Get the latest tech news

Loving 21st century gaming like an 18th century furniture expert

The amount of time that’s passed between the wood-effect veneered beginnings of gaming at home and today’s enormous consoles and computers is only about 40 years, yet in that short peri…

The amount of time that’s passed between the wood-effect veneered beginnings of gaming at home and today’s enormous consoles and computers is only about 40 years, yet in that short period the hobby’s managed to accumulate an entire epoch’s worth of backwards-looking worries. If you’re unfamiliar with the programme, the format (virtually unchanged since its 1979 debut) goes something like this: ordinary people bring an old item—maybe something they’ve loved since they were a child, maybe something they hate but a long-deceased relative always had on their mantlepiece, maybe even something found while digging in the garden or clearing out a shed—along to some beautiful castle or hall the show has borrowed for the day and then an expert casts their eye over it, providing general insight, personal admiration and enthusiasm for the object in question, and more often than not gives us all some idea of what it’s worth at the end. More often than not these people have spent their entire lives going down their chosen specialism’s rabbit hole, whether that’s in jewellery, ceramics, paintings, or whatever else, writing numerous well-regarded books on the topic and gaining respect in their field from their peers… and then they’re paired up with a woman called Doris who has a bit of a thing for novelty pin cushions, or someone who’s brought in a tatty box of slightly chipped lead painted farm animals they used to play with as a kid, or another person with a “weird” vase they bought on holiday because it caught their eye.

Get the Android app