Over the years I’ve interviewed quite a few interesting people, but often the chats are heavily edited for the finished article. So I thought I’d put up a few of the transcripts here. They’re pretty long, but if you want something to get stuck into over lunch, they’re perfect.

This interview was a chat with David Braben, the man who, with Ian Bell, created the space trading game Elite – kicking off the sandbox gaming genre that would eventually spawn your Grand Theft Autos and such. This chat was done in 2007, for an article on sandbox gaming in Official Xbox 360 magazine, and he talked, I think for the first time, about the physical, rather than just spiritual, links between his game and Rockstar’s crime sims. (more…)

If you’ve ever met me, you’ll probably know I’m not very good with money. In fact, I’m so bad with money, when I put my Visa card in an ATM, the display doesn’t even ask for me PIN number, it just prints “Seriously?” on the screen. But last week, a post in the off-topic section of Rllmuk alerted me to a fun new social media game that was floating around, Empire Avenue, and I thought I’d give it a bash. Surprisingly, I quickly found myself addicted. Essentially, you create an account, complete with a NASDAQ-style share offering name (my shares are listed as JONCYBERNET), plug in all your social media connections, and then watch your share price rise as you go about your day doing the sort of things you enjoy doing – facebooking, adding pictures to flickr, and stalking late 90’s popstars on Twitter.

You can try it yourself – just plug in your Twitter ID here (scroll down to where it says: ‘What’s your price on the Twiter index?’) and see what your account would be worth on Empire Avenue. More info and 10 great starter tips from the leader of one of the top Community groups after the jump! (more…)

Over the last decade, I’ve written many, many words about videogames. Some of them were good, most of them were a bit wonky. In those 10 years, I’ve been flown all around the world, met celebrities, been wined and dined and have had various incidents with actual real guns. But this morning, I was chatting with fellow writers @GriddleOctopus, @richardcobbett and @SimonParkin about videogame journalism and it’s ethics. And we decided – it’s time to make a stand… (more…)

Lots of you seemed to enjoy the last Spotify playlist (OK, one person emailed me and said “Enjoying your Spotify mix”, but that’s good enough for me), so here’s another. (more…)

WARNING. THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS DISTURBING IMAGERY. FRANKLY YOU SHOULD PROBABLY JUST TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER AND WALK AWAY – YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO UNSEE WHAT LIES ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS MORE BUTTON. (more…)

Our Swanky new App website: www.bmffitnessapp.com

Groo, Monday morning. Well, technically it’s Monday afternoon now. I blame the clocks going forward. Still, the one benefit of losing an hour’s worth of sleep yesterday was that it’s now a little brighter in the evenings – which means exercising outdoors will be a lot less challenging. (more…)

Surely you can do better than this pathetic attempt?

Hey you! Yes, you! Want to be famous? Well we’re offering you the chance – because we want to witness your fitness! We’re looking for photos of people in unusual places exercising while listening to their iPod or iPhone. We’ve got British Military Fitness: My Fitness Instructor Apps to give away, and the best photographer will also win a shiny new Apple iPad… (more…)

People often come up to me, and say: “Excuse me, you’re blocking the door”. But other, different, people often come up to me and say: “Jon, what music can I exercise to? What will get the blood pumping and the feet flying?” For them, and for you, I present my music to exercise to playlist. (more…)

Today I thought I’d have a quick trawl around YouTube and pull out some interesting fitness videos. Some are funny, some are impressive, some are just eyeball-meltingly odd.

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