legs give way." Actually, this would make a tremendous B-side to Hold My Hand Very Tightly (Very Tightly). (See HOLD MY HAND VERY TIGHTLY (VERY TIGHTLY).) I hope Andy still has the tape.

INDIANA JONES "BOG OFF" DOOR-HANGER, THE
It's well-known that YS was compelled to change the wording on the door-hanger to "Push Off" to avoid giving offence (to whom, we were never told. Indiana Jones, possibly). But equally ghastly was the fact that on every sample issue we received that month, when you took the sellotape off the door-hanger, the print was torn off as well. Horrified, we expected to be swamped with complaints. There wasn't a single one. We concluded that either it was just the sample batch that was rubbishly put together, or (more likely), everyone thought it was their fault the print was pulled off when they undid the thing. I was told this story (JONATHAN (displaying half-dozen ruined placky strips): Hang on - what's going on here?; LINDA: Er...) after spoiling five or six back issues in an attempt to send someone a door-hanger (they thought it was their fault the print was etc etc). There's now a single unbesmirched copy left in the world, possibly the one that will part cleanly with its cheap plas-like gift. It's a bit like Schrödinger's Cat (except everyone knows it won't work).

I'M OFF TO THE SHOPS, ANYONE WANT ANYTHING?
Andy Hutchinson's (see ANDY HUTCHINSON) conclusion from a review of a particularly terrible racing game.

IRREGULAR SHED
Steve Anderson's (see STEVE ANDERSON) famous craply-stapled fanzine, put together in a converted cow shed and released irregularly. Ish 2 featured the diagrammatic How To Dance (By The Bloke Out The Farm), which turned up in the YS Subs Club; ish 3, the in-depth investigation, IS Ripped Off By YS, which didn't.

JACKIE RYAN
Jackie is in fact over six-and-a-half feet tall. She was photographically reduced to avoid intimidating the readers, as she would have appeared constantly with her head out of frame and looked like a spooky ghost.

JAKE SPEED
Jake Speed is a grotesquely awful film with an excellent title.

JAMES LEACH
In remembering James's invention of YS's last legendary element, the Ridiculous Caption, people often overlook his considerable achievements in the field of special science. Removed from ordinary science in that it is science that is special, special science has excited many of the latter twentieth century's most brilliant minds and stressfully injured most in a series of horrible accidents. Possibly James's most significant discovery is cold cushion, a fusion of fission and fashion that guzzled grizzleds and fizzled fossils, though the public will know him best for his appearance on the panel game My Stars, where he came ninth and started a knife fight. James has recently weathered a storm over the record-breaking sale of his four-foot section of the Berlin Wall, which turned out to have come from the popular games journalist's front garden. He has yet to realise his ambition of singing with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, because it's an orchestra.

JEFF BRAINE
After a successful career in cheap, terrible 1950s rip-offs of cheap, terrible 1950s movies (most famously, The Jeff From Planet Arous and They Saved Hitler's Jeff), Jeff moved into International Financing, an ambitious housing project designed to show how people from all nations could live together fruitfully. After it was satirically burned to the ground, Jeff ran to Iran, backpacked to Pakistan and moved with Cecily to Sicily, where the couple separated to pursue solo careers; Jeff to become a famous designer of bricks, and Cecily to pursue Solo Careers, the notorious master-spy. If you live in a house made of bricks, chances are at least 63 of them are from Jeff's workshop, as he was burgled in 1988 and the haul disposed of cheaply. A crack shot with either hand and even better with a pistol, Jeff has retired to Australia, from where he runs the small family ice-cream business in Taunton remarkably badly.

JON NORTH
YS's resident hacker and world's greatest fan of Transvision Vamp until he grew bored of them, Jon appeared just once in the mag as himself. The photo, in the O of the logo of one Practical POKEs, showed him on a beach, buried up to his neck in sand, wearing sunglasses and grinning like a fool. Jon was famous for not returning the games sent him to hack until we threatened to send Andy to bash him up (or, more correctly, to pogo him repeatedly into a wall); at one point, he had something like 2,518 of YS's games in a huge box in his attic. Jon also took out all of the rude bits in the demos we had on later covertapes, leading to a demo appearing that consisted entirely of rude words, called something like, "Let's See Blimmin' YS Put This On The Covertape Then."

Jon recently turned up via e-mail. "Please write back," he said. I did. I haven't heard from him since.

JONATHAN DAVIES
Gentleman editor Jonathan Davies exercised firm but kindly control over Sega Zone, AMIGA POWER, PC Gamer and N64 before leaving mags altogether with a parting "Tsk." He now works for the BBC, in that big brown building with the white circles on the wall and the fountain outside where Roy Castle tap-danced with 11,000 children and everything.

