Yarny, the constantly unwinding star of 'Unravel'

Announced at 2015's E3 by its creative director Martin Sahlin, who was visibly shitting himself, Unravel looked like nothing else revealed at the game's industry's highest-profile expo. That it was being published by EA, and not a considerably smaller company, was fascinating: what did this obviously beautiful, somewhat melancholic, side-scrolling puzzle game have that a thousand other titles like it, genre wise, didn't? Surely just looking fantastic, and making the player feel a little sad, wasn't enough to make EA get involved?

Having now played the game for a significant period of time, I've got to say that, yep, Unravel's aesthetic appeal probably was the driving force behind its gargantuan publisher getting involved. Because how it plays, while compelling enough to never be boring, doesn't feels completely unique enough to qualify Unravel, built by the small Swedish studio Coldwood Interactive, as a game without precedent, a puzzler that sets the bar for such cerebral adventures at a new height.

You move your character, Yarny, who's made from a single (extendable) thread of yarn, from left to right across a range of terrain, from an overgrown backyard to a seashore, onto a mountainside and across railway lines, through a scrapyard and thick snow, on a quest to basically collect memories. Obstructing your progress through every stage is a series of obstacles, solvable by yanking on things with your own body-forming string, pulling or pushing objects – apples, rocks, floats, old tin cans, a spool of fishing line – or by being clever with knots: get a piece of yarn taut between two spots and Yarny can spring upwards from it, or you can shove an asset along it, from a lower level to where it's needed. You can pull thread you lose back into your body, and also use it to lasso hooks that sparkle on the screen, indicating a point of attachment. However, if Yarny travels too far without replenishing himself (or herself – my kids have decided Yarny's a girl) using the scraps of yarn scattered throughout the game, he'll simply fall apart. It doesn't let you go that far – instead, Yarny will simply stop, the line snagged, and you're forced backwards to work out where you might have hooked yourself up wrongly, freeing up length enough to reach the next save point.

The yarn mechanic is what gives Unravel its gameplay USP, and it's a vital inclusion, as without it this would very quickly begin to feel like a (gorgeous, admittedly) reskin of another brain-tester from northern Europe, albeit Denmark, namely Playdead's Limbo. In that game, a critically acclaimed puzzle-platformer with disturbingly dark visuals, you controlled a small boy, left to right, pushing and pulling parts of the environment to proceed. Said boy would often die, horribly, but generous checkpointing meant that Limbo never felt unbeatable. There were also several collectibles to pick up in each section of the game, breakable eggs that added to your overall completion percentage.

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And the same is true of Unravel, to the point of sporadic déjà vu. Yarny can briefly detour from the route of least tanglement to pick up trinkets (there are five in each stage), and several different creatures can savagely disassemble him if the player isn't careful with their swinging or quick to respond to danger. The snapping claws of shore-dwelling crabs are an obvious threat to be avoided, likewise the gnashing jaws of an agitated water vole. (I'm going to assume that's what that marauding bastard is, anyway – it looks like a gopher, but they're not native to Sweden.) Some animals lend a helping hand, though, such as a fish that pulls Yarny across a river – getting submerged is as big a no-no as trying to make friends with crustaceans. You'll also take a ride on the wind while holding onto a kite or a plastic bag.

Visually, Unravel is stunning. To the extent where you will absolutely just pause from time to time, gently strolling left to right and back again, drinking in a scene that is so close to photo real that it's like a stretch of northern Scandinavia fell into your TV. You'll rarely have seen rocks and moss, ferns and bark, knackered tyre rubber and rusted metal look quite so touchable in a video game. The water is so wet. This side to the game's presentation gives it a great sense of place – the stones and the streams, the rushing waves and the hardy flora, it all sings of its makers' homeland, an aspect aided by Swedish-language signs but comfortable without such obvious cues. Yarny, too, is terrifically animated and expressive, even without a proper face.

'Unravel', official story trailer

With no spoken words in the game, its music plays a massive part in the overall ambience, which taps into nostalgia – each stage is entered through a photograph, set within a "menu" screen that is an old woman's house (a little like the mobile game Quell, if that rings any bells) – while layering on the bittersweet feeling than can arise from looking through one's past, seeing the friends and family who were there at the time (and maybe aren't, anymore). Composed by Frida Johansson and Henrik Oja, Unravel's score combines frenetic folk passages triggered by set-pieces, akin to Marcin Przybyłowicz's more dramatic loose-strings-and-palm-skins arrangements for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, with gentler, reflective moments designed to lightly colour the process of puzzle solving. While a parallel between a relatively diminutive affair like Unravel and the epic, open-world adventure of The Witcher 3 might seem unlikely, consider that both games are set in northern Europe, and each have an air of magic about them, and it's not such a difficult comparison to appreciate.

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February 2016's a strong month for games full of first-impression promise. Firewatch is unique within the "walking simulator" (uh) sub-genre of immersive, interactive-fiction titles; Far Cry Primal is taking the first-person shooter back 10,000 years to a time of spears and sabre-tooth cats; and Superhot is bringing both a singular visual style and innovative time-based strategy to the guns-and-ammo field. Unravel is another game where surface-level appeal is a given, but digging deeper into the experience, it isn't something to immediately drop whatever else you're playing right now for. Do get around to it eventually, though, because its design strengths outweigh any seen-it-before familiarity.

What it, and Firewatch too for that matter, should do is attract the attention of people who only very rarely sit down with a video game. It's challenging, but you only occasionally need swift reactions to progress. It's truly beautiful to watch in motion, and if you're in the same room as someone playing through it, its looks alone will make you want a turn. The character on the box is both fascinatingly unlike gaming avatars before it, and immediately an empty vessel for the player's own personality. Yarny's not about to be another Mario, but it's no stretch whatsoever to picture a toy range based on this game's unusual lead. I'd be very surprised if Unravel's hero didn't have merchandising opportunities ahead of him. A star is almost certainly born then, albeit in a game that doesn't completely meet the intimidating expectations that preceded its release.

Unravel is out now for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (version tested). More information at the game's official website.

@MikeDiver

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Western yoga practice has been hijacked by skinny young white women with a vague new age philosophy, a raw vegan diet and a set of Instagram filters. It's become so commercialised that you'd no longer be surprised to see a class in London priced at £25 or a pair of designer yoga pants for £400. However, attached to that discussion of privilege and race lingers the related but distinctly different question: is the actual practice of yoga religious or cultural appropriation?

This isn't a new concern. See xojane's op-ed "Like It Or Not, Western Yoga Is A Textbook Example Of Cultural Appropriation", or a recent VICE report on Jennifer Scharf, a yoga practitioner who had her free weekly sessions to students at the University of Ottawa cancelled being culturally appropriative. According to the student union, yoga had been "under a lot of controversy lately due to how it is being practised" and that it was often sacred and spiritual practices that were taken from cultures which "have experienced oppression, cultural genocide and diasporas due to colonialism and Western supremacy".

Take Yoga Back is a campaign run by the Hindu American Society. It was set up in 2003 in a response to the proliferation of new forms of yoga to protect the underlying meaning, philosophy, and purpose of yoga from Western dilution. As Sri Pattabhi Jois, a famous Indian yoga teacher who developed Ashtanga yoga, once said: Westerners "practice yoga primarily for their health, which is okay. But to really understand the heritage of India, one must also understand its ancient tradition. Some Westerners overlook this great heritage and have no idea what are the roots of yoga."

Certainly, this accusation rings true for 99 percent of IG yogi warriors posting photos of them in crow while eating their chia seed pudding. So we got in touch with some yoga scholars to find out how yoga became a thing in the West, and what you need to know to be able to practise it without being a dick.

Modern Yoga Is a Response to Colonial Stereotypes

"Before colonisation, yoga was mainly a spiritual practice, bar beggars and contortionists who worked the urban streets for cash. But around the 20th century, it was used as a way for young men to bulk," says James Mallinson, lecturer in Sanskrit and Classical Indian Studies at SOAS. "There was this idea propagated by the British that Indians were lazy and weak," he adds. Reappropriating hatha yoga became a larger project of Indian nation building and the construction of a "new Indian man". This meant a blended yoga with martial arts of various sorts.

Yoga Borrowed from Western Physical Culture, Too

At the same time as Indian men were bulking up, parts of Western culture – like Ling gymnastics and drilling, which was very popular in Europe at the time – were making an impact on traditional yoga, too."India actually included some aspects of western 'physical culture' into their yoga practice," says James. "Cultural appropriation suggests there are pure essences, but the borrowing here kind of cut both ways." Professor Waltraud Ernst, an Indian history expert at Oxford Brookes university, says that even now modern Western new age yoga practices are being "re-imported into India for westernised Indian elite groups".

There's No Such Thing as 'Authentic' Yoga

So much cultural cross-pollination has happened as yoga has developed that it is impossible to pin down its true origins. "Postural yoga has such a twisted history going back to the 9th or 10th century that there is really nothing that can be said to be 'authentic'," explains Joseph Alter Stewart, Professor of Social Sciences at Yale. "At one point in time it was alchemy, then a martial art, then a form of spiritual exercise, then physical fitness, then self-development, then medicine. And all of this before it was brought to the West." The poses we do in yoga now – downward dog and sun salutations – have barely been around for 100 years. "There is no 'pure' yoga that you can identify as having been around for long," he says.

Indian Teachers Wanted to Bring Yoga to the West

Another point to remember in this loose, confused timeline is that Indian yogis actively promoted their practice in the West. Swami Vivekananda was one of these people, adapting traditional Hindu ideas to suit the needs and understandings of Western audiences, who were especially interested in movements like transcendentalism and new age thought. He travelled around Europe and America sharing his ideas and in 1896 he published the book Raja Yoga, which was central to the West's idea of yoga. "He liked to have himself depicted in oriental dress when he was in the West, and in modern, Western dress in the East," says Professor Ernst. "So, some of the main protagonists in sharing yoga with the West were very aware of how to market themselves to Western consumers."

Professor Mallinson says the yogis "knew exactly what they were doing: they were tailoring their practice for an audience that included Westerners and made it more palatable for them. In fact that's a duplication of the history of yoga. For centuries it has always been adapting to the context where it finds itself. To claim that the West has nicked yoga betrays someone who a political agenda. They are actually denying agency to the Indians who were responsible for spreading yoga."

New Yoga Fads Trivialise Spirituality

Understandably, many people, such as the Hindu American Society, have anxiety surrounding their spiritual positioning in the world being associated with something as frivolous and commercialised as what white western yoga has become. Light trends like voga and naked yoga, which are hurtling through gym timetables quicker than it takes to blend a green juice, belittle colonial history. Ironically, taking yoga's convoluted past into consideration, one big problem is the idea that there's some kind of unbroken tradition of yoga that gives it a sense of religious authority. Westerners want to feel like they're doing something traditional. They sort of are, but they're also not. And understanding that paradox is the crux of practising something so entwined with religion with the respect it deserves.

