Deputy Editor Mark Wheatley is off on his Christmas hols this week and next, which on the face of it is good news all round: two weeks with no typos; two weeks with no rattles thrown out of prams over innocent games of Pong.

Unfortunately, though, he's been replaced by Mr Tim Smith. Don't get us wrong - he's a nice chap and a hugely experienced games journalist (a saint in fact), and he's helped out at FG before. But he also happens to be tone deaf - a fact which only became obvious when he started creating 'tunes' on his PC with the help of Hip Hop eJay.

"My Gran Turismo preview is finished, if you want to take a look at that," chief news sniffer dog Andy Ashwin told him pointedly at one stage, while Tim was creating a racket only the binmen would have preen proud of. Scratch? Scrape more like it. The only person in the office to escape the worst of Tim's efforts was the rapidly fading new-boy Gideon Kibblewhite, who suddenly stopped complaining about the build-up of wax in his right ear...

Meanwhile, with the blithe hypocrisy that only politicians and magazine editors can muster, FG boss Andy Smith is still hooked on Le Mans 24 Hour - a week after declaring it to be both so flawed and so ordinary that playing it was pointless. Doh!

On Friday last week, though, the sort of thing happened that makes gaming worthwhile. It was the last afternoon before his hols, and Mark was giving Gideon a bit of stuffing at UEFA Striker on the office Dreamcast.

"Come and look at this goal!" he suddenly called out to the boy Ashwin, who was busy giving Flight Simulator 2000 a test flight on his PC.

"I can't," replied Andy, his voice furrowed in concentration and edged with annoyance at being interrupted. "I'm just coming in to land."

Seconds later his plane was burning on the runway.