JONATHAN NASH
It is I. Hurrah!

KENICKIE
Both Andy O and Jonathan attended a recent Kenickie gig, providing an extraordinarily thin justification for including this splendid band in YS2/100, but fortunately it is Jonathan's page and he is beholden to no one. "It was excellent," says Jonathan of the recital, "and I still cannot hear properly. I also seem to have bought the 7-inch single although I do not have a record player."

KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE
An excellent idea translated into a terrible film via a crap script, Killer Klowns lived on in Dave's Killer Kolumn column, which you may not have realised was named after it. Undeserving of the spectacularly impenetrable Dickies title track, which was heavily cut to fit the opening sequence of John Vernon driving around in a car, the film's quality is best summed up by the important dialogue scene where one character's close-ups show him in an entirely different location, like a park or something. Andy likes it anyway. And the Klowns are tremendous. HMV regularly knocks out its seemingly limitless stock of videos at around four pounds a time, which is about two pounds eighty too much. Try haggling, or stealing, or just learning to live without it.

KINDLY LEAVE THE STAGE
Kindly Leave The Stage accompanied Matt to Super Play (yet stayed at YS in a spooky splitty mutant sort of way) where it ran unaltered for the entire life of the mag, except for a bit at the end where it went slightly wrong and jokes started getting over 5/10 and thus winning prizes. It was like giving out a Trainspotter or something. Tsk.

LADY DON'T FALL BACKWARDS
The whodunnit that ends, "'So you see, Inspector, the only person who could have done all these murders is the man sitting over there.' So saying, Johnny Oxford pointed his finger at".

LEGAL SMALL PRINT
Andy H's finest idea, after instituting the YS Photo-Albums (where any interesting photos from newspapers or magazines would be snipped out and kept for Pssst! or the Next Month Page, or whatever), was the easily-missable silly legal small print in the credits column, or "flannel panel."

LEGENDARY DONKEY SCENE
The funny bit from Stressed Eric.

LEIGH LOVEDAY
It is unfair to compare Leigh's prodigious letter-writing with Stuart N Hardy's, as Leigh is funny while Hardy badly needs throwing down stairs. Leigh rose to prominence after submitting the YS Complete Guide To Everything, which was a list of every game ever reviewed in YS, compiled "because I was bored in Philosophy." The legendary document, running to 20 sides of tiny handwriting, was typed in as the basis of the coincidentally similarly-named YS Complete Guide To Everything, which was to feature capsule reviews of all of the games. This epic project was abandoned when, with about 13 days to go before the issue deadline, Steve Anderson, JD and JN had managed to write 30,000 words and still only reach D. Leigh's list was thus bunged in as it stood, illustrated with a handful of the completed reviews and lots of photos of Diana Rigg (we couldn't take screenshots because most of the games were in Jon North's attic: see JON NORTH), and entirely missing the issue with the Jack the Nipper 2 wobbly door-hanger thing because I'd forgotten Leigh mentioning he didn't have the ish and I'd have to be sure to fill in the blanks from the office copy. Leigh's tremendous archivey efforts led to his appearance as one of the last new Joystick Jugglers, reviewing, among others, Superted and The Official Father Christmas Simulator (in June). Bizarrely, these were used on Leigh's CV when he was applying to be a camp councillor in the US. (He got the job.) Leigh now works for Rare. (He got the job.) (Hence the phrase, "Leigh now works for Rare.") He did their page and everything.

LIMERICK GAME, THE
An excellent game for two players where each supplies in turn alternate lines of a limerick. Jonathan currently has a handful of games going with e-mail correspondents, and they're still fun. "I'm particularly proud of 'Impressionably reeling,'" he said, annoyingly forcing those really ugly adjacent quotes and giving the line entirely out of context. The fool.

LINDA BARKER
"These boots were made for walking," explained Linda upon joining the Shed, "and that's just what they'll do." For, like Dr Lao in The Seven Faces Of (Him), Linda's higher calling to spread flowery happiness (except without the circus motif) resulted in her leaving during ish 88 to usher in a kindler, gentler era at AMIGA POWER. Today, Linda is an international pop sensation with her band Linda B And The Lindas, regularly supporting David Bowie at gigs and in getting down stairs. (See also YS CAPERS.)

MARCUS BERKMANN
Dr Berkmann's Clinic was started to help people with Head Over Heels. It was only later that other games were featured. When Marcus, aka "Binky" for some reason, left to play in Alexei Sayle's Charity All-Star Rovers (or something), the Clinic was taken over by Dr Hugo Z Hackenbush. This is not strictly relevant but adds local colour.

