March 2026

Jaki Logan

I’ve always been a comedy fan. Long before I ever found myself working behind the scenes, stepping on stage, or being known as “the burd” or “Wee Burdie” to half the circuit, I was just someone who loved a good laugh and followed the comedy world from the audience.

Back in the RockNess festival days, I was lucky enough to meet loads of comedians who were just starting out. They were up-and-coming, grafting, doing spots, finding their feet — and you could feel something special building even then. One person I met was Darren Connell. Through Darren, and a bit of flanter in the comments of one of his Facebook posts, I ended up adding Chris Dinwoodie (of Enterteasement).

That was around 2012.

It then took two whole years for Chris to eventually ask me out… and another 11 for him to propose. Comedians and timekeeping, eh!?

Our first date was on Valentine’s Day, armed with comp tickets to Jongleurs kindly sorted by the brilliant Stu Who. And the rest, as they say, was history.

Being the partner of a comedian/magician is a strange and brilliant thing. You end up surrounded by one of the funniest, maddest, most creative industries going. You can’t watch TV or scroll on TikTok without spotting someone you know. And your pals are constantly messaging you saying they fancy this comedian or that one — usually Gary Meikle, to be honest.

Over the last 16 years, I’ve gone from the odd comedy gig here and there to being properly involved in what was, at the time, one of the best comedy shows in Glasgow — Enterteasement. I got to meet some amazing people, became friends with people I once looked up to from the audience, and watched the guys who were doing 10–15 minute spots go on to sell out their own tours. Seeing that growth up close has been incredible.

But I didn’t just sit in the audience.

I’ve attended hundreds of gigs. I’ve worked them too. I’ve done the door, ran sound, helped with PR, booked acts, dealt with the panic of a headliner not showing up, and even had to kick folk out more than once. You name it, I’ve probably done it.

And then, two years ago, I thought — why not? I started performing comedy myself.

Watching it and helping behind the scenes is one thing. Actually getting up there and doing it is something else entirely. Once you’re on that side of the mic, you realise just how much goes into it. The writing. The thinking. The nerves. The late nights. The long drives. The terrible gigs. The amazing gigs. It’s a hell of a ride.

Doing my own sets gave me a much deeper appreciation for the art form and the people who dedicate their lives to it. It also did wonders for my confidence. Every person I met, from all corners of the comedy world, taught me something — not just about performing, but about backing yourself.

Last year, I decided to step away from the mic. The reality of the time and effort it takes just wasn’t quite gelling for me, and that’s okay. Not every part of the journey is forever.

I’m still a massive fan. I’ll still be at gigs. I’ll still be cheering from the side, supporting the people I care about and the scene that’s given me so much.

And who knows — I’ll probably see you in a green room somewhere soon. x

John Carruthers - GIFT OF THE BLAG

This interview is dedicated to Alana Nicole Carruthers family, and John niece. Alana sadly passed away from Crohn’s Disease at the end of 2025. She was 24 years old.

I meet John in a café that I have been going to a lot recently, Café Love Is in Partick. The vibe is good and so is the food, so we agree to meet there. I arrive ahead of John, order a tea and wait until he bounds in the door a short while later.

John is my pal, but that doesn’t mean I am going to say wonderful things about him. He sat across from me, ordered and ate a whole Scottish breakfast, while I was being good on a fast day! Rude.

John is a regular on the circuit and among other notable endeavours is the regular MC of the Panopticon Comedy nights.

“I started comedy, my first time, in 2006 (age 28). I had gigs at Red Raw, The State Bar. I got into it because of two friends. They hated each other which was funny but although they never agreed on anything, they both agreed that I should be doing comedy.”

At that time of life, John had got married and he and his wife began looking to start a family through adoption. Comedy was stressful, adoption was stressful so John had to make a choice.

“I had to pick a lane so I quit comedy to focus on growing our family.”

Fortunately, John returned to comedy in 2013 and went on to run the Iron Horse “Charity Comedy Night” over a 7-year period, raising money for Scottish Huntington’s and other nominated charities. He is still involved with the Huntington’s charity today and organises and MC’s the Gingerbread charity nights to raise funds for out of school care.

Comedy style and approach

When I watch John, I think of him doing anti-comedy - that alternative, surreal or absurdist humour that is based on the surprise factor of the absence of an expected joke which can result in the funny coming over in awkwardness, shame, embarrassment – that, and the fact I know that he likes getting his kit off.

“But,” he says “my body confidence is inversely proportionate to my body!”

