Postman Pat

If I was to say to you, straight off, "How would you like to be the only postman in a small rural village, driving around the dusty thoroughfares that pass for streets, delivering missives of little import, and occasionally aiding the rustic natives to perform unrewarded menial chores of absolutely no consequence?", you'd be a fool to say "Yes"; and not least because my record in procuring employment in the British postal services is a misleadingly unimpressive one. But if, on the other hand, I was to say to you "How would you like to be the only postman in a small rural village, driving around the dusty thoroughfares that pass for streets, delivering missives of little import, and occasionally aiding the rustic natives to perform unrewarded menial chores of absolutely no consequence, BUT it'd be on a computer and you wouldn't get paid for doing it?", for you to offer any sort of rejoinder other than "Yes. Yes! A THOUSAND TIMES, YES!" would constitute the most miserable mistake of your undoubtedly error-ridden lives. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I call to the stand Postman Pat.

As you can imagine, the crux of the game was the delivering of letters. (The villagers who you encountered would sometimes issue you with poorly punctuated requests for succour and sympathy which -unlike real life- you couldn't simply ignore because -just like real life- no-one else would talk to you unless you did them.) Emerging from the post office with three letters and about 20 minutes in which to deliver them, your task was to direct Pat to his van and then proceed to potter leisurely up and down the cul-de-sacs and cobbled streets of Greendale, looking for the flashing doors through which to thrust the expedient epistles. It sounds simple, and it was- the time limit was so expansive as to admit of no real anxiety in the player, and much of the gaming time was spent in reflective equilibrium, rolling gently down along the gently rolling roads and occasionally indulging your childish need for excitement by performing some exhiliarating feat of unnecessary daredevilry, like 'reversing' or 'turning a corner'. It was absolutely wonderful stuff, sedation just one shade away from euthanasia, eroding youthful enthusiasms and ambitions and replacing them with the soft, barely-pressing impulse for comfort and cardigans, warm beer on the pavilion and the stately shuffle of a quiet cricket game.

Tight tapestries such as these are only ever one loose thread away from total unravelment.

To deliver a letter, one drew up the van alongside the door of the intended recipient and pressed the 'Fire' button, sending the bulletin in question drifting in a straight line from the side window of your van. This could be a little awkward, as the van was a cumbersome beast which it was difficult to accurately position, and missing the door involved getting out of the van, going to retrieve the letter, and -for some reason- taking it BACK to the van with you, in order to try throwing it again. This was a little irksome, but once one had grown used to sidling right alongside the intended door, it ceased to be a problem. Squeezing up close to the gaping letter-box, -not difficult, given that most of the hedgerow-bound boulevards were scarely bigger than your vehicle- one pressed the fire button and watched with incredulous horror as the enveloped ejected itself from the OTHER side of the van and straight into a puddle.

"No problem!" you'd smile gamely, "I'll just get out of the van, retrieve the letter, go back to the van, turn the van around so that the door is on the CORRECT side of the van to receive the letter....."

But you can't. The road's too small.

"True. Alright, I'll drive off and find an area that I can turn in, THEN I'll come back here and...."

The nearest space that's big enough to admit of your turning the van around is MILES away. And even THEN you'll need to reverse ALL the way back.

"I KNOW THAT! DON'T YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT?! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a letter to retrieve." Prod. Prodprod. Prodprodprodprodprod.

And THAT'S when you realised that you hadn't left enough room on the driver's side to get out of the van.

Seething with rage, you'd drive off down the road, reach the crossroads, perform the intricate and awkward set of manouvres required to turn the van around (All the more awkward for the fact that it wasn't always apparent which end of the van was the front.), reverse ALL the way back to the site of the dropped letter only to find, true to form, that it was GONE, leaving you with no option but to return to the postmistress and have all your lengthy explanations rebuffed by the sinister expostulation "CUP OF TEA PAT" and a portentous reminder of the ever-ticking timer whose fearful presentiments of unemployment you were now powerless to avert. Driven mad by grief and rage, even the dignified exit of vehicular harikari was denied you by the game's "Easy" setting; your last, bitter thoughts, as you wobbled down the main street at 15mph in a vain attempt to escape the Post Office's jurisdictional radius while time was yet on your side, were that if, like Paperboy, all the houses were on the same side of the road, all would have been well.