MATT BIELBY
Matt "Gadgy the Ninja Duck" Bielby oversaw the YS move from London to Bath (see FUTURE BUYING YS IN MISTAKE FOR A C5) and is the most famous YS Ed after T'zer (see T'ZER), which is clever wording because - he came after T'zer! Marvellous. Possibly his single most lasting contribution to history is the exclamation, "Spook!"

MIRE MARE
Astoundingly, Stuart recently contended this was pronounced "Mirreh Marreh" instead of Mire Mare.

MYSTERY OF THE PRE-TORN ENVELOPE
Anyone who's tried to open a white business-style envelope will have noticed the flap is in three sections, divided by sort of half-tears like stress points or something. Resultingly, when you try to open the envelope, the flap rips so you can't do it in one go. No one in the world knows why envelopes are made like this. Perhaps someone could investigate. A spy, maybe.

NATIONAL RESCUE
Dunc MacDonald's comic strip charting the adventures of National Rescue and their car. (Possibly a Triumph Herald.) Typically, they'd be at the shops when an emergency call came in, but fortuitously they'd invested in an answering machine. The stories contained many subtle and improving messages, such as wearing seatbelts when driving and investing in an answering machine.

NEWS FLASH
Andy O's crap bike has been vandalised to death. The legendary bike, snug from Bath's corrosive rain in a crap plastic cover, was set on fire one evening at the beginning of April 1999. (Tweren't no joke though.) The melting plastic moulded itself around the ashy frame, resulting in a big mess. The repair bill would be huge (or more than the 75p Andy paid for the crap bike back in 1922 anyway) so it's being written off. He's been offered £100 for the scrap value. Yoinks!

If you'd like to own this crap piece of YS history (see also BROKEN PURPLE TELEVISION, THE), write to Andy care of this station. (Address at the top of the page.) All offers considered. We could probably even get Andy to sign the warped, cracked cowling. In blood. (Gerroff! - Andy.)

OFFICIAL YS MANAGEMENT SIMULATOR
The ultimate footy manny game from the Shed that brought you Advanced Lawnmower Simulator.

10 PAPER 0: INK 6: BORDER 0: CLS: PRINT "Welcome to the Official YS Management Simulator." 20 INPUT "Type in your name, team and players:";a$,b$,c$ 30 PRINT "Calculating statistics." 40 FOR f=1 TO 1000: PRINT AT 5,0;RND*100;" ": NEXT f 50 PRINT "Bad luck, your team lost.": GOTO 20

YS's reviewer said, "You can change the players' names and everything. It's packed with features, and it's perfect for fans of the genre. I'm giving it 79%."

ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE ALTERNATIVE LYRICS
The famous song from The Thing Monthly (see ALF FAIRWEATHER) reappeared in YS2 with the line

It's my consistent persistence, I have to admit, That's making my music sound a bit wibbly

(well, not "wibbly," but you get the idea) changed to

It's my consistent persistence, I have to admit, That's making my music sound crap a bit

This is clearly a vastly more elegantly lumpen bit o' editing than replacing, er, "wibbly" with, well, wibbly or something. (See also JON NORTH.)

"OPERATION ROD HULL"
Nice try.

OR SOMETHING
"Or something" is excellent.

OTHER NOTABLE COMPETITIONS
Few people will have seen gentleman editor Jonathan Davies's award-giving MuLTImeDIA compo in AMIGA POWER because it came with the ill-fated CD32 edition of AP49. The compo was on the back of the CD inlay and was truly in multiple mediums. Ia. The questions were these:

Harrison Ford is a famous actor. 1. Attach a picture of Harrison here. 2. Fill this square with something Harrison would find pleasing to the touch. 3. Make this card smell of Harrison's favourite fruit - lemons.

PARADOX OF ISSUE 1 LETTERS, THE
A well-known publishing phenomenon (but how can these letters possibly be real? It is the first issue, after all), usually resolved by having all their publisher chums gripped by enthusiasm and write in wishing them well. ("I think your new mag is really good! Yes! I do! Signed, L Headofanothercompany. PS - Still on for the barbecue Sunday?") The effect on the reader is to be gripped by nausea and to write in wishing them dead. Publishers! Don't do it. It's crap.

PHILIP KIERNAN
Philip was a bloke who wrote in saying, "I quite fancy reviewing some games." So I said, "All right then."

PHOTO STAND-INS
See TOM FROM THE POST ROOM.