Young John is different to who he is now of course but growing up was an isolating time for him. John speaks slowly on stage but he explains that this is deliberate and is because of his “terrible stutter.”

“My stutter filled me with dread so I never went out. “

“I was introverted when I was growing up. I wasn’t confident and always reading, I was bookish and mostly stayed at home.” I didn’t want to be teased about my stutter but people had plenty of other things to tease me about...” he says wryly.

“There is a thin line between who I am on stage and off but John on-stage is more confident than John off-stage.

John rarely records himself and it wasn’t until he heard himself from a recording and heard how he was speaking that he understood how his voice could be used to support his comedy and material.

“On stage, I don’t think that I emulate anyone because I speak in such a pronounced way. But I think the nuance and the flow of how I do things is quite different. It is because I don’t want to trip over my words.

“I didn’t realise it and I don’t record myself but when I hear myself on other people’s recordings, I go, oh, there’s something there.”

Comedy Inspo

John mentions that his comedy inspirations are Bill Hicks – who John’s dad loved - and he was a fan of Eddie Izzard but he couldn’t and isn’t like them. He doesn’t watch the Netflix comedy specials but he loves going to watch comedy.

“I love gigging and watching people do it. I would do it every night if I could. I still get low level nerves ahead of gigging because I don’t know what is coming, for example if I haven’t slept well or had and have a bad day in work and it might reflect on that night. I don’t sleep well.

“That’s one thing I hate about comedy is that I would be out gigging every night, if I could, but I have my family to think of.”

Comedy Process

John finds that he has ideas around what he wants to do on stage but when it comes to notating or transcribing material, he cannot do it.

“I don’t write anything down on paper. I used to but now I sculpt ideas in my head. I am not a very good actor.”

“Obviously, I come up with ideas of course but as soon as I write something down, it just feels like I am acting it out. I write in a very specific way that I do not think or speak in. As soon as something is scripted, I would screw it up. I would have to blag it.”

When you see John MC, he does have the gift of the blag which looks improvised but John will approach his work from his back catalogue of jokes, but also his energy and the environment he thrives in and brings the audience into his world – about his family.

“When I get off stage, I am always buzzing."

“A lot of my material is about my kids, the things they do and I have posted some of that stuff on Facebook Not so much now as they are getting older. I have a son, Scott who is 11 and my daughter Morgan who is 18.!

Morgan had her first paid gig - age 8 – while John was doing tech for Kenny Sinclair and Ronnie Black at the Glasgow Comedy Festival. Morgan told them a visual joke which they then said to her to come up on stage during the show. She did it and afterwards, the audience members gave her cash – she got about £40!

Outside of work and comedy John is a Dungeons and Dragons gaming geek, a podcast host and in 2014 trained to become a funeral servant. Whilst his father was unwell with cancer, his dad said that he did not want anyone he didn’t know doing his funeral service. John asked his dad if that was his way of saying he wanted him to do it, and his dad said; yes.

Since then, he has attended at his friend’s mother’s funeral and sadly more recently his niece, Alana.

“Comedy has had such a positive impact on my life in that I am a more confident speaker in my day job, and now as a Humanist funeral servant, I would not have done that were it not for comedy.

“I recently lost my niece to Crohn’s Disease. I did her funeral service – then I went out that night and hosted a gig.”

“When Alana died, our family was devastated. She is my brother’s daughter. I was able to offer to do her funeral because, for me, it was one less thing my brother had to worry about, and knowing Alana."

Then after it was over, John went out and hosted the Panopticon.

John explains “It was a coping mechanism. And the fact that we were also devastated, so a way to deal with it, I suppose.”

We talk a bit more about family and wind up our conversation. John was getting hungry again…

Finally, and with all our Comedy Corner interviewees I ask John what image he is drawn to, and why.

“Food, definitely. I eat well (yes John we know).

“I am always eating. Every Sunday I cook with my daughter, I am her sous chef. We will try new stuff each week. My daughter selects what we are going to eat by each Thursday and then we go and get the ingredients. Spicy food is my go-to, but we have cooked carbonara, cottage pie, sloppy joes, whatever we want. It is time for us.”

My Stand-Up Journey 

By Jonathon Souter-Findlay  

I've always loved performing, entertaining, and making people laugh. From putting on wee silly productions with my pals, at the age of 8yr, to perform in front of all our parents in the back garden. To playing lead characters in a couple of youth theatre productions at the age of 14 & 15...that was me, I was bit by the bug and knew that I belonged on stage. 