Paul Hardware, who won big back in '07 (via Wikimedia)

Jesus Christ, imagine actually winning the Lottery? We all have our fantasy Amazon baskets filled with plush 4K TVs and a solid gold swingball set, but only the good Lord knows what we'd actually do when faced with such a befuddling amount of money. Charity? Cokey cruise? Get some people you don't like taken out? Would it turn you into a madman, hellbent on genetically modifying stem cells into an eternal caviar production line? We can dream.

For those of us lucky enough to have a bizarre amount of cash bestowed on us by the sky deities (via a pink numbered slip given to a shop vendor along with a four pack of Stella, a bag of sweet chilli Sensations and a Star Bar), certain protocols need to be adhered to. You don't just get the whole lot plonked in your account. Camelot, the governing body for the National Lottery, has a team of what they call 'Winners Advisors'. These people help newfound mill-yun-airs not go completely spare and drop it all on a lifetime supply of Bentleys in a fit of adrenaline-fuelled madness. They also make sure their recently sugared children don't get exploited.

We spoke to the Senior Winners Advisor at Camelot, Andy Carter, to find out what really happens when you win big.

VICE: Hi Andy. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?
Andy Carter: I'm Camelot's Senior Winners Advisor, so I lead a team of five people, and we're based around the UK. When someone wins more than £50,000 on the Lottery, we go out to their home to pay them their prizes and look after them.

How are you notified of the win, and do you all bundle into an A-Team-style van and head up to where they are?
When people win, they ring the number on the back of their ticket to make their claim. We then get passed their details, give them a call back and tell them what will happen. We go and see them and sort the paperwork out, but there's more to it than that. It's about looking after people at a life-changing moment, a moment nobody ever forgets. We make sure they have access to legal advice, financial advice, we talk to them about media interest, we talk to them about what other people have done. It's about giving them a bit of support.

Is there any specific skill set you need to be a Winners Advisor?
You need good listening skills, you need good empathy, and I think you need to be quite happy and upbeat as well. You need to be able to judge people's moods because everyone reacts differently. You need to be able to jump up and down when people are jumping up and down, but equally you have to understand when people are feeling nervous and being quiet, and you have to reflect that.

What do you personally do in the team?
We're all Winners Advisors, I just happen to manage them. We're based around the UK. I'm in Cardiff, but winners are never spread out evenly – it's a lottery, so we could end up anywhere. We go and see them, pay them the money, and have follow-up meetings with lawyers. We see about a thousand people a year who win more than £50,000, so it's quite a lot.

What kind of protection and help do you offer to these newfound millionaires?
They need to have access to high quality legal advice, namely legal that's used to dealing with large amounts of money. So if you were to win, say, over a million pounds, we'd be saying to you: 'First of all, we recommend it doesn't go into a normal high street bank account.' We have contacts with all the major banks. Some of them have departments that just deal with lottery winners. We get one of those representatives to come out while we're with the winner, and they open up a separate account that's shielded from the branch network. So if you were to walk into a branch of your particular bank, they would never know that you have this money. It's about ensuring the funds go over there discreetly, and swiftly, and make sure the winners have access to advice.

Perhaps people have to consider things like inheritance tax, which they haven't had to think about before. People think, 'I want to put money aside for my children when I'm older but I want to make sure they spend it wisely,' you know? The classic one is always, 'I want to put money aside for my daughter but when she turns 20, how do I know there's not a lad hanging around who isn't... you know!' People worry about what happens if one of them dies so make sure they have things like wills in place, because their estate is big now, and needs managing. We have meetings with lawyers and financial advisors. Now, they don't have the winners' contact details at this point, so they're not able to contact the winners afterwards. If the winner wants to contact the experts, that's down to them. It's all about making sure the winner has a bit of time, and a bit of space.

Where does the relationship with the winner come to an end?
That's a real challenge for us. You need to know when to withdraw. Some people just want to be paid the money and move on very quickly and that's absolutely fine. Others, particularly the publicity ones, will stay in contact with you for much longer because you're entering their lives at a unique time. Only for a short period, but still. For us it's about ensuring we maintain the ratio the winner wants. There's no hard and fast rule on that one.

Whats the worst reaction you've have had to a win?
You get a multitude of reactions. You get people jumping up and down, you get people who are very quiet, you get people who are in denial and disbelief and perhaps don't even want to believe they've won because it's a shock. They want to carry on with the day they would normally have had, and we've got to respect that.

What's the largest amount of money you've had to help someone with? What did they do with it?
The biggest winners in the UK that I dealt with were Colin and Christine Weir from Largs in Scotland, and they won £161million. To be honest with you, they reacted the same as any other major winners react. The disbelief, the shock. There's happiness – their brain will be going a thousand miles an hour to deal with the news. They set up a huge charitable trust (the Weir Charitable Trust) and have been very wise. They invested money back into their community, charitable causes, things like that. Running a charity is a full-time occupation too. They employ people and they've been able to do a lot of good with their money.

Do you think people have a responsibility to give part of their winnings to charity?
I think it's down to the individual. What you find is, a lot of winners gift money anyway, to family and friends. You have to remember if you've won a million pounds, there's a difference between that and winning £61million, regarding what you can do. You know, a million pounds means you can set yourself up, you might be able to set your children up a bit. And that's wonderful. Loads do make charitable donations and lots do set up charitable trusts. I'm not sure they have a responsibility. They have a responsibility to use the money wisely.

Does meeting millionaires all the time make you a bit jealous?
No! First of all I'm not allowed to play, so I know I can't win. That makes it easier. But it's great. You're meeting these people who won money through good fortune, so there's nothing not to like about that really, is there? And they let you into their life for a little bit of time. You get to know them. If you won a million pounds on the lottery, you'd think it's fantastic, wouldn't you?

What do you do when you're not travelling the country greeting winners?
Well to be honest, it's a full-time job. There's a lot of traveling, a lot of media stuff. A couple of weeks after we first see a winner, we have a follow-up meeting with a lawyer and financial advisor. There are draws on Friday and Saturday night, and scratchcards come into it too. Six millionaires every week are made across the UK so there's an awful lot of work to do.

Finally Andy, how on earth did you get into this line of work?
I just saw the job advertised! I think you've got to have a passion for it, you've got to love it, and you've got to make sure you see the winners as human beings. You need the human touch, you need to look after people. I think that's what matters. You need to take the time and identify what people want.

Lovely, hopefully I'll see you soon.

@joe_bish

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Last week, Netflix confirmed that is bringing back Gilmore Girls for a seventh season. And lo, the internet, which is always calling for things to come back or be reunited because it has a real issue with time's linear progression, was finally satiated. Once-respectable news outlets were ablaze with excitement and the weekly Gilmore Girls podcast the Gilmore Guys went beserk. In the last week alone, there have been 10 Buzzfeed articles about Gilmore Girls, including "This 4 Question Gilmore Girls Quiz Will Determine What Kind Of Coffee Drinker You Are" and "18 Times Paris Geller Proved She's The Funniest".

For whatever reason, Gilmore Girls has become the ultimate fodder for listicles and reaction GIFs. But like Friends, Frasier, The OC, Mean Girls, any Pixar film and the literal ground that Beyoncé walks on, it has light and shade, progressive moments and some very problematic parts. Sadly this has all been subsumed into a Yassss Queen recall-a-thon where everything becomes one-liners and eye-rolls.

But unlike the other shows that have been collapsed under the internet's thirst for nostalgia, Gilmore Girls remains worth rewatching. It shows women in a way that they've never really been seen before on TV, with a quickfire pop culture conversation style that is normally the reserve of the nerdy characters in a teen movie. Lorelai and her daughter Rory, the two Gilmores, reference David Bowie, Sonic Youth and joke about the Menendez brothers. They talk faster than Six in Blossom (the scripts were so dialogue-heavy they were about 15 pages longer than the average network TV script) and confront class, politics and feminism in a way that still feels fresh by the standards of modern network TV.

A lot of the Gilmore cheerleading ignores all this. For example, in none of the cheery Rory-is-my-sidebitch online palaver is there anything about Emily Gilmore, Rory's grandma, who seems to register no facial expression other than mild distaste. You could show her 2 Girls 1 Cupand she'd probably just raise an eyebrow and say, "Well that cup looks rather cheap."

When we're first introduced to Emily, she's a Republican monster, a demon of the DAR, who hires and fires maids on the turn of a salad leaf, ridicules her daughter for her haircuts and liberal life choices, and uses money as an emotional weapon.

A lot of the genius of the show comes because Lorelai Gilmore, Emily's daughter, thinks her mother is a stuck-in-the-mud old grump while she is a bastion of liberal parenting and JC Penney leather jackets. But we, the audience, can see the pair are exactly the same.

Lorelai has picked a life that is as small and confined as her mother's. She's lived in the same town since she was 16, worked the same job, had the same friends. She thinks she broke away from the stuffiness of her parents by moving out of their fancy home and into the picture-perfect fantasy land of Stars Hollow, which is actually just as insular, prissy and incestuous as the upper-class world Emily inhabits. Emily's biggest flaw is that she expects her daughter to be exactly like her, but Lorelai gave her daughter her own fucking name and demands she spend every waking minute hanging out with her, so what do you expect.

Lorelai is a flawed anti-hero from a time before flawed anti-heros on TV were cool. She's the perennial teenager, a Petra Pan who has never grown up and wants to be her daughter's best friend. She does dumb things when it comes to men, shies away from honest discussion of problems, and also wears terrible hats - which somehow doesn't have any impact on her love life, but did seem to heavily influence the band Haim. There's a bite to Lorelai - you wouldn't want to cross her - and she has a core of steel. You fall in love with her not because she's super cool, but because when she fucks up, her loneliness and misery is brutally palpable as she tries to hold it all together.

Rory, meanwhile, is a walking parable of class and inheritance in modern America. Having a extra generation between her and Emily means she can see her grandmother's greatness, and she's more willing to embrace her posh heritage. The boyfriend she seems most comfortable with is Logan Huntzburger, who comes from an equally well-established family. She picks Yale over Harvard, with no qualms about the family connection (her grandfather is an alumnus) - indeed, that's part of the appeal. But she also loves the movies she watches with her mother, she's laidback and warm, and never leans into the money at her disposal. But in the end, she finds the pull of her background becomes inescapable, and she finishes the show with the life her grandmother would have wanted for Lorelai.

Like any show from over three years ago, there's a lot about Gilmore Girls that seems politically out-of-step, and it's even more pointed on a show where the main characters are proud liberals who watch The Daily Show every night.

There's the junk food. It's a common TV trope that a woman's relationship to food is an indicator of her personality. While an uptight character will be pedantic and fussy over meals, chowing down burgers six days a week and only using your oven to store shoes or warm your jeans means a woman is cool, funny and easy going. It's lazy writing and it's also pretty batshit when you consider the message it sends – the ideal woman is one who eats crap all the time yet is still skinny. Which means when that Emily Gilmore asks always-up-for-a- Chinese-takeaway-and-let's-also-get-a-pizza-for-dessert Queen Rory if she's bulimic, I lean in extra close to the TV to see her reaction. But they skip over it like it's just another snappy gag that doesn't really matter to the story.