PICO FAMILY, THE
The Pico Family comprised Madame Pico (clairvoyant to the stars), Bud Pico (DIY wizard and Rice Krispies advocate), Femto Pico (cleverest scientist on earth, and the hardest) and Soya Pico (Femto's hippy chick twin). They returned in The Spec Tec Jr Christmas Story, the name of which escapes me, by S Cooke, the name of whom (S Cooke) doesn't. I think he's written a sequel.

PROGRAM PITSTOP
Gentleman editor Jonathan Davies has paid huge sums of money to be airbrushed out of every Program Pitstop photograph, a bit like with Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Your copy's probably already been changed by JD's crack team of international cat burglars. Go and have a look. See? Told you.

PSSST!
Pssst! has three esses. Famous Pssst! regulars included At The Bus Stop With and T'zers, which was the very small bit that had games in.

RAJAHS
Look, stop it.

RICH PELLEY
Rich is now a full-time student, except during the holidays, when he works for PC Format. He was seen to weep with joy at the invention of a new scanner which meant he could just shove readers' tips into a roller and they'd be automatically typed in on screen. Rich appears on the AP Viking Funeral Video OST, but mysteriously vanishes halfway through. (He went home, it turns out.) Rich was later to achieve fame far beyond his swoonsome flares-related superstardom by imprudently driving onto Weston-super-Mare beach and thus returning after a day's outing to find his car underwater.

Actually, Rich has now joined Arcade. Inexplicably, he's still doing tips. Rich has read YS2/100. Hurrah!

ROBIN ALWAY
Robin Alway, SAM Surgeon, suddenly reappeared in games mags, and now works on Gamesmaster. He was walking down some stairs in front of me when I went to see N64 and has gone bald. The two events are unrelated, presumably.

Actually, Robin has now joined Arcade. He hasn't read YS2/100. Hurrah!

SAM COUPE
There are over fifty-eight thousand PD puzzle games for the SAM. This number was recently exceeded by those available for the Mac. (Oh no! That's torn it. - Mac bods.)

SAM RAIMI
(Snip! - Everyone.)

SEAN KELLY
Sean is probably best-known for reviewing misconceived dinosaur beat-'em-up Aaarghh! with the phrase, "When the programmer dies, he'll go to heaven, and God'll say, "Hang on - you're the bloke who wrote Aaarghh!, aren't you?" and cast him into hell forever." After leaving YS he changed his name to Ned Kelly and was played by Mick Jagger in a film. It was rubbish.

SIMON COOKE
"Simon" Cookie Cooke, known to millions and six as "Spec Tec Jr" (or Jnr - no one's exactly sure), became YS's official Techy Bloke after Adam Waring (see ADAM WARING) left to grow vegetable marrows, like there's any other kind. Adopting Adam's established private eye-style character, Cookie applied his method acting skills as taught him by the master, Sikorsky. After turning in three terrible columns about helicopters which were rejected out of hand, Cookie applied his method acting skills as taught him by the master, Stanislavsky, and literally "became" a private detective, ravelling features from the barest clues and being regularly knocked unconscious and falling into black, bottomless wells. After accidentally falling into a real black, bottomless well, Cookie became convinced he was a prisoner of his own meaningfulness and, after escaping by fashioning a crude helicopter-like device from his trenchcoat belt, a broken branch and several of the more technical parts of a helicopter that had crashed in the well weeks previously, he took to tying a beach ball to his shoelace and running around as if it were chasing him. In a striking parallel with his predecessor Techy Bloke, Cookie emigrated to Australia, but that was due to a ticket mix-up that was swiftly rectified by an embarrassed Air Not-To-Australia. Cookie currently resides in the USSR, or the USA or UAE or something. It begins with U, anyway. He still has his Speccy, which he uses to hit people with who ask about Statues Of Ice. (See STATUES OF ICE.)

SIMON FORRESTER
Fans of legendary punk band The Dickies (see ANDY O) will be familiar with their affectionate description of "the most highly-paid cover band in the world." By using the magic of maths (comparing earnings over time, by handing himself a cheque for two thousand pounds to play A-flat on his guitar), YS reviewer Simon was able to prove such a band was, in fact, him, and he is now a regular guest on the more desperate Israeli chat shows. So hey kids - keep studying those books. Simon, dubbed The Hairy Happening by a grateful public due to being hairy and happening (see THE BIG LEBOWSKI) was briefly the king of Bath's nightclubs with his Placky Box Jive, as seen in his review of placky box joystick thing the Remote, which he would perform with a series of life-size cardboard replicas of the people in the step illustrations for full effect. Simon's brief but highly lucrative career as international criminal mastermind is hardly worth mentioning, and his interest in collecting tiny, exquisitely-painted china thimbles could not be raised despite threats to poke out his eyes with some eyes. Skilled programmer Simon sends all his letters by u-mail, which is like e-mail but a poor-quality joke that doesn't make sense. His THNTRNTeiee page solicits work in his specialised fields of embezzlement, recording stupid hand noises and on-line street theatre. If you look closely at his Juggler picture, you'll see there's just room to add an eye-patch and a moustache if you use a fine enough pen.