At the age of 18, I left home to work a couple of seasons with Haven and Parkdean holidays as part of the ents team, which involved presenting gameshows, crowd interaction, performing in-house stage productions, and just generally acting silly. The dream happened...I was a professional dafty. Getting paid to act silly, and have fun on stage with the holiday makers. But unfortunately...I had to pack it in, due to health reasons.

I still continued to dance, and teach dance after I left the parks...but again, I had to pack that in due to health reasons. At the age of 25, my dream was slipping away, and had to take on a general job to get them bills paid, and live and adult life. 

Throughout my time of working in the ents industry, the odd comment of me doing stand-up was suggested to me...especially whenever I had a rant, but I never had the confidence, until I came across the ultra course with Viv Gee, to raise money for charity. And by golly...stand-up comedy wasn't what I though it was gonna be. But doing her course, and a few gigs after that, it made me realise, that it's not as hard as what I though it was gonna be. But trying to balance this with a regular job, and crappy health...it can be quite difficult.

​So I'm not at where I want to be in comedy. As trying to do this while holding a job, with health issues up in the air, it's hard to do it full time. I genuinely admire those who are able to do so, as it's not easy. So, I keep my toes in th water, and keep myself up to scratch by doing at least one gig a month. But I hope, this time next year, I'll be able to do a lot more. I'm still enjoying it, but with the HUGE egos (I mean, we all have one! Some bigger than others. Every entertainer does) that are cutting about the scene, sometimes our inner saboteurs get to us. 

The Great Weapon 

In the years before the times were told, there was a weapon made of the Sun. ​​

The “heavenly” lens was supposedly designed to enhance crop growth. A massive lens that followed the sun’s path from what we call modern day Mongolia in the East to Nevada in the West. The whole world knew peace then, a shared ‘Terrainianism’, where all life was treasured and respected…from the ancient scorpion to the notorious black widow. Their nipping stings might well hurt, but their venom had no effect when met with the medical advancements of Earth’s civilisation in harmony. There was no notion of profit from aid in those days, life was life and all were cherished vibration, expressions of the very land they lived on. 

But where there is harmony there is disharmony; you can not have Yin without Yang, there can be no light without darkness, no rest without action…and unrest had been festering in the darkest pockets of the complacent civilisation. Twisted minds poisoned by the terrible thoughts they harboured. You see, too much peace can corrupt the susceptible; those poor souls raised wrong, neglected and left to be manipulated by the misguidance of the miserable. 

The wise men [Wizards] advised that, theoretically, there can be no good without bad, no balance without imbalance, no push without pull, no fall without flight, but they were scoffed as fools by the not so bright. Mocked as “panic-merchants” and “celibacy hermits”, lost to annihilation spirals of self destruction, condemned by the narrow-minded, and tarnished, defamed with lurid names and unsavoury, undeserved reputations. The mentality-stunted will try by whatever means to drag down the golden worthy to the lowly, putrid depths beneath them. 

You see, when times are good no one wants to admit the inevitable; the Winter blows follows the Harvest, and while cider-drunk rejoicing celebrates full bellies, the balance of nature is a harmony through the Spring and Autumn gateways, between Summer and Winter, feast and famine. Teaching us that we can’t properly appreciate unless we’ve gone without; that is why we celebrate the good times, ignoring the threat of unavoidable loss. ‘Prepare for the inevitable,’ the wizards said, but the dreamers would not listen. They could not bear for their ideological stance to be jeopardised or rocked in any way with information not agreed by a unified council of deluded hoodwinkers, fat-bellied on their illustrious lies. Same-track-minded as lemmings, they buried their heads in pleasure and left their ostrich-tails bare to what was coming. 

The plan was bold. ‘The best laid plans always are,’ declared the ‘weres’ [men], down in the secret rooms, too deep and far for the uninitiated to slip a listen. ‘We could have fruit the whole year through!’ Cheered the ‘wifs’ [women]. Little did they know that on the very council where the (supposedly) most trusted and self-appointed perched on seats of officialdom, lurked jealous cruelty, ruthless individuals with envy enough to eat the world into starvation. 

