Back to the future

A recent whirlwind week up in Northumberland saw me giving a nine-year-old and a six-year-old a taster of the region, and that meant cramming in as much as possible. In addition to visiting Hadrian's Wall (Chesters), Tynemouth Beach, the Blue Reef Aquarium, Waves swimming pool in Whitley Bay, Cragside, Ros Castle and Bamburgh Beach, we spent a day in Newcastle.

I'll admit that the trip to the Laing to catch the Amber exhibition was really for my benefit (more on that another day), but the Centre for Life proved much more popular. We could have probably spent all day messing about in the Curiosity Zone alone, but that would have meant missing out on Game On 2.0, an interactive exhibition of computer games and consoles.

I certainly wouldn't call myself a computer games buff by any stretch of the imagination, so it was surprising to discover how many of the games deemed sufficiently iconic to feature I'd actually played: Outrun, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, Driver, Goldeneye, NBA Jam, Rock Band... It served as a reminder of how amazing Mario Kart is (my favourite ever game, even ahead of Championship Manager), and for many visitors of my age it was clearly a welcome trip down memory lane - not least judging by the parents battling it out on Street Fighter while their bemused kids looked on.

So if you fancy spending time in effectively the best amusement arcade you'll ever visit, reliving your youth in the company of hundreds of others doing likewise, then I'd strongly recommend that you get yourself along some time before 3rd January.