SIMON HINDLE
Author of the Dial Hard column, which dealt with communications and, more specifically, spectacularly managed to prolong for eight months explaining how to link a Speccy to THNTRNTeiee with a primitive VTX-5000 modem before finally conceding it couldn't be done. Simon once famously rang the Shed in a complicated manner to demonstrate his eerie telephone powers thus: "Hello! (Bzzzz.) Simon here. (Crackle.) I'm calling from just down the road, but (phweeeee) bouncing the call off three satellites in America, Japan and Antarctica. (Fizzzzzz.) Right, bye!" The effect was later reproduced by James Randi speaking far away from the mouthpiece through a comb and paper. Simon represented YS at a large international computer show by finding a press pass on the floor and pretending to be "Checkerton Fisnell, US Representative" for the day. He is currently on the run somewhere in Haiti, having been mistaken for Fisnell by spies and sucked into a web of global intrigue.

SIR CLIVE SINCLAIR
Is now designing a mass-market small flying car. Crivens.

SO THAT'S THEN WHICHEVER BUT HOW AND THERE YOU GO
A splendid phrase with which to conclusively win an argument.

SONYA
Apparently, Andy O's distinctive vocal "er" (see ER) was an amusing impersonation of Sonya, a singer of whom Jonathan has never heard. Unless Andy meant Sonja Henie, except she didn't sing. She skated. On ice. And made a dozen films based on this somewhat limiting characterisation. A bit like Esther Williams, really, except colder. And on top.

SPECCY
The last computer that, when someone said, "Ha - your computer's crap," owners would answer, "Yes, in a funky skillo sort of way! Hurrah!" instead of becoming defensively obnoxious then spending £1,000 on upgrades for no earthly reason.

STATUES OF ICE
Statues Of Ice, a SAM Coupe (see SAM COUPE) epic-o-demo that was never completed, must never be mentioned to Cookie (see SIMON COOKE) or he will kill you. Scholars have linked the "ice" motif with the "melting" of the physical actuality of the demo, but when they pointed this out to Cookie, he killed them.

STAR WARS
According to glossy movie mags, the earliest movie ever made.

STEPH THE YS SHARK
Steph, the inflatable rubber YS shark was rescued from the Shed by Andy O, accompanying him to Amstrad Action, where she fell in with Nick Peers. Steph was last seen in the company of Nick and a school of tiny baby inflatable rubber sharks. When questioned, Nick could only offer the explanation, "Taz hate water," which didn't really help.

STEVE ANDERSON
Host of Steve's Programming Launderette, which took you by easy steps from knowing nothing about BASIC to producing a fully-featured, feature-packed game with special features, The Pathetic Pablo Bros, that almost worked properly. Steve was also an author of YS2, contributing incisive reviews of The Orb playing somewhere his car broke down reaching, and a kebab. He is most famous for Irregular Shed, the fanzine hailed by the world's media as "two poorly-photocopied sheets stapled together." Another issue is now being edited, in which trembling fans are promised the return of How To Dance (By The Bloke Out The Farm). A partly-completed THNTRNTeiee version may be seen at Irregular Shed Central, wherein readers may experience the effect of stepping through architecturally-important Roman ruins, except about a Shed. Steve is currently responsible for the medical wellbeing of a significant part of Wales; it is not uncommon for people falling ill in Wales to be reassured by cheery Rolf Harris mouth noises as they slip into unconsciousness, preparatory to "Splendid Surgeon" Anderson flicking out the bits they no longer need while pressing a complimentary copy of IS into their limp hands. (Unless he's lopping off their hands, in which case he leaves it on the bed.)