The huge disc was forged with gold and glass, so light it defied the electromagnetic pull the modernists might call, ‘Gravity’. The Solar Lens, nicknamed, “God’s Monocle”, floated in the sunlight, pulled by the heat. Warnings of “uncontrollable power” were declared by the wise, but those wizards were mocked like the theorising stone-gazers of today. Whenever a wise councillor asked, how such a device could be controlled, they were met with bewilderment. ‘Why would you ever want to stop it?’ Said their fellow councillors, doeeyed with secret long forgotten hypnotic sorcery. Many, harping obstinance, were dragged, stripped bare, into the town squares for public flogging, as horrified citizens looked on in disbelief at how their once peace-loving establishments seemed to be betraying the very notions they had once taken for granted common sense. But the fear of joining the humiliated, tied to poles in the town square, kept all in a lip-perched stare, eaten from within by the shame that they did nothing, kowtowed to the fascist face of rising totalitarian dictatorship. 

By the time the lens began its scorching, it was instantly too late. Far from fruitful, the hideous lens laser-burned the entire land. Like ants beneath a magnifying glass the people fled in terror to evade the scouring trail. The earth’s surface was decimated, turning rivers to ash and land to sand, melting buildings and forests in its fiery glare. The giants, for such things harmoniously existed then, tried as best they could to reach it and change it, but the lens’ power was such they were cast to stone, petrified into mountain ranges where they fell. 

Round and round the sun lens scorched a devastating trail across the land, boiling the oceans to steam, which in turn caused such devastating floods that society, as it was known, was entirely lost and eventually had to start again. Finally, the few surviving weres and wifs, hiding in the highest of mountain caves, for generations of lost years, tentatively left the darkened holes when the cursed lens eventually, thankfully, burnt itself out. 

It doesn’t take much to lose everything, but once the knowledge is gone, is it ever possible to regain it? Only now, as we view ancient artefacts with fresh eyes, do we see cymatic sound frequencies and sacred geometry carved into the very temple rock. Could we allow ourselves to imagine the people of the ancient world having natural technology? Were they harnessing the power of the ether? Did they burn themselves out, or were they betrayed by greedy unscrupulous villainy? Conned and killed, warred away and poisoned? Whatever happened, the knowledge was lost…lost and stolen hidden away. 

Imagine surviving a cataclysm, with all the knowledge you once held firmly, now gone, lost and blown away with the forgotten pages of history? The observer might well be drawn towards thoughts of the Great Library of Alexandria, pillaged and burned, setting humanity back by an estimated 2000 years. They say knowledge is power. But those who steal and covet that knowledge are not using it to restore Utopia. 

We remain gardeners without a garden, hitched to the drudgery of employment’s wagon, shackles so heavy we can barely stand to bear it, let alone escape it, advance through it, navigate its distracting force, or stand up to it’s deceptive face. Crushing cogs of a conveyor belt, never knowing what the other hand is doing. 

Hidden knowledge helps no one…for hidden things can never be truly celebrated. So whether they’re brightening or dimming the sun for whatever means they promise, we can be sure in the balance of nature, that any disruption is met by an equal and devastating resistance. 

Instead of being satisfied with the balanced scales, they wanted more. Don’t they always. Maybe when they’re done playing with the Sun, they’ll focus on the mirror in the sky, and tinker with the rain and do it all again, never really knowing the reasons why. 

Stephen McGinger

A day in the life of me as a whistleblower, legend and all round pure stud starts with waking up in ma He-Man and the Masters of the Universe bedsheets, cape freshly washed and draped dramatically over the radiator like I’ve just saved Greenock from mild inconvenience. Before I’ve even had a sip of tea I’m checkin on ma voodoo dolls from last night, removing and disinfectin the pins with a casual mix of alcohol, vinegar, salt n hydrochloric acid just to make sure it stings when I put them back in. After that I ring the other whistleblowing Avengers to see whose cape needs ironed, you’d be surprised how disorganised superheroes are. We’ve got the capes colour coordinated so we know who’s who.

By lunchtime I’m on the phone to ma good pal Kavita Bardwaj, reminiscing about the days we took a horse and cart to Sadie Frost’s when life was black and white and she was an exotic dancer on club podiums pre-Macarena, pre-Gangnam Style. Pioneers, really. Sadly the light sticks have run out of light so we just use candles now. Not ones with real flames in case we burn ourselves, just the wee battery operated ones ye know the cheap ones u see in candlelight concerts advertised on Wowcher.

I boil a carrot and half a tattie because I can’t cope with the thought of eating the poor wee animals, then sing a dramatic power ballad and record it on Ableton so I can produce it into something that almost sounds like I’m actually good at something, allowing me to look down upon the rest of society as those that just havnae quite “got it”.