Gilmore Girls is also horrendously white. I mean, there is Michel, basically a snotty French cartoon cat who is obsessed with Celine Dion, and Lane, Rory's best friend, may be one of the best teenage girls ever, but her mother Mrs. Kim is a highly devout Korean Seven Day Adventist whose two dimensions consist of hardcore antiquery and a brutal hatred of her daughter's freedom. Oh, and she's all about the tofu. It doesn't seem like creator Amy Sherman-Palladino was into complex and sympathetic representations of different nationalities and cultures.

To be fair, all the shows from this era - The OC, Dawson's Creek, Gossip Girl - are littered with white privilege and dodgy characters. The best evidence I have that this is a show that deserves far more respect than any other glossy sunshine teen drama offering of the 2000s is the episode when all three Gilmore Girls, and Emily's husband Richard (played by the indubitably marvellous Edward Herman) finally make their peace with each other. The last five minutes of "Friday Night's Alright For Fighting" consist of a scene that smoothly wends its way between the family crying, screaming at each other, laughing hysterically, appreciating the delectable dinner, and finally collapsing with exhaustion. It's the most perfect representation of real family life that I've ever seen.

I can't believe this show only ever won an Emmy for makeup.

@sankles

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Photo via Flickr user Gage Skidmore

When the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released its 2016 voter survey this week, the first few results in the report were illuminating, if not all that surprising. For 73 percent of registered Muslim voters, Islamophobia is the number one concern, up from third place in 2014. About the same percentage of Muslim voters plan to vote for one of the two Democrats running for president in 2016. But after Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, the third most popular candidate was a little surprising: It turns out, 7.47 percent of Muslims support Donald Trump.

Trump, if you haven't been following the election, has called for a "shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," and is in favor of surveillance techniques that target people based on their religion, if that religion is Islam. It's safe to say the real estate tycoon and TV personality has adopted a posture toward Islam that speaks to the 14.6 percent of Americans who are "generally fearful" of Muslims. But even fellow conservatives have called Trump "a fascist" for his comments about American Muslims.

So if you're Muslim, what's the appeal of voting for the guy?

"He is anti-establishment, and he comes from the outside. I think one could – from the outside – bring a new perspective to things, and really shake things up in Washington," said Saba Ahmed, president and founder of the Republican Muslim Coalition, who famously wore an American Flag headscarf while being interviewed by Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly last fall.

Ahmed believes a greater Muslim presence in the GOP would help quash growing Islamophobia, both within the party and in the United States at large. "The rise of anti-Islamic sentiment is partially due to the voice of Muslim Americans being missing in the Republican Party," she told me.

Republican Muslims are yet another in a long line of counterintuitive political blocs in the US, like, for instance, the pro-Israeli Muslim group called the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, or the Log Cabin Republicans, the best-known organisation representing gay conservatives in the US. But the idea of Muslims putting their support behind someone as outspoken as Trump is about trashing Muslims seems exceptionally strange – and Ahmed acknowledges that.

"We are very alarmed by his anti-Islamic rhetoric, and hope to see that change as the campaign goes on," she told me. "But from an economic standpoint, and his business skills, we would love to see him as our Republican nominee."

"He's worked with Muslims all his life, he has properties all over the Middle East, and he has significant business dealings in the Islamic world," she added.

It's not just Ahmed. A Facebook group called "Muslims for Trump" exists, and while it rarely gets updated, its anonymous creator published a long, wordy manifesto earlier this week. It's a little light on details about Trump's policy proposals, but the author does claim not to have heard "a single remark of hatred made by Mr. Trump. No one who has come forth has managed to provide a single example."

As for why Trump makes a good candidate, the post is as vague as it is verbose: "We must continue to voice our support, qua Muslims, for an America with a history and an identity, an America who celebrates her Christian heritage loudly and proudly," is the closest the writer gets to an explanation.

The Facebook page attracts sympathetic Muslims – though not necessarily ardent Trump supporters. "I find Trump's 'no need to always be politically correct' stance refreshing. I also like his apparent 'telling like it is' demeanor," Nash Khatri, an electrical engineer who has commented on the page, told me in a Facebook message. "I also think he is no dummy, and who knows? He may make a good president."

Other Muslim Republicans aren't so sure about Trump. "I do think he has an ability to put his finger on a pulse regarding what the issues are for Americans and on how social media driven marketing works nowadays," said Sarah Cochran, a representative of the Muslim civic group Emerge USA. However, she added, "I wouldn't vote for him."

Ahmed also had some criticism of her preferred candidate. "I think he has been hurt in the polls by having a very arrogant attitude," she told me, adding that she thinks Trump needs to "humble down." But while she'd like Trump to change, she said she would still pull the lever for him in November should he become the Republican Party's Islamophobic presidential nominee.

"We believe that Islamic values are in line with the Republican party, and there's no way for us to go back to Democrats, or independents for that matter," she said.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Illustration by Alex Jenkins

As far as bodily functions go, sneezing is probably the most comparable to orgasm. There's the initial tickle in your body, the build up of tension, the suspense, and then suddenly, like a volcanic eruption, you feel the explosion of physical relief. It feels satisfying to sneeze.

For some, it's also satisfying to watch other people sneeze. Sexually satisfying even. And these people are discovering online that they're not alone in the community of sneezing, coughing, and cold-and-flu fetishists.

"I'm attracted to sneezing, but also other symptoms like coughing, fevers, discomfort. So you might say I'm more of a cold-and-allergies fetishist," said Emma, a 29-year-old from Canada, who's active on a site for sneeze fetishists.

As a kid, she remembers taking a special interest in sneezes in books and television – like a scene in the animated Frosty the Snowman movie, where a character "sneezes and shivers from being in the chilled boxcar on the train," or a book about Donald Duck's nephews who get sick, which she "read over and over."

Like Emma, Terry, a 21-year-old from the northeastern United States, was interested in sneezing from a very early age, but says "it wasn't until I hit puberty that I recognised my feelings about were becoming sexual in nature."

Both Emma and Terry discovered through internet searches in their late teens that the intense feelings they felt throughout childhood were not only a real fetish, but there were also others out there just like them.

Online, there are several places for sneeze fetishists to convene: There's Sneeze Fetish Forum, a 3,500-member community where people trade stories and observations and tips for coming out. There's a private sub-Reddit, r/sneezefetish, for general discussion. There's The Furry Sneezing Archive, for the intersection of sneezing and anthropomorphics. And plenty of web 1.0-style sites, like Tarot of Sneezing, where an early post from the webmaster acknowledged that "there are so many things out there now relating to sneezing – chat rooms and forums, so you can interact with others who like sneezing."

The point? If you're into sneezing, you're not alone.

"I think the first time I masturbated was while listening to the sounds of someone sneezing on a fetish site," said Emma. "Suddenly I was discovering a multitude of online areas that had people who were writing and sharing the same kind of fantasies that I'd made up in my head for a decade."

Watch: VICE meets a community of quicksand fetishists, who recreate versions of their favorite quicksand scenes with an erotic twist.

Lyna, a 21-year-old from rural Missouri, became a nurse after she discovered her sneezing fetish. She was quick to clarify that she doesn't get off on watching her patients sneeze, but says her fetish played into her desire to be a caretaker.

"Most sneezes really don't turn me on at all – probably a good thing, since I work in the medical field," said Lyna, "I prefer 'tough guys' with colds who deny that they're sick until they can't anymore, with long buildups and trying to hold back the sneeze, even trying to talk while fighting the need to sneeze. I also love how a man's voice gets hoarse when he's sick, so it's deeper and gravelly. I enjoy being the caretaker."

"A lot of what I find attractive has to do with a situation or a continued loss of control," said Emma, "So a single sneeze or cough, while occasionally appreciated, is simply mundane enough for me to often ignore. If someone is completely down and out with cold symptoms or totally non-functional because of hay fever, that's far more interesting than a single sneeze."

Compared to people with fetishes like bondage, BDSM, or pup play, the sneeze fetishists I spoke to were intensely private about their sex lives. They don't hold meet-ups or conventions, and aside from the chat rooms and internet forums where they talk to each other, everyone I spoke to said they kept their fetish a secret.

"I come from a very Southern Baptist family," said Lyna, "and the area I live in is a very closed-minded small town, so unless my fetish was something to do with big trucks, no one here will ever know."

According to Dr. Chris Donaghue, sex therapist and author of Sex Outside the Lines: Authentic Sexuality in a Sexually Dysfunctional Culture, it's important to remove the shame and stigma from people with unusual desires. "That's the core problem here – the shame they feel , not the actual act," said Donaghue.

If there's one place where the sneeze fetishists felt totally free of shame, it's online. All the people interviewed for this story described the internet as an outlet for them to express desires freely, and an escape from the isolation in their daily lives.

"I think if the internet did not exist, I would have never identified my feelings as a fetish – perhaps never even as a sexual interest," said Emma.

Follow H. Alan Scott on Twitter.

Last month, PornHub released its annual review of the world's sexual quirks. And the world, it turns out, is really into watching other people fuck. In 2015, we as a planet streamed over 4 billion hours of smut on PornHub alone, with the UK ranking second for both overall traffic to the site and page views per capita.

None of that came as a huge surprise. Traditionally, humans have had at least a passing interest in doing sex, and many like to supplement that interest by firing up an incognito window, turning the volume down and watching two strangers – or a number of strangers – do sex to one another.

Less predictable was that the UK's ninth most popular PornHub search term would be "British chav". Climbing 23 spots since 2014, with searches up 312 percent, there's clearly been a surge of interest in adult actresses playing the role of this working class caricature: the Nickelson-wearing, benefits-cheating ASBO recipient who existed more in the minds of sketch show writers than the actual streets of Britain.

Which is odd, because in 2016 the entire concept of a "chav" just seems so dated.

After a short time in the spotlight in the mid-2000s, in which ASDA tried to trademark the word for a range of own-brand sweets, "chav" began to fall out of favour. Commentators and columnists argued that calling someone a chav was tantamount to class abuse; that the word was elitist and patronising; that it wrongfully stereotyped all working class people as feckless and entitled.

The average person might not have thought the word to be as charged as that. Teenage Slipknot fans, for instance, used it interchangeably with "townie" or "ned" to describe the kids who wore non-grunger clothes and took the piss out of them for their black nail polish and dragon necklaces, not as a mass indictment of the British working class.

However, considering 70 percent of TV professionals at the time believed Vicky Pollard – Little Britain's dystopian "chav" character – to be representative of white working class youth, it's clear the term had become a problem. For politicians and those shaping the media to still be using the word represented a uniquely detached strain of snobbery, a semantic subjugation of millions of working class people.