STUART CAMPBELL
Stuart is most famous for writing Football Manager, the only football game ever to have Scotland play in the correct-coloured strip (white UDGs on a green background), under the pseudonym "Kevin Toms." (So perhaps not most famous for at all then.) You can see through his clever disguise of facial hair by cutting out the beard and floppy locks of "Toms" and sticking them to a photo of Stuart. Spook! The results are indistinguishable, as long as you're looking at a different picture of "Toms" and not the one with holes in where you've just cut the hair out. To YS readers, Stuart will always be Mr Who Can Wee The Highest Against The Wall, after his evocative Blim! (see BLIM!) in the review of Robocop 2 or something. He's fared particularly badly in final issues, shooting himself (YS), dying at the age of 300 (Sega Zone) and being executed in a show trial (AP), and this established "keel-o-char" has led to a reasonably successful career playing all the people in the background in Brookside. (Attentive viewers may notice the frequent return of his "Toms" beard look.) He enjoys hiking, biking, piking and liking Vikings, and has a small blue car which he pretends to drive by sitting in and saying, "Brrrmmm." His archive of Digi columns is titled Welcome To Stuart, which I keep reading as You're Welcome To Stuart. He was floated on the stock exchange this year in an unfortunate helium incident.

THAT TICKLED OLD ERNIE
Andy O's standard response to anyone laughing in the Shed.

THE HOODED TIGER
Jon North's arch-enemy in the tape pages.

THE THING MONTHLY
YS2/100 is pleased to present some extracts from the still-forthcoming fifth birthday issue of The Thing, as hand-delivered by hand by the hands of Alf Fairweather (see ALF FAIRWEATHER), The Thing's co-ed, though not in the US college meaning, as that would be silly. Production of The Thing The Fifth has been hit by Alf "accidentally reformatting" his hard drive (the dimmock), although in an effort to stave off swarms of villagers with torches knocking down his door, he is hastily constructing an electric version of The Thing in general, known as At Last The Thing On-Line.

World trivia expert disappears
Reg "Geezah" McDougall, known popularly as Reg, is missing after winning a recent pub quiz. Friends fear he may have known too much.

Dental fixative scandal
British dentists are up in arms after the government threatened to step in and cap their prices.

Millennium Dome to feature Bob Holness
The new head of the Millennium Commission, Terry Schocolateorange, has promised that the great British institution of Bob Holness will be prominently featured in the planned displays.

The star of television and radio will open the Dome, and a guided tour will highlight giant statues and excerpts of his work, such as the "Gold Run" taken from the February 18, 1987 edition of Blockbusters which was one of the veteran broadcaster's finest moments.

Mr Holness, hardly able to comment because of overwhelming emotion, told The Thing Monthly, "I am honoured to be featured in such a way at these Millennial Celebrations. And now, a definition of the word 'Ob', if you please, Mr Coren."

Footballers "to wear Knickers"
A new football boot manufacturer from the Far East has entered the UK sports footwear market in a blaze of publicity after they made a mistake in the translation of one of their "lookalike" brands. Trying to cash in on the success the "Kickers" brand name has established, the not-so clever marketing department of Dilapidate Companies (Far East) Inc named their new footwear "Knickers." However, this did not stop the FA signing them up for all the Premiership footballers to wear during the 1998 World Cup.

McCartney to give back island
After the successful celebrations in Hong Kong during 1997, Paul McCartney, ex-lead singer of Oasis-soundalikes, the Beatles, has decided that it is time that his island should be returned to the people.

"You know, I earned so much money in the sixties, like, that I had to invest it in something - and buying the UK seemed to be the most sensible way to avoid tax, you know. But don't print that, our kid," said millionaire Sir Paul today.

The ceremony will take place during the Millennium Celebrations and will be hosted by Johnny Vaughan and Dani Behr. Ringo will play the drums.

"Tufty Club" relaunched
Excitement has struck the road safety committees like a 20-tonne truck doing 90 miles per hour as the Tufty Club is relaunched for a new generation. MC Tufty will hip-hop down the pavement to cross the road with his trendy friends DJ Rabbit, DJ Mouse, DJ Hedgehog and TC Cliffy Tate.

Dental appointments down
The BDA (pronounced "bidet") has released alarming statistics that show the number of dental appointments have fallen steadily since the beginning of 1997.

A representative of the BDA (pronounced "bidet") said, "As you can see on this complicated and impressive-looking chart, the number of appointments for check-ups and the like have been falling steeply since the beginning of last year and we simply don't know why."

Dentists are investing huge sums of money to get to the root of the problem.

Police in trouble
The local police force was shocked today to find that their prized outside toilet facilities had been stolen. Chief Inspector Harry Kirry said that they have nothing to go on.

YS2/100 launched
Cheering crowds lined the streets of London to pay homage at the launch of the YS2/100 Special Commemorative Pack. Elegantly engraved and silver-plated, the YS2/100 made its way down The Mall before hurriedly dashing down a side road to a nearby MacDonalds as it was "flippin' starvin'."