Evening routine is spiritual, obviously. Radox bath, one of those underwater looking lamps on, ambient wee wummin humming noises in the background on spotify playlist while I contemplate the universe and ma own Legendary existance. Wash ma hair with Just For Jingers, cause, well why not. Manifest waking up with a six pack and admirers of all genders queueing up respectfully at ma door in the mornin lookin for dates, then laugh at maself for being an absolute oddball. Cape folded. Lights out. Repeat.

On The Road with Olivia Francesca

​Olivia Francesca's comedy has been described as Fleabag and Dory combined, using humour to laugh at the silliest bits of life. Performing for three months across Thailand and South Korea, she realised that the hardest part of comedy is having your accent understood abroad. From joking about North Korea in Seoul, to parading up and down Khao San Road and herding in a crowd of drunk travellers to watch her perform, she tries to make every set feel like talking to that one friend that won't shut up but keeps you laughing anyways. Often performing about relationships, sexuality, and the mind-melt of being in your mid-twenties, you can catch her first ever WIP as part of a collection of split bills at Glasgow International Comedy Festival in March (tickets available 11th & 19th: https://linktr.ee/oliviafrancesca )

(Maybe this is too many characters or not relevant, but when I was in Cambodia I made a short doc with a friend. If theres room to include it id love to promote it! Its out on saturday)

Whilst travelling through Cambodia last year, she produced a documentary with indie filmmaker and Director, Skyler Jenson Paccio titled 'The Muffin Man.' 

Born into poverty, a young Khmer man named Dieng is working for a better future for his family when he meets Kerry, an Australian woman who chooses not to give charity, but something far more lasting. Instead of money, she teaches him how to bake.

From that small lesson, Dieng becomes The Muffin Man. Building a life, a business, and a community in Cambodia through family, friendship, resilience, and bravery. This inspiring story shows that change doesn’t come from being rescued - it comes from being taught, trusted, and believed in.

GAMING

It’s March and this month found me looking for something comfortable to play, by which I don’t necessarily mean those so-called ‘cozy’ games like Nintendo’s Animal Crossing series, or farming and more game Stardew Valley, though my own preference is for the Japanese Story of Seasons games that inspired it. Originally Story Of Seasons was called Harvest Moon in the West, but we won’t talk about that, just don’t buy the new Harvest Moon games, it’s not the same series or developers as the Gamecube’s sublime Harvest Moon - A Wonderful Life anymore, ok? That series continues and is now called Story of Seasons to us foreign type people outside Japan. Isn’t licensing fun and interesting?

No, by comfortable, I meant something that I could kind of play and switch my brain off at the same time, so generally this would be an old favourite I am familiar with the controls, levels etc enough that I don’t have to engage; something generic enough or in a popular genre or series or setting, where the controls are likely to be standardised; or something with a big sandbox with stuff to do or not do. Also cozy games usually have an emphasis on relaxation or non-violence, nurturing other characters or places, and generally being nice and helping people. Which I am all down with when the feeling takes me, but sometimes I need to relax by playing something extremely violent; and sometimes being nice and helping people means being extremely not nice and very unhelpful to some other people. This month, for instance, I was very helpful and nice to the French Resistance and Allied Forces during the time I spent in France whilst playing Sniper Elite 5 again, but to the dozens of Nazis who ended up missing limbs, faces and baws somehow whilst I snuck about, probably not nice. But fuck them. Virtual or not, they’re still Nazis.

​Still, there’s only so many Nazis you can castrate with a sniper rifle before the novelty wears off, so I went looking for something else to play instead, and it happened that Star Wars – Outlaws, the reasonably recent, at least as far as Star Wars games go, open-world adventure from Ubisoft had just joined Game Pass, and since mine runs out at the end of the month I thought I would give that a go. I went into it with a mixture of expectations, since on release the title had gotten middling reviews and bad word of mouth on t’internet where the reaction to this big budget title from Massive was a resounding ‘meh’. However from my POV, this was the same Ubisoft studio that gave us the two Tom Clancy’s Division games which I’ve previously big-upped on here as quality shoot-wee-guys-in-the-face titles, and which I’ve sunk hours into. And it’s Star Wars, which I’ve literally loved since I was five years old, and have forgiven an awful lot over the years. I figured maybe it’s just a bit Ubibland and copypasta from their other franchises to play it safe, and that I’d probably enjoy it enough because the pew pew and other franchise stuff would carry it a bit if you were a fan, and it would do the job, basically.