By 2012 – a year after the publication of Owen Jones' critically-acclaimed Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class – the word "chav" was one you'd rarely read or hear outside of polemics in the Mail or from the mouth of a culturally detached chat show guest.

So why, all these years later, is the word "chav" at the forefront of so many British masturbators' minds?

"The chav girl is not someone to take home to meet the family – she's a throwaway fuck," says Chloe Davis, a UK-based porn actress, fetish model and dominatrix. "They're prime fodder for the the middle-aged man who fancies a bit of rough with a lady of easy virtue."

The "bit of rough" explanation: problematic – in that fetishising an already problematic stereotype probably isn't the most positive reflection of men in the UK – but also not all that shocking.

A member of the upper class being attracted to someone from a lower class is a classic trope in British popular culture, from clandestine courtships in 18th century literature all the way up to Lady Sybil getting off with Branson in Downton Abbey. A survey in 2011 found that 71 percent of Brits define themselves as middle class. That "bit of rough" fantasy is all about Britain's complicated relationship with class, so if it's as common among real people as it is among fictional characters – and it almost certainly is – that's a massive amount of middle class people for whom the "bit of rough" would be a working class person. If one of those middle class people wanted a visual aid for their fantasising, what might they search for on a porn website? My guess: a word established in popular culture to sum up a load of imagined cliches about working class people.

Dr Laurie Betito, psychologist and sex therapist, takes the theory one step further, alluding to the role class can play in some viewers' taste in porn.

"I think chav porn appeals to the basest of instincts, in the sense that it is raw sexuality. There is an element of disrespect – even abuse – in it. The guys view the women in this genre as so 'low class' that they are not deserving of any respect or even pleasantries," she says, bringing to mind the depressingly giant market for "humiliation porn", which is exactly what it sounds like. "We often see the man ordering the woman around," she continues, "telling her what he wants her to do next and frequently referring to her in derogatory terms."

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There is, of course, another big issue with these so-called "chav porn" videos: the fact that many of the women in them aren't actually dressed to look anything like the stereotypical image of a "chav".

For gay guys into the scally gear fetish – the closest equivalent to all this in the gay scene: erotic gratification derived from having sex or wanking in full tracksuits – it's all about the clothes. In an interview with VICE, one scally gear fetishist said, "If I'm having sex, it's full gear. I wouldn't even pull a tracksuit down to the knees." In "chav porn", bar the odd person inexplicably wearing a Burberry cap and nothing else, the stars of the videos are just normal British women with no clothes on.

So is it that viewers in the UK just want to see something a little more familiar than what American porn studios offer up? Has "chav" become an SEO-friendly byword for the clunkier "literally just show me a normal-looking British person having sex"?

"Trends are shifting away from the plastic porn look to real people we recognise from our own lives," says Masie Dee, a porn actress who's well versed in this world, having modelled for "chav porn" shoots in the past. "From an industry perspective, what UK porn does best above all other countries is everyday, natural porn. We shoot all ages, all body types – it is a very inclusive space."

The psychology is simple: if the people in the porn look similar to the people the viewer sees on a day-to-day basis, it's far easier for them to mentally insert themselves into the scene – something you'd imagine is pretty desirable, given the enormous selection of POV videos on every single online porn site.

"I think what chav porn represents is the sort of council estate, girl next door kind of thing," says William Batchelor, PR for the TV network Television X. "People in the UK are drawn to it because you don't see that in any other country."

In 2015, Television X released Chav Life, a five-part series that, perhaps unsurprisingly, has a strong "chavvy" vibe. The company is also responsible for a number of other chav-themed titles, including Chavving It By the Sea (2012) and Council Estate Skanks (2013).

However, the focus isn't on "chavs", says Batchelor, but on Britain.

"Our content is made for a British audience by British performers in British situations," he says.

But with the "chav" stereotype mostly disappearing from the British cultural landscape, do "British situations" really still cover the "chav" thing? Are you saying the concept of "chav" is somehow integral to the UK?

"Yeah, but not in a degrading way," says Batchelor. "We want to be the best at British, and I think we couldn't have that without having any chav.'"

All of that might go some way to explaining both the proliferation of "chav porn" videos and their general popularity with viewers. But what's behind this sudden and huge rise in people searching for it?

WATCH: 'The Digital Love Industry', our documentary about how technology is changing sex as we know it.

Imogen Tyler, Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University, draws an interesting parallel between "chav porn" and the rise over the past few years of "poverty porn", a term referring to the media exploitation of people living on benefits – Channel 4's Benefits Street and Channel 5's On Benefits and Proud being two notable examples.

For Tyler, the depiction of a very specific type of working class person offered up in shows like this invites a mix of shock and fascination, and the viewer ends up both enthralled and outraged by the subjects of the show. This blend of emotions can play on the viewer's mind and supposedly spark a sort of fetishisation of the people they're watching – in this particular case, those hand plucked to represent some of the cliches typically attributed to the "chav" stereotype.

"If we think about pornography historically and socially," says Tyler, "we see that it usually represents taboo desires and fascinations. So these porn search terms reveal something about the fantasy life of our nation and about the constraints – social, political, economic – under which we live."

While it might be a bit of a stretch to suggest this interest in "chav porn" is all down to the rise of poverty porn, you can see the link if you look for it. Benefits Street, the show that sparked the poverty porn debate, first aired in January of 2014. By the end of the following year there had been a 312 percent rise in people taking to PornHub to search for "chav porn".

In the end, of course, all you can really do is speculate. The above might broadly explain this sudden fascination with "chav porn", but every individual's sexual idiosyncrasies stem from a whole number of personal triggers. And without climbing into the brain of each and every British person to have bashed "British chav" into the PornHub search bar in the past couple of years, I suppose we'll never know why exactly thousands of people have become so enamoured with this relic of British pop culture.

@alicetcherno

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Photo via Wikimedia.

Workplace surveillance used to be an amateur business. Back in the early days of Microsoft, Bill Gates personally memorised his employees' number plates so he could keep track of who was arriving late or leaving early. A bit creepy, perhaps, but endearingly old school – the sort of pathetic scheme a crafty loafer like George Costanza would get around by leaving a car parked permanently at work so everyone thinks he's still at his desk.

Skiving isn't so easy these days. A coldly efficient kind of cyber monitoring is entering the office that can ensure every keyboard stroke is accounted for, your computer can be randomly screen-grabbed and even your sleep can be monitored to make sure you're achieving optimal performance.

Journalists at The Daily Telegraph recently arrived at work to find OccupEye motion sensors attached to their desks. Staff were informed that the boxes were there to help the company identify "times of low usage" to save on energy bills. The journalists kicked up a fuss, believing this move was actually more about picking which staff members would be laid off as the company downsized, and the sensors were removed. Buzzfeed revealed the sense of paranoia the episode has created: "Never before has taking a shit on company time felt so rebellious," one reporter told them.

Workers' rebellions remain few and far between, however, while cyber surveillance of our desks is becoming increasingly common. Relentless monitoring of performance is no longer the preserve of call centres; it's now moved into the wider working world.

"There really isn't much privacy left in the workplace," says Lewis Maltby, director of the US National Workrights Institute. "You're often being monitored, whether you know it or not. Employers don't always tell you what they're doing."

Europeans might assume their privacy is better protected than Americans'. But last month a chilling decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) established a precedent for employers to sift through your private messages if they suspect you're slacking.

The case revolved around a Romanian engineer who was fired after his company discovered he was using Yahoo Messenger to chat with his fiancee on a work computer. ECHR judges decided that it was not unreasonable for an employer "to verify that employees were completing their professional tasks during working hours".

Even if you like your boss, you shouldn't assume your company trusts you or respects your privacy. Software like Worksnaps allows employers to take regular screenshots of online activities, count the number of keystrokes made and even capture webcam images. Worksnaps' testimonials reveal managers' enthusiasm for "keeping track of time" and making sure "nobody is allowed to be dead weight". One US business owner reveals how the software helped her "weed out those who were chatting on Facebook and playing games".

Others are experimenting with microphones and analytic tools to monitor face-to-face interactions between employees. Amazon has an internal online tool where workers are encouraged to comment on each other's achievements and slip-ups. Employees call each other "Amabots" as a compliment. "The company is running a continual performance improvement algorithm on its staff," said Amy Michaels, a former Kindle marketer for Amazon.

Being out on the road offers no escape; a former sales executive in California currently has a lawsuit pending against her former employer, claiming she was fired because she disabled a GPS app on the company iPhone that tracked her whereabouts 24 hours a day.

So where is all this leading? If businesses are increasingly obsessed with productivity data, is goofing off a dying art? And at what point in the working day are we entitled to assume our actions are no longer being logged, aggregated and analysed?

"It concerns me that people who work from home – people who are logged onto a company system on a personal computer – are becoming subject to monitoring and data analysis just as if were at work," says Lewis Maltby. "It makes the separation between work and personal communication more difficult."

The boundary between professional and private is now so blurred, it's difficult to know where one begins and the other ends. "As far as work-life balance goes, that's a thing of the past," says Jacob Morgan, author of The Future of Work. "We're moving towards work-life integration, where you bring your work home with you and your personal life with you to work."

So don't be surprised if your employer starts enquiring about your physical fitness, or, creepier still, becomes interested in how well you're sleeping.

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Big companies like BP America have already given employees Fitbits to try to reduce healthcare costs. Dr Chris Brauer, director of innovations at Goldsmiths, University of London, believes there is more scope for wearables in the workplace, both to monitor wellbeing and "develop rich behavioural and lifestyle profiles".

"It's about using data points that weren't previously visible," he says. "If you're a hedge fund, you want people who are going to perform well under high stress. So are you just going to do traditional things like psychometric testing? Or are you better off letting an analyst look at the data of how they're actually performing? You can work out if someone is biometrically aligned to a particular role."

Still, there may well be a place for emotional interaction among human workbots. Dave Coplin, chief envisioning officer for Microsoft, predicts holograms and other visuals will give us the chance to offer "empathy presence" if we can't be at a meeting in person.

If you don't like the idea of being reduced to a series of data points, you're not the only one. "I think it's silly, because ultimately we're not machines," says Lewis Maltby. "Employers are so in love with trying to measure things. But some things – the things that really matter about how good a person is at their job – can't always be measured."

"The invasive systems companies have put in place go beyond common sense," he adds. "Autonomy about how to do your job is disappearing, just as privacy has disappeared. Assume you're monitored. Because you probably are."