Editor and Boy Genius "Jonathan" Nash was quoted as saying that he'd never seen a more beautiful sight, and, holding back tears, made a run for it pursued by rozzers.

THE WEEKLY
Jonathan's new mag.

THNTRNTeiee
The logical ultimate extension of THe InTERneT.

TRENTON WEBB
Trenton's single appearance in the YS Shed (reviewing Power Drift and sort of liking it) was as part of an enormously complicated bet that he could be in every games mag that month.

TURNY-PAGEY ADVENTURE THING
YS had a turney-pagey adventure thing in one issue. Astoundingly, it worked.

TURNY-PAGEY ADVENTURE THING, THE OTHER
A number of correspondents have written to Jonathan pointing out there were two turny-pagey adventure things and thus claiming a Trainspotter. Clearly, however, the phrase "YS had a turny-pagey adventure thing in one issue" does not necessarily preclude the existence of another in a different one.

TWO-REVIEWER REVIEW, THE
The Untouchables was reviewed by both Matt and Jackie (see MATT and JACKIE) in the same review, if you see what I mean. It was ace and had a particularly good bit with Matt and a swear box. (Unless that was in a follow-up review by popular demand. The review, not the swear box bit.) Disappointingly, the idea was not extended to a review where everyone took part. Perhaps an enterprising games mag will yet pick up on this, um, (cough), "jam session" approach. (And Crash's reviews don't count, since they were discrete opinions. The Untouchables review had Matt and Jackie arguing on alternate lines and that. Nyer. Rasppp.)

T'ZER
The most famous YS Ed. Given the ridiculous nickname "Theresa," but a round of hacky-shinny capers put a stop to such insubordination. (See THE YS COMPO PHOTO WHERE THEY WERE ALL PLAYING FOOTBALL, AND IT WAS ABOUT MINUS TWO DEGREES, AND IT LOOKED IT.)

UM
... our hearts.

VAN HOUTEN HOT CHOCOLATE DRINK MIX FORMULA
The grotesquely beige YS drinks machine was eventually destroyed (we think; it vanished one day, anyway. Possibly, its research concluded, it returned to its home planet, or something) and replaced with an excitingly cheerful machine of the type seen on railway platforms next to the cafe in a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't sort of arrangement. The new machine, which had a large illuminated photograph of a cup of piping hot coffee on the front so you didn't mistake it for the door to the toilet or something, featured a keypad with numbers that lit up and a special whirring component that emitted a satisfyingly mechanical sound when the drink was being made. There were only two problems with the new machine: one, that the code numbers were incomprehensibly rangey (instead of, say, 1 for tea and 2 for coffee or whatever, you had to type things like 194 and 26602); and two, the drinks were inconceivably vile, though not quite to the point of the Van Houten chocolate. Suspicions were first aroused when signs were stuck over the illuminated photograph by weary repairmen reading, "Please do not pour your drink back into the grille as it damages the machine." The only useful number to remember for the machine was 136, which was some complicated blackcurrant variation, the important part being that the machine paused to mix the drink before filling the cup, allowing ample time to scoop it out to use with the adjacent water-cooler if the cups there had run out.

VIZ
A comic that pays Andy O over five thousand pounds in monthly royalties for the use of "erm." (See ER.)

VOLUME-RELATED TAPE ERROR
YS's crap, barely-functioning equipment was world-famous. (See BROKEN PURPLE TELEVISION, THE.) At one point, I observed Ultimate's Cookie heralded as "Program: Bonkie" and laughed for 7.2 minutes.

WEIRD
Is a word that is commonly misspelled. (Consistently on TV Offal, for instance.) This is a poor-quality link to "cutsie," which was Matt's legendarily improbable interpretation of "cutesy." CLEARLY the word "cutsie" can ONLY be pronounced "cut-see," AND IS THEREFORE utterly wrong. But Matt would not be swayed, counting on anyone arguing with him swooning before they could apoplectically blacken his eye, or something.

WHISTLIN' RICK
The Hold My Hand Tightly (Very Tightly) (see HOLD MY HAND VERY TIGHTLY (VERY TIGHTLY)) covertape was the only one to be sold out when the Shed Inventory was taken. This was annoying, as I'd never heard the song. (Fortuitously, someone recorded that MPEG thing.)

WIBBLE
What almost all of YS was.

WONDERFUL WORLD OF SPECCY
The column that dared to ask the question, "Eh?"

Y-NOTS
The collective name for the authors of YS2. Carried over to AP2, where the collective name for the authors was the A-Nows. This caused a great deal of trouble in the AP2 legal capers. (See AP2 LEGAL CAPERS.)