​Also, most of the bad word of mouth off t’internet seemed to have a weird focus on female lead character Kay Vess and whether she was ‘hot’ or ‘not’. Now I don’t know whether this came from the gaming crowd or the Star Wars crowd of fuds, but for whatever reason this presumably mostly or more likely exclusively male section of what we collectively term ‘fans’ decided she somehow was ‘not hot’ and therefore wasn’t suitable enough wanking material to be added to their very small and exclusive pool of franchise-related gooning options in the Star Wars universe. Star Wars gooners had been limited to A New Hope’s coked-up Carrie Fisher in her sexy Death Star prisoner outfit of perfectly-groomed hair buns, no bra, and a white pair of curtains; Empire Strikes Back’s coked-up Carrie Fisher in her sexy Hoth winter collection – guess that’s not always snow then; or most popular choice, Return of the Jedi’s coked-up Carrie Fisher in a tin bikini chained to a giant talking penis. Whilst I appreciate that it must be difficult for them sometimes, these weird Star Wars fetishists looking over longingly at the Trek perverts, who get more wank-bank material from a single episode of Deep Space Nine than they do from an entire 6-movie franchise, seems a stretch getting into an internet rage about a fictional character’s animated face. The big difference between Carrie Fisher and the videogame character Kay Vess is that Kay Vess in Star Wars is animated and Carrie Fisher in Star Wars is real, other than her performance in ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ after she’d already died, of course.

​Anyway, wanking controversy aside, Star Wars – Outlaws had just seemed to be getting a meh vibe from everywhere so I wasn’t expecting much, but I’ve genuinely been enjoying the hell out of it. Is it basically Assassin’s Creed given a bit of a Star Wars re-skin? Yes, sort of, it’s actually most like Assassin’s Creed 4 Black Flag in a lot of ways, surprisingly, and it follows the same formula a bit, and it takes a little bit to get going, but once you’ve got past the opening chapter and the options open up so you can start properly exploring and stuff, the whole comfortable Starwarsyness of it started to settle in and I was happily scooting about on a speeder bike on fetch quests and basically fannying about the big open maps. It’s particularly refreshing to have a game set in the Star Wars universe which isn’t focussed on the familiar stories or characters from the movies or on characters with force abilities. There’s a fair amount of fan service in the detail which is nice. Kay Vess is an affable lead and welcome addition to the Star Wars universe so far. Probably will play this to completion.

Extraordinary good run Star Wars generally has with video games. Despite there being a large number of games based on or in the Star Wars universe, the quality control has generally been quite high and I am struggling to think of any that were absolutely shit, though I am sure there will be some. Anyway, in a vague attempt to fill the rest of the month’s article, what are some of the other best Star Wars games to play then? Well, thank you for asking.

​Star Wars (1983, Atari, Arcade) – original vector graphic spectacular, this shooty game came in a stand up cabinet, or if you were lucky, a cockpit thing you climbed into and sat in. It had 3 levels simulating the end bit of Star Wars, where you shot at Tie Fighters, then you had to blow up towers on the Death Star, then the Trench bit. I spent a lot of 10ps in a Butlins arcade when I was a wee lad, pretending to be Luke Skywalker and blowing up the Death Star;

Empire Strikes Back (1985, Atari, Arcade) – the sequel to the above game has 4 vector graphic spectacular shooting levels this time – shooting Probe Droids on Hoth; battling At-Ats in a Snowspeeder as Luke; shooting Tie Fighters with the Millennium Falcon, and then flying through an asteroid field. Good but not as good as the first game. I actually first encountered this in cabinet sit-in form in the wild in one of Glasgow’s dingier video arcades which was located at the back of the Barras market on the Glasgow Green side. That machine was in full working order, but there was a kebab in the seat at the time, so I did not play it;

Return of the Jedi (1984, Atari, Arcade) – no vectors this time, but amazing isometric 3D and full colour graphics. This has a stupidly hard speeder bike bit through Endor forests as Leia; flying the Millennium Falcon as Lando and attacking the Death Star; more speeder bikes and a bit with Chewie and Ewoks in a commandeered Scout Walker; then Lando flying the Falcon again into the Death Star II to blow it up, obviously not forgetting the enormous contributions of Lando’s co-pilot in the Falcon, Nien Nunb, and the fact that Wedge Antilles also took out his objective inside the Death Star at the same time and also piloted out against the explosion. And Wedge is Scottish and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s uncle.