@adamtomforrest

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A Portrait Of The Artist In Flight (Screengrab via Channel 4)

Channel 4's The Jump has never really appealed to me before as a televisual prospect, because, what: I want to watch Chloe Madeley ski a little while Davina McCall does her young-at-heart-auntie-really-wants-to-get-this-wake-popping-because-that's-what-he-would-have-wanted bit on the sidelines? No, no thank you, thank you but not at all. But then I found out it was responsible for this seven little seconds of perfection, video-as-art, the closest this generation will get to a Sistine Chapel – James 'Arg' Argent, sliding on his arse onto a gigantic distant airbed – and now I'm rethinking my stance:

Amazing. Who needs skis when you can just sit down and slide on your behind? #TheJump https://t.co/7aLmXlGqqe
— Channel 4 (@Channel4) January 31, 2016

First three seconds are classic latent Arg: hands firmly on his knees to fend off the terror of what's to come; bedazzled 'A' emblazoned on his leotard that, in the face of the cold prospect of jumping off a 20ft ski slope, looks so foolish, so hubristic; the inscrutable face of focus, repeating the mantras of his ski instructors – 'bum out, Arg, knees pliant' – on a loop inside his head. And then, somewhere indistinct between the third and fourth seconds, something inexplicable happens inside James 'Arg' Argent's body: his muscles go liquid and contort inside his skin, machinations unknown cause him to ease over backwards, his mind does not allow him to stop, and then, emotionlessly, silently, James 'Arg' Argent slides on his arse and off into the abyss, ski tips meeting for one perfect moment as he arcs towards the ground. Again:

Amazing. Who needs skis when you can just sit down and slide on your behind? #TheJump https://t.co/7aLmXlGqqe
— Channel 4 (@Channel4) January 31, 2016

"Oh no," Davina McCall says. "Oh no. Up, and: backwards! Backwards!" And Arg hits the pillow like a brick thrown in the sea.

The Jump injury list, as of press date (February 8, 2k16): Rebecca Adlington, peak condition former Olympic swimmer: dislocated shoulder; Linford Christie, peak condition former Olympic lunchbox ferrier: pulled hamstring; Beth Tweddle, peak condition former Olympic gymnast: broken back; Tina Hobley, Holby City actress: twice-broken and dislocated elbow; Sid Owen off of EastEnders: unidentified but agonising thigh injury. Somehow, Argent survives. Somehow, Argent lives on.

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In a way, The Jump is the natural conclusion for our reality TV bloodlust, the first tentative steps towards a dystopian end game: shapeless low-level celebrities and peak condition former athletes, gaunt and penniless on the thin gruel of post-Olympic non-sporting life, race each other to see who can get most brutally hurt on live TV. Based on the current injury list, there is an approximate 25% chance that Jump contestants will get badly hurt: a 1 in 14 probability that they will need surgery to fuse and repair their damaged spines. And yet they cue up to jump artlessly off a ski slope on primetime Channel 4. They cheerfully offer their bound and broken limbs to Davina McCall in the interstitial ski lodge and say: I'm gutted I can't compete. All the pre-ad roll oompa bands and Sarah Harding laughing at a hot chocolate are mere distraction: we are truly here to see Tamara Beckwith burn her face off going nose-first down a ski cross route; we're here to see James 'Arg' Argent dislocate all of his limbs at once, splayed like a starfish in one perfect gravity-free moment mid-air, slumping to the ground like an octopus tossed loosely out of the sea.

When celebrities agree to compete on The Jump they are essentially saying: my career is at a point where I must hurt myself for money.

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Arg is an interesting prospect, as a human and as a celebrity. In real life, up close, he's more handsome than you might expect: perfectly baked tan, thick shiny hair, strong white teeth, like a thoroughbred horse who laughs at fart jokes. In the Acknowledgements section of his autobiography, he thanks the Chicken Cottage, South Woodford, just behind his nan. Arg. A name that's not a name, a sound better burped than spoken. Arg. In his book, which I have read cover-to-cover, he details in harrowing detail a moment when Gemma Collins and him did some hand stuff at a fat camp. Arg. In her book, there is no corresponding chapter. Arg. The pinnacle of the reality TV punching bag, giggling maniacally like the kid at the back of the maths class who is only in top set thanks to a clerical error. Arg. He's done The Spa, a show about ham-fisted celebrities learning to massage the general public; he's done Sugar Free Farm, a show where celebrities go to a farm and don't eat sugar; he's done TOWIE, first as the Hardy to Mark Wright's 'awlright gels?' Laurel, then as some sort of pathological wearer of ill-fitting jumpers, staring at his feet while his girlfriend cries loudly at him or laughing at the side of a pool in Marbella with Diags. Arg. And now, so surely down the reality TV path is he, The Jump: throwing himself to near death off the top of a ski slope, arse on the snow, torso dragging helplessly behind his flailing feet, all for our amusement. The clown prince of ITV2. The most nailed-on Jacamo spokesmodel since Freddie Flintoff. Again:

Amazing. Who needs skis when you can just sit down and slide on your behind? #TheJump https://t.co/7aLmXlGqqe
— Channel 4 (@Channel4) January 31, 2016

Ask yourself a question: do you want to watch Arg die? This is where we are heading. Because when he flailed arse-first out of The Jump last night, as his body crushed into the inflatable safety-bed below, he basically said: what is the next reality endeavour for me. His arms clawed at the polythene saving him from death and thought: I could do I'm A Celeb, I suppose. But if ITV2 come up with a format where Arg has to competitively bungee jump against Rustie Lee? Arg is a maybe. Channel 4 come up with an offer to do a docuseries where six celebs get hooked on heroin, Reggie Yates to do the heartfelt flophouse interviews in front of a live studio audience? Arg just needs the say-so from Freemantle, but it looks like it's a yes. And so to a doomed future: James 'Arg' Argent, choking to death on 60 hotdog sausages, trying to break a Guinness speed-eating record in front of Ant and Dec. Is this what you want? Is this what you want, you blood-crazed lunatics? Do you want Arg to die? We are, all of us, complicit in James 'Arg' Argent's inevitable death. His failure on The Jump was just one shaky, inelegant step towards infinite blackness. Only then will we be happy again.

@joelgolby

Some cells in Alcatraz. Cells in British prisons will soon be known as "the office" (Photo by marine_perez)

Names and identifying details have been changed to protect privacy.

On Monday, David Cameron set out reforms to a prison system that he says currently "shames us all" because there's so much violence, drug-taking and self-harm. He said: "I strongly believe that we must offer chances to change; that for those trying hard to turn themselves around, we should offer hope... In short: we need a prison system that doesn't see prisoners as simply liabilities to be managed, but instead as potential assets to be harnessed."

It sounds hopey-changey, but what will treating people as "assets" really mean? Back in October, Michael Gove spelled it out. A specific focus is being placed on education in prisons, which is all about fostering entrepreneurial spirit. Gove told the Telegraph: "We should definitely have more business going into prison. You could have businesses running in prisons." He cites the use of call centres operating out of prisons in the US, and also the admirable work that key-cutting and shoe repair firm Timpson does in the UK to integrate ex-offenders into its staff.

I teach in prison so I have a pretty good idea of the extent of the business acumen among those who are locked up. I teach burglars, ram-raiders, the occasional fraudster – but they all tend to be acting out of desperation, usually linked directly to either drug dependency or impending home eviction. The most obvious entrepreneurs are the drug dealers. Committed subscribers to the free market and capitalist doctrine, these guys are surely who Gove is aiming to empower: but would any of them be willing to swap Maybach money for minimum wage and timed toilet breaks? I asked some what they think of the reforms.

33-year-old Ryan is a former professional athlete sentenced to ten years for dealing coke. It's his first conviction, but the scale of his operation and its relatively high profile nature meant a stiff sentence. He explains to me that he was working on a plan before getting busted that would have seen him open a holistic health and organic supplement store in his local area and then expand into different areas over time. I ask him if he is aware of the possible contradiction of going from supplying his community with coke to wheatgrass and raw cacao powder. He blushes a little, offering "Mate!" as his only response.

Ryan is at the higher end of the scale academically in terms of the prisoners I teach; although he has pretty limited qualifications, he is bright enough to be gaining merits and distinctions in the FE college business course he is studying. He's also smart enough to realise that I will have Googled him, and asks what I made of the national press coverage he received. I ask him whether he regrets being so openly flash with his money. Ryan tells me that if he knew what he knows now about business models and growth, he would have reduced his presence in the market to stay off the police radar. He frames this approach around Patagonia, the outdoor and adventure clothing firm, who last year stated it would seek to shrink the business as part of a long-term stability strategy.

Ryan will be transferred to an open prison soon and will then probably be released in the next 18 months. On release he plans to set up his business; a combination of legit money he earned from his career in sports and a small loan from his father in law will be enough to cover the first year's setup and operating costs. I ask if he would consider employing an ex-offender. "You mad, bro?" he says as he photocopies carefully selected pages from a Richard Branson biography that's due back at the library tomorrow.

If I'm going to be bored and depressed, I might as well be earning £5,000 a week doing it

It's a cliché, but most drug dealers are good with mental arithmetic, and 25-year-old Alex is no different. Alex pleaded guilty to a Class A supply at the earliest opportunity, knowing that as this was his second conviction for drugs he'd be in line for something heftier if he went to trial and lost. The judge was impressed with his contrition but warned him that a third conviction in the future would have pretty bleak consequences. His partner has told him that she wants a baby but won't consider it unless he gives up dealing. He has a scar that begins near the top of his forehead and runs deep into his hairline. Alex talks about the trap houses he ran and says it was easy money but ultimately boring and depressing. I ask him to expand and he tells me I don't want to know.

I ask what he wants to do instead of dealing. Would he consider getting a job cutting keys and engraving cat names on small copper discs at Timpson, for example? "If I'm going to be bored and depressed, I might as well be earning five a week doing it," he says.

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Not everyone is on board with Gove's project. Mark Icke, the vice president of the Prisoner's Governor's Association has voiced concerns that while education is important, many of the people in the prison system have a variety of serious issues that need sorting before they can contemplate applying for small business loans and setting up a LinkedIn.

From my own teaching experience, it seems like a valid criticism. Arron, 19, is waiting to '"run trial" on a charge of selling heroin, crack and miaow outside a school. He is adamant that he will "bust case", explaining that he has sacked his "faggot solicitor" and hired the solicitor his cellmate has used on over 30 occasions. Arron's work is borderline GCSE standard, and it's a chore to get him to complete the simplest of tasks. He talks ceaselessly in monologues often lasting for anything up to ten minutes and usually revolving around massage parlours, Huaraches, and his dad – an enigmatic "businessman who lives in America". His lack of empathy is at times astonishing, and there's a dead-eyed malevolence in an unfinished letter he shows me where he tells an ex he'll take her back if she gets a tattoo of his name on her stomach. Weirder still, he tells me he's sent the exact same letter to two other exes. It's often hard to shut him up, and the other prisoners in the class find him annoying and full of shit, but maybe working as a call centre operator is just what he needs to increase his sense of empathy. Or perhaps not.

A cynic might say that running businesses in prisons seems like a pretty sweet way to engage in modern-day sub-minimum-wage slave labour. But maybe the scheme deserves the benefit of the doubt. After all, could it actually be the ultimate deterrent to committing crime in the first place? Get caught selling rocks and it's five years on outbound calls at seven quid a week.

