Why I game

By day, I’m a mild-mannered book-world hanger-on; by night, I roar through the streets of Gotham in my heavily armed Batmobile, soar above it on the outstretched wings of my cape, and swoop down to bash multiple armed thugs into unconsciousness with a crunching series of ‘Fear Takedowns’. No, I know. When you write it down like that, my enthusiasm for Batman: Arkham Knight doesn’t sound very grown-up at all. (Never mind that I was first tipped off to the games in this series by the now deputy leader of the Labour party.)

As the Spectator’s literary editor, I probably ought to cultivate an image of high-minded devotion to the written word — give out that I spend my evenings on avant-garde fiction or literary biographies. And I do spend a good deal of time on that stuff. But when I want to zone out once the kids are in bed, I’ll like as not boot up my PC and get stuck into some daft videogame.