This Week: The Man Who Played With Himself Too Much.

Once upon a time there lived a great philosopher. Hoping to divest himself of all the passions of human nature and thus grow in wisdom, he one day decided to shut himself off from the rest of the world and live alone in a hut on a mountain with no luxury save a PlayStation. "For living so," he told himself sagely, "I'll avoid all torments and distractions to the soul, all the vexations associated with friendship, women and money, and come at last to know my true nature." The PlayStation, he reasoned, would serve to keep his mind alert during those hours when he wearied of his pursuit for Truth.

And so our philosopher carried out his plan. He sold his worldly goods, settled his affairs, said farewell to his friends and good riddance to his wife, and built for himself a hut at the top of a mountain in a far away country, miles from any civilisation. Each day he would sit just outside his hut, deep in meditation, and each night he would sit under the stars, contemplating the hugeness of the universe. In between times, just for relaxation, he would play a game or two on his console. Many summers and winters would come and go like this before next he met another human being.

One day 10 years later, a trader, having lost his bearings during a storm, passed with his donkey along the lonely track which went by the philosopher's hut. The trader was a poor man and good of spirit, and spying the now ragged philosopher, hunched as usual outside his doorway, offered him some food.

Merrily did the philosopher greet the trader for he was very hungry indeed, and the two of them ate and talked the whole day through. When it came that night fell the philosopher would not hear of the trader going his way by dark, and insisted instead that he have his pallet, as he would sit awake all night in any case. The trader readily accepted the philosopher's offer, and as he fell asleep, comfortable in his bed of straw, he saw the philosopher sat hunched in front of his screen, tapping quietly away at his controller, playing Tomb Raider. Never had the trader or his people seen a PlayStation before, and it seemed to him that the glow which bathed the hut was the light of Heaven, and the strange sounds which filled the hut the music of Heaven. Surely he must therefore be in the presence, reasoned the trader, of one of the wisest of saints.