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Outward on the M5 from Sydney, under the wind turbines that look like spinning Mercedes badges on enormous stems, through towns where life and death is marked by the newly painted population number on faded green signs, you will arrive at a bungalow flying a tricolour flag.

You have arrived at Atlantium, the smallest country in Australia. The only micro nation on AirBnB.

"Atlantium is not a micro nation," the nation's Emperor, Georgivs II, corrects me as we arrive.

"It's a Non-Territorial Global Sovereign Entity," he continues, offering to make tea for my girlfriend and I using the country's gas stove.

Art Deco portraits cover the walls and a mixture of travel, science fiction and local interest books pack the shelves. Inside the Empire's one building for guests (the Emperor stays next door in a corrugated metal-sheeted shed), it's not too dissimilar to any other AirBnB experience.

There are some distinct features. The heat is oppressive here in Atlantium. Walking into it is like opening an industrial oven door; the skin sings in pain. The place is silent in that way silence can be very loud. All you can really hear is the stridulation of locusts and the warble of Atlantium's various bird species; crimson rosellas, cockatoo and owls.

The bungalow overlooks the Lachlan River Valley, near Reid's Flat in New South Wales. The toilet is next to the Emperor's office. It's a compost type deal where, instead of flushing, you throw sawdust down the hole.

A herd of sheep graze in the shade of a nearby copse. Further away, a mob of Kangaroo hold court near a river basin. The wasps here sound like helicopters, which at least gives you prior warning of their arrival.

Other noticeable differences are the various sites and sculptures of cultural significance. The giant timber pyramid, for example – the only of its kind in Australia – or the column made up of an eagle statue sitting on top of a gold sphere.

Tea prepared, the Emperor Georgivs II – or George Francis Cruickshank, as he goes by outside the nation's boundary lines – rattles the wind chimes and takes us all back to his mother's backyard in Sydney, where he and his cousins, Geoff and Claire, created Atlantium in 1981.

"We were living in the tail end of the Cold War. It was a very confrontational world, and we had this idea that maybe we should set up our own country. I wrote the constitution and we developed the postage stamps and flags and all that sort of stuff. It was largely an intellectual exercise; a black and white dotted line in the corner of my mother's backyard in suburban Sydney. I think that black and white line is still there."

Back then, Atlantium was a reflection of the young Emperor's ideals. It had no territory, only values and paraphernalia. In fact, it was the paraphernalia that, in part, went some way to establishing the nation it is today. George and his cousins created and issued postage stamps, which attracted stamp enthusiasts, which attracted other micro nations. Recognition grew for what was essentially a product of the imagination of a group of teenagers.

As time passed, however, and George went to University in Wagga Wagga, his cousins' interest fell away. Yet the idea of Atlantium lived on in his mind. He calls it his obsession; a thread through his entire life. Naturally, Atlantium matured as George did – or, as he puts it: "It evolved as I evolved. Atlantium was a way of expressing my broadly progressive political views in an age and at a time when progressivism was under attack from all comers."

Trouble was, it's difficult to have your progressive notions taken seriously by anyone when half your country is a bedroom. So when, by chance, a friend bought a piece of land near Reid's Flat in 1999, the young Emperor began to visit in the hope of terraforming the nation. By 2008, he became a co-owner and the Atlantium as we see it today was finally free to be realised; the vision unleashed from his mind.

The pyramid was constructed, the column erected. If the regality of its ceremonial sites and the Emperor's own title gives the nation a sense of pompousness, George is quick to dispel it. The monarchy he's created for himself has more to do with the message than madness.

"It's based on Australian humour," he says. "If you're trying to communicate a serious message and do that with a smile on your face, you're perceived as not threatening to people in power, or to people you're communicating with more generally."

It's clearly a technique that works, allowing George his proudest moment: being asked to appear as the Emperor on a national morning television show in Sydney, and then taking the opportunity to broach the subject of abortion and assisted suicide.

Looking around the Empire it's easy to see the irony at play, whether it's in the postcards, the pyramid guarded by Sphinx or even the stamps, which feature a Soviet-style portrait of the Emperor that wouldn't look out of place in the Gosha Rubchinskiy SS16 look-book.

It was stamps, also, that led Atlantium into its first and last conflict.

With the attention he garnered from the original Atlantium stamps, George expanded to cover other micro nations. For the 15th anniversary of Hutt River Province, Australia's oldest micro nation, he created commemorative postage stamps. Little did he know, this would become an act of war.

British-born Alex Brackstone came out to Australia in the 1950s. He worked as a circus monkey trainer and uranium prospector before finally buying up a piece of property in Southern Australia and seceding to ensure a part of the continent would remain forever British. Such was his devotion to both his homeland and his micro nation, The Province of Bumbunga, he planted strawberry plants there in the shape of the British Isles. Brackstone would later become one of many to follow the issue of George's commemorative Hutt River Province stamps.

" wrote to us and basically said, 'If you do the same thing with my micro nation, I'll be hauling you into court.' And so I said: 'Bugger you,'" says George. "There was a series of correspondences of increasing escalation, and we did actually declare war on The Province of Bumbunga. As a consequence we've completely renounced the use of state force. We have no army. We have no military significance. We have a non-confrontational relationship with our neighbour Australia."

Later, as the Emperor fixes himself up in a suit and a sash bearing the Empire's flag, it's hard not to feel like the act is a bit laboured. The costume a kind of ritual he has to enact. How do you end a 34-year private joke?

In the morning we share another cup of tea and I manage to send a postcard to the office using the nation's official postbox.

Before we go, I ask George about the landscape that Atlantium has become a part of and how that plays into his 15-year-old vision for the world. His answer goes some way to defining Atlantium in the way I think we felt while staying there.

"I don't know whether Atlantium is tied up in some way with my desire to make a mark on the world, but I suspect it is, because that's what I was really doing when I was 15," he says. "I was conceiving things that were going to somehow make a mark on the world, and when I think about it, honestly, that's really what I've been trying to do all my life with all of the things that I do. Maybe that's just a way of me raging against the infinity of knowing that my time here is finite, and that once you're gone, you're gone."

Before I went to Atlantium I had my reservations about venturing into the Australian wilderness to meet a man who'd deliberately set himself apart from the world. But that's not what Atlantium is at all. It's a man's imprint of his vision on the landscape. A teenage ambition – the kind most of us come across years later in our childhood bedrooms, sketched on the back of notepads or scrawled in Tipp-Ex across backpacks – realised in the shape of yellow bungalow, a pyramid and a collection of postage stamps.

@bainosaurus / @laurenstopps

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Mike Martin, on the beach in Vieques, Puerto Rico. Photo by Meredith Hoffman

A joint between his lips, toes in the sand, Mike Martin looked like just another dude chilling on the beach in Puerto Rico. But as the 47-year-old Rastafarian blew smoke in my direction, he outlined his vision of justice: legal weed in the US territory.

"Legalization is coming," Martin told me. "The last several days have made that clear."

Martin, who sits on the board of Puerto Rico's preeminent pro-marijuana non-profit Foundation Free Juana, was referring to the government's recent moves toward decreasing its draconian weed penalties. Two weeks ago, the governor pardoned Jeremy Ruiz Tomassini, a 24-year-old man sentenced to four years in prison after cops caught him smoking near a school. The pardon, granted January 25, came 13 months after Free Juana delivered a petition to Governor Alejandro Padilla that the punishment, issued in 2014, was unreasonably harsh.

"We made an official petition and held a 'free Jeremy' vigil at the governor's mansion and my band played there," said Martin. "Then this January the governor came to Vieques for Three Kings Day to pass gifts to children in the park, and I went to talk with him. I introduced myself and said I play with Free Juana. He took me aside and asked me, 'How much time has Jeremy been inside?' He was worried about it."

Within days, Padilla released Ruiz Tomassini from prison, claiming he was not an enforcement priority.

Ruiz Tomassini's pardon was just one indicator that Puerto Rico is edging away from its notoriously harsh marijuana laws. Current legislation allows judges to sentence people up to five years for nominal possession, and up to ten years for possession near a recreational area (public use spaces like parks and schools). But recently politicians have begun changing their approaches towards the drug and activists like Martin see it as an opportunity to pave the way toward legalization.

Mike Martin sporting the Free Juana logo. Photo by Meredith Hoffman

There are already signs of progress: Governor Padilla signed an executive order last summer to legalize weed for medicinal purposes, and just last month the government unveiled its set of rules to regulate the cultivation, distribution, and use of the substance. Growers, who can be based in Puerto Rico or abroad, will apply for permission from the government; patients will receive medical marijuana ID cards, after receiving a doctor's approval that they have one of several "debilitating conditions." If all goes according to plan, medical marijuana is expected to be available in Puerto Rico by the end of the year.

Padilla also loosened Puerto Rico's penalties for small amounts of recreational possession, when he signed an executive order in September advising judges not to imprison people caught with fewer than six grams of weed.

Mike Martin poses with Governor Padilla in Vieques. Photo courtesy of Mike Martin

Meanwhile, Puerto Rico's pro-marijuana movement has taken off in the past few years. Both Free Juana and another organization, Decriminalization, have become influential on the island. Both have amplified their reach, garnering more media attention and support from the public, while US states with legalized weed have also helped pave the way, emboldening Puerto Rican politicians like Padilla to support marijuana activists.

"When Free Juana had its first 4/20 rally there were just 20 or 30 people who were brave enough to march towards the capital. We thought we could be arrested," Martin recalled of the protest in 2013. Now, multiple bands play each year, two senators sponsor the rallies, and Free Juana has grown from a group of local activists into an official foundation.

Watch Kings of Cannabis, our documentary about weed kingpin Arjan Roskam and his quest for the rarest strains.

"In the past two years, there has been an opening," said Rafael Torruellla, director of Decriminalization and of the drug education and research organization Intercambios Puerto Rico. "There's a marijuana movement here in Puerto Rico that only now is gaining more steam."

One reason is the economy, according to Torruella, a social psychologist with a PhD from City University of New York. Puerto Rico is currently £48 billion in debt, and a regulated drug market in Puerto Rico would ease the island's economic crisis.

"This difficult economic time is when we should start looking at what is failing," Torruella told me. "We're trying to move drug policy from the law and order side to where it should belong, which is in the public health side."

Torruella said the governor's executive orders are "very significant" but the job is hardly finished. Puerto Rico's Congress needs to act to ensure the orders become law.

"Medical marijuana is an executive order, not a law, which is important because the next governor can dismantle the whole system," Torruella warned.

Related: The Texas Republican Grandma Who Wants to Legalize Weed

Already, Padilla's opponents are trying to block the order in court. Members of the political party Partido Nuevo Progresista have requested a judge issue an injunction preventing medical marijuana distribution. The judge has not yet released a decision.

The current medical marijuana standards could also be better, Torruella said: There should be provisions for patients to cultivate their own crops, for the market to favor local growers, doctors, and cooperative farms.