YOUR QL
Your QL was a one-off feature in ish 91 in response to a reader asking, "Why don't you write about the QL any more?" (The QL bit of Your Sinclair was dropped after the first eight or so instalments had all been, "QL Not Here Yet.") It featured a friendly front cover and the headlines, "Free! Microdrive cartridge! (May wipe irretrievably on loading)," and, "Nothing! Inside."

YOUR SINCLAIR
YS, except formally, as if it were being announced at an ambassador's ball, or something.

YOUR SPECTRUM
The commonly accepted explanation of why Your Spectrum became Your Sinclair was that, in the redesign, the mag also covered the QL and was expected to feature the new Sinclair machines (like the Loki) when they were released, except as it happened, they weren't. (There was a small bit on Amstrad's Sinclair PC200, though. It said, "Amstrad's Sinclair PC200 is crap." Although Snouty loved it to bits, the deranged tip-loon.) In fact, the reason was that Your Spectrum was the dullest mag in the entire universe and we wanted to pretend it had never been anything to do with us. It's sort of spooky when you think about it - you'd expect the titles to be the other way around (Your Spectrum being the funky skillo games mag, in other words). But obviously it would have been called Your Speccy. Also, you could make more anagrams out of Your Sinclair.

YSAC
YS: A Celebration, a funny page about YS that appears to be a media studies project, or something.

YS CAPERS
There was an attempt to do a full-motion video sequel, but Linda forgot to change tapes when she took the video camera on holiday, so it ended up being about her friends sitting in a park. Remarkably, even with the wobbly focus and muffled dialogue (the party having mistaken the built-in mike for somewhere to put flowers), it managed to play better than Wing Commander 4.

YS "IT'S CRAP" T-SHIRT, THE
Inexplicably, the famous phrase, "It's crap! In a funky skillo sort of way," was originally, "It's crap! In a funky skillo sort of a way," which was crap. Tragically, however, this was the version that was printed on all the T-shirts. Incidentally, the rarest T-shirt is the pink It's Crap! one, from a batch that were printed spectacularly wrongly. (They were supposed to be white with pink writing, you see.) The power of the pink YS T-shirt could not be measured on scientific equipment (unlike the horrid grey AP sweatshirt: see C-Monster's scholarly examination, "I pulled with a horrid grey AP sweatshirt") but, like a sort of wearable butterfly, its lifespan was desperately brief, as if you washed it, all the colour drained out instantly.

YS2-4
The fourth issue of YS2 was half-completed when the decision was made not to have a covertape on the final mag. Extant bits include YS2 Investigates King Kong, Leigh Loveday's Ten Ways To Escape Philosophy, exciting photo-booth mystery Four Pictures Of Dorian Grey, a complete version of one of Jonathan's games, which you got to by typing in as a page number the sum of the secret pages from the previous issues, block graphics (including a reveal version of How To Dance (By The Bloke Out The Farm)) and a special Stupid Mode that made the screen flash revoltingly. Poked around with a bit was the idea of Make Your Own Orb Song, with crude samples of Steve performing Rolf Harris mouth noises that you could replay at differing speeds. None of these things is in YS2/100. You can download the 100th anniversary digitally-remastered YS2s if you want.

YS2 TIPSHOP
Zounds! YS2 POKEs!

To hack YS2:

YS2-1 75 POKE 51492, 81: POKE 51493, 0 MERGE "": RUN YS2-2 75 POKE 48674,0: POKE 48675,19 MERGE "": RUN YS2-3 75 POKE 51009, 0: POKE 51010,19 MERGE "": RUN

From there you can stop the anti-break routine in line 10 by editing

10 CLEAR VAL "49151": LET nobreak=PEEK VAL "23613"+256*PEEK VAL "23614" etc etc

to

10 CLEAR VAL "49151": LET nobreak=0: PRINT PEEK VAL "23613" etc etc

If you get bored,

9999 FOR p=100 TO 200: GOSUB 2e3: PAUSE 0: NEXT p

will swishly print each page.

And, as a bonus, to vastly speed up either (non-passworded) Spectacle or Spectacle 2,

35 POKE 65318, 0 MERGE "": RUN

You may also wish to add this line, which jiggers the clock a bit. It genuinely will run for an entire year, chronometer fans.

36 POKE 65338, 0

More tips next time, chums!

YS2 UNDERGROUND
Jonathan was going to have a YS2 version of the London Underground map, but didn't bother in the end.

BERT THE STICK INSECT
This bit should have gone in earlier.