​Super Star Wars (1992), Super Empire Strikes Back (1993) & Super Return of the Jedi (1994)

(SNES, LucasArts) - Decent trilogy of 16-bit platformer shooters with pseudo 3D levels using the SNES mode 7. Quality chip-tune soundtracks based on the original John Williams scores;

Star Wars Episode 1 Racer (1999, Windows, Dreamcast. Nintendo 64. Remake was

released on Switch, PS4 and Xbox in 2020) – brilliant racing game based on the podracing sequence from Episode 1 The Phantom Menace. Well worth picking up the remake on cheap on console as it’s still a lot of fun, though admittedly dated;

​Knights of the Old Republic and Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords – (2003, 2004, OG Xbox, Windows; 2021, 2022 Switch, backwards compatible on Xbox One and Series consoles) – Both brilliant action RPGs and totally still worth your time. The first KOTOR is an early title from Bioware, who would go on to give us both Dragon Age and Mass Effect, and much of the DNA of their later titles can be traced back to this. The second KOTOR game has some issues with being slightly rushed but is also from Obsidian Entertainment who specialised in rushed sequels one of which was Fallout: New Vegas, so no worries. Still brilliant;

Star Wars: Battlefront, Battlefront II (2004, 2005, PS2, OG Xbox, Windows) – The original two games are absolute peak Star Wars, Battlefront II on OGXBox was my most played game online ever. Great as single player games but the online was brilliant;

​Star Wars: Battlefront II (EA 2017, PS4, Windows, Xbox) – EA totally shat the bed with their first attempt at remaking Battlefront but the sequel is absolutely brilliant fun and can be picked up for pennies on sale. The single player campaign is massively entertaining, the online battles are great fun too when you’re not being spawn killed by some prick that’s been playing it non-stop for 8 years. Let’s just not forget that EA are evil, funded by evil money, and tried to egregiously monetise this game when it first came out only to face such a backlash that Disney took the exclusive license off them;

Star Wars Squadrons (PSVR) – The only game to make me spew in VR, sadly. However, up until the character select screen for the Empire in this game, I’d always just assumed they were a white supremacist organisation, especially given the prevalence of different ethnicities in the prequel trilogy episodes 1 – 3 compared to a single black man left in the galaxy during episodes 4 – 6. However, we had plenty of representation at the Imperial Pilot Academy here, giving me rise to believe the Empire may have gone woke.

Max Weber 

​This month’s influencer is for the fourth consecutive month a German, namely the sociologist Max Weber who explains the rise of modern, industrial, and bureaucratic societies.

​The main themes of Weber’s writings were how Capitalism emerged from Protestant religious theology, and how the rationalisation in Western culture led to the “Entzauberung der Welt” or in English the "disenchantment of the world", an idea he introduced in his 1917 lecture "Science as a Vocation" and which he defined as the removal of magic and mystery from the world, replaced by intellectualization and calculation.

​Maximilian Carl Emil “Max” Weber (21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920) was born in the Prussian city of Erfurt and was brought up in a prosperous, cosmopolitan, and cultivated family milieu, his father came from a Westphalian family of merchants and industrialists in the textile business and he went on to become a lawyer and National Liberal parliamentarian. Weber lived during the industrial revolution which saw German and other European cities expand and large trading companies formed, and it also saw the old Aristocracy being replaced as the leaders of society by a new managerialist class of businessmen. It was these changes that Weber spent his life studying.

​The work for which Weber is most well known is 'Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus' (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism) which was published in 1905, and argued that Protestantism, particularly Calvinism, introduced the concept of  engaging in worldly, secular work as a moral duty. This combined asceticism (a rejection of worldly pleasures and luxury) and working hard, but also not spending their money on indulgences, and reinvesting it to generate greater wealth and fostering capitalist accumulation.  

​The doctrine of Calvinism believed in predestination, a theological concept where God has already chosen who is saved and who is not with no options for salvation based on good actions or redemption, it was all decided before you were even born. 

​Before the Reformation when Europe was still Catholic, sins could be confessed to a Priest who had authority to absolve them, but Protestants rejected this concept and replaced it with the belief that only God could forgive your sins, and He wasn’t going to let you know pre Judgement Day.  This created immense anxiety, leading the believers to look for signs of their status in daily life, interpreting financial success through hard work as a sign of God's favor.  This is the Protestant Work Ethic where hard work is considered to be virtuous in and of itself.

​By purging Christianity of its  Roman Catholic doctrines and rituals, and advocating for a stricter Calvinist theology, piety, and simpler worship, religion became less mystical and more rational leading to the development of science and rationality to explain the world and moving away from supernatural explanations.