"There are some foreign pharmacies that are establishing themselves to sell. There has been a big controversy on how business will be done. The seems already to be favoring big pharmaceutical companies," Torruella said. "There are many questions that remain about how this system is going to work."

There have been other attempts to pass marijuana legislation: Senator Miguel Pereira proposed a bill to decriminalize possessing small amounts marijuana, but it has been stalled in the House of Representatives since 2013. Opponents of the law were so irate they demanded Pereira's resignation.

As conservative Puerto Rican politicians demonize the drug and the island takes baby steps towards legalization, Martin stays patient, aided by his herbs on the seashore.

"It doesn't matter how long it takes for legalization. It's going to happen," Martin told me, taking a seat in a lawn chair beside the water. "We're not in a hurry. We just want to bring consciousness and decriminalize and medicalize it, and eventually it will be legal."

Follow Meredith Hoffman on Twitter.

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Editor's Note: Meet VICE's newest political correspondent, Bun B. You might know him as the Houston, Texas–based rapper, professor, and activist who's one half of the legendary UGK. He's reporting from the ground in New Hampshire, covering the state's presidential primary. His first dispatch is below, and check back for more in the next few days.

New Hampshire. The Granite State. Home of the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales and the nation's laxest seatbelt laws. And occasionally, Mitt Romney's family. And one of, if not the whitest place in America. It also happens to be the first place in the United States where registered voters get to select their respective party candidate in a presidential primary. The Iowa caucuses are actually where the first votes are cast and the first rumblings about who likes who begins. But that process is some whole other shit that quite honestly I couldn't explain to you if you had a gun to my head.

The primaries, on the other hand, are good old fashioned American voting. Step in the booth, close the curtain, and make your choice. And New Hampshire residents (New Hampshirians?) take it super fucking seriously. So the candidates in turn take New Hampshire super fucking seriously. And the media goes wherever the candidates go, so they too get amped the fuck up about it. And I'm here to cover the whole fucking circus.

Granted, I don't come from the world of journalism, but I am a writer and a lot of the issues I address in my songs are in line with the issues we expect the future commander in chief to care about. Now that doesn't make me a journalist or anything like that. I understand and respect journalism, and those reporters who are devoted to their job. So I'm not here to belittle them or their profession by any means. I'm just here to observe it all, the good and the bad of everything. The speeches. The handshakes. The kissing of babies. The kissing of asses.

Our first stop Sunday is Cactus Jack's Grill & Watering Hole, in Manchester, which doesn't know whether or not it wants to be a Mexican restaurant or not. Three flags fly overhead. One of them is the Texas state flag, which makes no sense to me at all since I've never seen a cactus in Texas in my life. I'm not saying there aren't some near Waco, or near the border, but a cactus isn't distinctly Texan. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will stop by at some point and speak before the Super Bowl.

All photos by Jessica Lehrman

It's pretty packed inside, and I can't tell if the people are here for Christie or to watch the game. The Christie team is easy to spot, though, sticking out like sore thumbs in chinos and North Face jackets among the working-class New England people in their random sports gear. The scattered reporters and their impeccable, camera-ready hair are even easier to spot. Their glistening veneers light up the room better than the neon sign on the wall of a cactus wearing a 10-gallon hat. Again, I don't get the reference, but we are about as far from Texas in the continental United States as one can get, so I understand that their view of the rest of America might be slightly skewed. As the governor's state police protection rounds the bar for the 15th time and cameramen set up their tripods while their producers look for the best angles, I take a sip of my watermelon cilantro margarita and wait for the Big Man.

I talk to some of the staff working the bar, and most of them don't seem to care much about the circus that's been going on around them for the last few months. They're in the service industry, so their main concern is that it brings in business. One waitress told me it doesn't affect her one way or the other if a candidate comes in to the bar. As she said, she's just trying to pay her mortgage. But I wonder if she knows Christie's platform. I wonder if she agrees with his views. Hell, I wonder if she cares about politics at all. I also wonder if she did have concerns, would she be allowed to voice them? Or could she lose her job? If she expresses her political affiliation, will it cost her tips? These are the things I ponder while watching Seal sing in the Super Bowl pre-game show, and commentators wax poetic about Peyton Manning's swan song above a logo for Turkish Airlines and against a backdrop of the Golden Gate bridge on the TVs above the bar.

It's at this moment that Christie walks into Cactus Jack's, accompanied by Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland. For all the blustering that I've seen on TV, Christie is a much calmer and more subdued individual in person. He introduces himself as Chris to everyone inside, including me. None of the overbearing posturing he displays on camera is evident this afternoon. He's in retail politician mode, and he wears it well.

That's in sharp contrast to the next thing I see. An older white man walks in. He has a long grey beard. He is soft-spoken, but confident. And he has a boot on his head. You read right: A boot. He calls himself Vermin Supreme, which is the best non-Wu-Tang simulator name ever created. He's apparently a regular on the New Hampshire political scene. He runs on a campaign of universal dental care and riding free ponies powered by zombies into the future. Interesting as fuck for sure. Meanwhile, a small circle of people makes its way around the bar with Christie at the center, while the media forms a larger circle around them. He then makes the rounds again, stopping at every table and group twice. Reporters follow behind and interviews everyone he touches, asking how he smelled, how soft or hard his hands were, if they'll be posting their pictures with Christie on Facebook or Instagram, etc. Nothing about the issues. Nothing about their concerns. Interesting.

Our next stop is shorter. It's sold as Marco Rubio's Super Bowl watch party but it's far from it. For starters, there's only one fucking TV to be found in the whole building, which makes it hard for a room full of 300 people to watch a televised sporting event. It's basically Rubio on stage in what appears to be a gymnastics center or karate dojo, surrounded by press and supporters. Since his third place finish in Iowa, Rubio's momentum and coverage has increased substantially, and that's pretty clear here in New Hampshire. The venue is larger than Christie's, as is the crowd of supporters and press. Dozens of shutterbugs surround the stage fighting for pics of Rubio.

Rubio's handlers are also more intense. One guy dressed in black and smelling like authority is regulating the stage area in a hardbody style of doormanship I haven't seen since Suge Knight showed up at the Source Awards in NYC. They want no videographers on stage, only still photos. He tries to shut me down, but my VICE press pass stops him in his tracks like a smile from Medusa. I meet Jim, originally from Chicago. He's been in New Hampshire for 25-plus years and collects signatures of presidential candidates on two-dollar bills. I ask if he does this for all the candidates and he replies that he only gets signatures from the ones he likes. He takes his signed Rubio bill and adds it to a collection that includes former presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.

Rubio signs every poster and poses for every picture in typical political fashion. But he is slightly more approachable in person than I thought he would be. He engages with people. He maintains eye contact through every interaction and stays longer than his people would like. I know most of this is part of the show, but I still get the feeling that if he wasn't a politician on the opposite side of everything I stand for we'd make great drinking buddies.

Since there's only one TV and no liquor, we wrap up with Rubio and head back to our hotel to watch the big game. At check-in, we noticed Jeb Bush sitting in an SUV outside, so we knew we were in the right place. Upon returning to the hotel, we found ourselves invited to a Super Bowl viewing party hosted by the 2016 New Hampshire Presidential Primary Party, which is dedicated to making sure that the state continues to get the first presidential primary on the Republican side.

It is without question the quietest room I've ever been in where there was a sporting event playing on the TV and an open bar. Hell, scratch the TV part. Who's quiet at a party with an open bar? Republican delegates that's who. We are with the upper crust of the GOP, so the spread is A-1. I meet our host, Republican National Committee member Steve Duprey, a guy with a million dollar smile and I assume the bank account to match. His warm and welcoming demeanor seems very genuine. As he leaves to entertain his guests, I scan the conference room and realize it's filled with some of the most powerful people in the Republican Party. How I got in here is anybody's guess, but I'm in this bitch so fuck it, let's mingle.

Most of the reporters here are still reeling from Iowa. A good meal, a stiff drink, and a football game is the perfect way to wind down. I watch Queen Bey rock the halftime show, while older white women quietly observe 20-plus black women shaking their asses in synchronicity. Meanwhile, Steve, the self-appointed "Secretary of Fun," continues to make us all feel at home.

As I make my way upstairs with a belly full of short rib and jasmine rice, I reminisce about my first day in New Hampshire. I'm enjoying the process and my access, but today was just the pre-game. Shit is about to get real. So let me smoke one and get some rest, because on Monday, we start early and end late.

Campo Santo's eagerly anticipated debut game, Firewatch, is out now. Set in the 1980s, it casts the player as Henry, a 40-something guy from Colorado looking to temporarily escape his past – which we're not about to reveal – by spending a summer watching for fires in Shoshone National Forest, Wyoming.

What begins as a relaxing, some might say boring, way to see out a few months soon turns sinister, as Henry – as well as his supervisor Delilah, stationed in a nearby (but unreachable) watchtower of her own – finds himself threatened by a force that's got little to do with the natural beauty around him. He's not alone out here – a mysterious person is roaming the area, whose intentions are far from crystal. He doesn't want Henry and Delilah contacting the authorities about his movements. Something is decidedly not right about all of this.

VICE Gaming editor Mike Diver and freelancer Emma Quinlan played through the game, separately, before having a conversation about its strengths and (very limited) weaknesses. The short version: you should play this game. The long version, the back-and-forth between two impressed gamers, follows below.

'Firewatch', ambience trailer

Mike Diver: Emma, you've finished Firewatch. Me too. If you could summarise your experience in just a few lines, which we can then bounce off to further the discussion, what would they be? No spoilers, obviously.

Emma Quinlan: My experience with Firewatch was a surprising one, in a very positive way. What transpired in the game's plot, I definitely didn't see coming. But it was how quickly I became emotionally invested in Firewatch's characters that surprised me the most. The opening of the game actually made me cry, and yes, you can call me a big lady part for that, if you want.

MD: I'll refrain from calling you anything at all, because I certainly felt the same way during the game's opening moments. Again, I'm deadly keen to avoid spoilers, but I think we need to mention something about the first minutes of Firewatch. The "choose your own adventure" section, where you're effectively laying down the foundations for who your character, Henry (definitely not Hank) is, took me by surprise and gave me true reason to pause. I didn't rush through it, as I often do through "standard" character-creation tools. I regularly select default options. But here, I felt really connected to Henry, without ever seeing his face – and that's completely because of how Campo Santo open proceedings. Without imagery, just with words. In many respects, that's a fine precedent for what follows, as while the game is beautiful to look at (for the most part – I'll get onto my issues with it soon enough), its real strength is its story.

Would you agree with that? Having finished it a few nights ago, I keep thinking what a great little novel its story would make. I'd read it. Is that the aspect of the game that's lasting longest for you, do you think?

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EQ: Yes, certainly. Like you, I often put as little effort into characters creation as I can in order to get to the main game. With Firewatch, I couldn't do that. I had to really think these decisions through, as I didn't want to mess anything up for Henry. The decisions are very realistic, so much so that I've experienced one of them myself in real life, and I think that's what draws you in about the game: you can imagine yourself in Henry's shoes. So quickly that you aren't just a passive viewer of the story anymore, you're actively involved, which like you said, sets the precedent for how you play the game later on and how you feel about the situations that arise.

