Wednesday, May 27

I walk this morning for the time it takes to listen to two podcasts; one, All Points North from YLE, and the other from the BBC. I do not manage to finish the complete episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage, the first of a new series recorded at various homes during the global lockdown, but I will do that tomorrow.

I will spend a large chunk of the day learning to fend for myself in Minecraft under the tutelage of Dennis Biström. He will take me through the essentials, and by mid-afternoon I will know how to craft stuff and to feed myself. With Dennis’ patient guidance I will have a home with a sign, windows, and its own fledgling mine inside.

I have not yet made a bed so I have to live through the night. Next task: find some sheep, get their wool, and make a bed.

I take a picture just as the day starts. Rain pours down, but at least I survived through the night. Dennis has gone to do something in real life.

I had contemplated buying No Man’s Sky but after three hours of this I realise that I will not have time for both of them. More importantly I realise that they offer more or less the same pleasures: learn how to find things and refine them into more complex things, and use those to go places or do more.

The differences lay mainly in the clothing which they wear, and the details inherent in the different costumes. One has blocky graphics and the other has photo-realistic planets. For me, at the moment, Minecraft holds all I have time to need.