​Weber argued that “rationalisation” is a process through which more and more aspects of human life become subject to calculation, measurement and control.  This happens in every field of life, not just in science itself, human societies gradually base themselves around calculation, measurement and control. This can be seen in any large corporation or government bureaucracy. It has led to greater efficiency, accuracy, and levels of productivity and asserted control over many varied aspects of human life, and it has given net positives such as elimination of diseases, improved nutrition, lifespans and more comfortable lifestyles, although there are negatives such as environmental pollution. 

​The consequence of this process of rationalisation was what Weber called the  "disenchantment of the world" where scientific understanding, rationalization, and bureaucracy replace magical, mystical, and religious interpretations of life. The world transformed from an "enchanted garden" of spirits and demons and hidden meanings into a predictable, mechanical system. Through science, all things can be understood and mastered by calculation rather than by prayer or magic.

​The problem is that humans are not purely rational creatures, and Weber believed that disenchantment led to a loss of meaning and that rationality could not adequately fill the vacuum left by the diminishment of religion. Weber suggested  that the process had left modern life without the highest values, and reduced them to merely personal, subjective preferences. Modernity provides knowledge, but not inherent meaning or intrinsic values.  Weber noted that modern rationality is often limited to "instrumental reason", asking how to efficiently achieve ends, rather than evaluating the meaning or morality of those ends. 

​Science may be able to clarify questions of values and morals, but it is ultimately incapable of answering them in the way religion could or for some people, still can, however, a return to old-style religion is also an inferior solution, for that would represent a withdrawal into the obsolete and unfounded beliefs of the past. The inadequacy of both science and religion produces a fundamental impasse in the modern world that continues in the West to this day.

Dear Cosmic Cathy,

how can I stop being so lazy? I make plans every week, and every week I end up cancelling and spending my time eating crisps in front of the TV. I need a kick up the butt. Can your cards kick people’s butts? Lazy-Butt, Elgin.

Dear Lazy-Butt,

I have drawn The Emperor reversed for you. This is interesting because in this position it can be interpreted in two ways, look deep within yourself to decide which is the message for you. Reversed The Emperor can represent a petty tyrant, expecting and demanding unreasonable things - is this you? Are you really wanting to do the things or are you beating yourself up because you think you “should” be doing them when your heart just wants to relax after a hard day’s work? If that is the case, remember you evolved to sit by the fire telling stories after the work of the day was done - Netflix is the modern version of this and if it makes you happy, you do you. However, if the relaxing is making you genuinely unhappy, then The Emperor tells you simply to get off your butt and do the things - only you control your actions, The Emperor can’t physically drag you out the door - he does suggest however thinking of the people who will benefit from your activity, if you cannot do the things for you, see it as a service to your friends or admirers. 

Dear Cosmic Cathy,

I have a problem. A guy keeps sending me messages through my work email. They are starting to get inappropriate by asking to meet up despite the fact he is 400 miles away and I’ve never met him. Should I report him to management or just ignore him as I hate reporting people. Sheila, Somewhere. 

Dear Sheila,

I don’t think we need the cards to answer this one, woman to person I implore you to block him! Don’t engage with him again and forward all his correspondence to your HR department if you have one, as well as reporting him to management. Even if his intentions are pure, his methods are creepy and inappropriate at best! Now that is off my chest I will draw you a card and see if they agree … And we have … Death! Don’t worry, this is actually a great card for this situation, it doesn’t mean anything sinister, just an ending is coming and needs a nice, clean line drawing underneath it - like blocking this creepy guy forthwith - so you can move forward into brighter things. Good luck! 

Dear Cosmic-Cathy,

I don’t like cats but I pretended I did in order to get a woman in a bar to go home with me. Three years on we’ve moved in together and are very happy, me more so since her 19 year old moggy peacefully succumbed to old age last week. Now she’s going on about adopting two kittens. My lie is too big to back out of but a child would be a shorter commitment and at least it wouldn’t make me sneeze or claw my furniture, what can I do? Feline Frustrated, Campeltown.

Dear Feline Frustrated,

oh dear, that escalated didn’t it? I don’t want to frighten you, but I have drawn The Tower, a card that signals that the proverbial poop is about to hit the fan. You cannot continue this lie, wheels are already in motion for the truth to come out, all you can do is manage the fallout as best you can. Or you could go shopping for the cutesy-wootsy kittens and try your hardest to fall in love with them, it’s only another 19 years of ripped curtains and smelly litter trays, surely that’s a small price to pay for love? Whatever you decide, the truth is going to come out, be tactful and humble in your managing of it. And, when the dust settles, write it into a set, that is a comedy story I want to hear.