I've not been able to stop thinking about the story – it was very gripping, and certainly Firewatch's biggest strength. Did you also go on an emotional roller coaster with it?

MD: I don't know about roller coaster exactly, but I certainly felt my shoulders tensing, my heart rate rising, during the game's final third. Without giving too much away, I think it masterfully measures how to layer suspense. It gives you a whole set of problems, going on around Henry – and by extension the never-seen but always-heard supporting character Delilah, watching over things from another tower – and that led to me feeling like I was going up the incline towards a massive drop. And when the peak was reached, the game really felt like it could go anywhere.

There was a sniff of governmental conspiracy about proceedings. I know that game previews have shown that you're not alone in the wilderness, and knowing that someone else is out here with you, maybe hunting you, kept me forever sweeping the camera around, checking out crannies and stirring bushes, just in case. Naturally it's a very scripted game so I knew that whatever bad shit was going to happen absolutely would, regardless of my caution – and when that something actually did, I jumped off the sofa. But it really is a wonderfully controlled story, that puts all these different plot line pieces on place for, I guess, 60 percent of the game, letting your mind play with them, over and over, before delivering the linearity that takes you to the climax.

For a game that really doesn't feature any human contact, I not only found myself attached to Henry, because of how Campo Santo set him up, but also Delilah. Even stationed at a distant watchtower, she's a more three-dimensional character than many we see in gaming. A lot of that comes down to the performance of Cissy Jones, her voice actor, of course, but nevertheless I was really impressed by the relationship that builds between Henry, "you", and her. She's really the star of this game, I think. But what do you think?

'Firewatch', the June Fire trailer

EQ: The final third was where I also became most tense, but I found myself a few times during others parts of the game feeling uneasy, although not quite to the same extent. I think the most impressive way they created suspense was through Delilah, who I agree was the best character in the game. Through her, you gain information that Henry himself wouldn't be able to know, and so she was the source of many revelations, ones that made me stop in my tracks a few times.

Like you said, the story is very well controlled, giving you enough time to ponder possibilities, but not enough that you feel bored or underwhelmed by the action. Campo Santo really nailed the whole idea of isolation, of being alone with your thoughts, guessing what would happen next – and that was exactly what I did throughout. Again, I agree that it felt like it could anywhere, a government conspiracy certainly seeming on the cards. A lot of the time, I felt like something was going to happen, then when it did, like you I was still surprised, swearing being my main form of expression at one point. I too kept an eye out on a constant basis, my camera doing constant 360s and zooms, although I did just haul ass at one point.

The voice performance overall I thought was incredible, but like I've said, I agree Delilah was the star. You really feel a connection with her, not just situational, but mentally as well. She was also a great comfort to me while I was hiking through the wilderness; it was nice to know someone was there, someone who genuinely seemed to care. I would have liked to speak to her more if anything, she was very amusing at times.

MD: Yeah, I think it would have been nice to start more off-the-cuff conversations with her – I was constantly squeezing the left trigger to see if I could initiate communication with her, just while exploring, rather than waiting for her scripted interjections. But I also appreciate that this is a game made by a small team with limited resources, and respect that what they've achieved is still impressive.

EQ: I also think Delilah was so easy to become attached to was because she seemed human. She had problems, she got drunk, she was sarcastic – it felt like a real woman was at the other end of that line. In the end it felt like you had someone with you, regardless of the fact they weren't there "in body", and I found that to be a very impressive aspect of the game.

I think the consistency of the interactions made it feel even more real, too, each character remembering things you'd said in past conversations, topics never just being forgotten. I think that's probably another testament to how good the story is: everything is so intrinsically woven together that no conversation felt meaningless, or just inserted to fill up space.

It would have been nice to initiate random conversations, maybe seek comfort when I might have needed it; but then again being given that option, it could have taken away from the truly tender moments, and so maybe it's best we weren't given that choice.

MD: Yes, the "real" factor really does come across in how the two leads interact – which is useful as they're almost the only voices you hear in the whole game.

I was thinking, which can be dangerous, but bear with me. The last game that really gave me a sense of someone on the "other end of the line" being a believable character was BioShock. And that's a game set in a place of beauty that's gone to shit – a little like Firewatch. I've just looked on Wikipedia and it states that BioShock was an influencing factor in this game's walkie-talkie mechanic. But I dare say that Firewatch does it better, even, than that first BioShock. Perhaps it's because of my thoughts of BioShock that I kept on expecting a massive twist in the plot. No spoilers! But yeah, it's not like it plays that way, even though Firewatch is still, I think, a shocking game.

EQ: I can certainly see the influence, but I would say Firewatch mastered it. I think the true isolation aspect of the game is why it works better. In BioShock you're always encountering enemies, the action really taking precedent over anything else. In Firewatch you're completely alone, so it makes that relationship even more poignant. As for the story, I don't think it's quite as shocking as BioShock, but I do think I was more concerned about the main characters in Firewatch, as well as intrigued to see what happened to them next.

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MD: To pause for a moment to look at a negative, the frame rate on PlayStation 4 is a disaster. I constantly saw middle-distance assets pop up, and while climbing up rocks the game would jerk from a position of mid-ascent to the top. This wasn't a factor in the closed-in spaces – in the cave, in Henry's tower. But I dare say that the game's open world suffers slightly because of its performance. Which is a real shame, as it's such a lovely place to stroll about in. Did you see anything like that?

EQ: I played on PS4 too, and I agree it was bad. There were plenty of times where a piece of environment would just about appear as I walked into it. It does spoil the open world aspect a bit; it kind of spoils the beauty of it, which is the reason why I'd want to explore in the first place. Having said that, I wouldn't tell anyone to not play the game because of it. I found it more annoying than anything, but the game's strengths everywhere else meant I couldn't put it down. Would you discourage people from playing the console version, because of the frame rate issues?

MD: No, not at all, and I expect it's something that can be fixed. The buggy frame rate was an annoyance, but the general feel of the game's world, its tangibility, and its characters, are more than worthy of celebration and recommendation. I think it's a fantastic example of how interactive fiction can work, without being broken down to basic Twine-like affairs, or the sometimes stale-feeling Telltale model we've become accustomed to.

Firewatch is a great argument for gaming becoming an ever more inclusive medium, too. Not only is it captivating narratively, but its controls are simple, and there's never any "real" threat – you cannot "fail" the game. However clumsy you think you are with a controller, you will get through this, and in not too long a period of time, too. Does this mean it runs the risk of getting flack from, let's say, "hardcore" gamer types for being a title made mainly for "filthy casuals"? I mean, fuck anyone who thinks that way anyway – games are for everyone, it's just whether or not you choose to engage with them – but I'd actually hate for people who just play CoD or FIFA usually to not at least give this a look, y'know? It feels like a gateway game – an easy way into a genre that, when done right, is probably the most rewarding of all gaming experiences.

EQ: I certainly think the frame rate problems take away from the exploration aspect. However, its story, the way Firewatch deals with relationships, how the game stays with you long after you've completed it, those are things that shouldn't be missed just because it has a few technical issues.

It is very innovative, especially the lack of being able to die or lose, which means that the momentum never gets lost, you never feeling the need to put the controller down due to any frustration. I agree that this a game that certainly promotes inclusion, the main reason for playing appealing to anyone who loves a good story, which most of us do. I can see that some people will moan about the lack of combat, the fact that no "skill" is really involved, but I don't get why. Firewatch isn't a traditional game, you can't measure how good you are it, there's no competitive edge to it. It's more of an interactive experience that could be played by anyone, like you said, the controls being simple and easy to learn.

Games like these could certainly encourage more non-gamers to play, showing people whose perceptions of games are that they're all violence and sport. It shows that the medium has grown into a much more diverse beast. Also, I know that people have their opinions about games like this, and that's fine, but if individuals call Firewatch shit just because it's different or "not a real game", well, that's fucking stupid.

I think issues will also be made about the length, sadly. It's relatively short, but it's also not too expensive and to be honest, I don't think I could have coped going through the game for longer than it ran. It was timed perfectly.

MD: Yep, I'm agreed on it being the perfect length, which is why I'm so sure it'd make a great novel. Maybe I should get on the phone to Campo Santo.

EQ: I think you should, or maybe write some fan fiction for what happens to the characters next. Actually, sod you, I fancy giving that a whirl...

'Firewatch', the Shale Slide trailer

MD: Fight you for it. But, to wrap this up, it's a very simple game, at its core, isn't it? But a very affecting one, too. And I think it'll stand up as one of 2016's best for finding that balance between exposure and emotion so very sweetly. I never grew tired of the backtracking, which does happen, because while the game world is big, it's not so big that you don't soon know your way about without the map. And also, the sprint function is a great inclusion – perhaps essential after the fuss that followed Everybody's Gone to the Rapture's slow pace? I'd happily recommend the game to anyone, not least of all because it can be finished inside, I guess, four hours.

It's much the same as 80 Days, in that even if you think you hate video games, or simply haven't been around them for years, it's something that you can get into and be a part of without it actually feeling too "game-y", if that makes any sense?

In conclusion: I really like it, basically. And I'm guessing that you do, too.

EQ: Yes, it's a very simple game, there's no real learning curve with the controls and you don't really do anything apart from walk, talk and pick things up. However, it's also incredible. I think it will certainly hold up as one of 2016's most surprising triumphs, the way it tugs at your emotions being like nothing else I've ever played, which is hugely impressive when you consider that Firewatch is a game with almost no physical human contact.

I didn't mind the backtracking either, and I also didn't mind being lost, which happened a few times. What I did mind was being lost when I was under pressure – not because it frustrated me, but because I wanted to know where I was going so I could run like the wind! In fact, getting lost only added to the intensity of certain situations, getting my map out and tracking myself being the last thing on my mind when panicked. It's easy enough to get around the world, as like you said it's not huge, but there are some situations where you really don't want to cover your face, which your map does. The run feature was a godsend. Firewatch needed that extra energy at times, and I felt being able to run was vital.

I would definitely recommend this game to, well, anyone. The fact that you can just sit down and complete it in a few hours makes it ideal for people who want a short burst of interesting fun. And like you said, it's accessible. Sure, it has game mechanics, which is why it's classed as a video game, but it's the narrative that's the real star here, making it more of an interactive story experience than anything.

I loved Firewatch and part of me really wishes I could erase my memory of it, just so I could play through the story again. It's that good.

Firewatch is out now for PC, Mac and PlayStation 4. More information at the Campo Santo website.

@MikeDiver / @Quindaaawg

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A right pair of useless wankers TBH. (via Wikimedia)

When I first heard that eagles were being trained to attack drones, my initial reaction was, 'Well, I sure like the sound of that.' It means us luddites can use them to fight back in the inevitable battle between man and machine, between technology and good old elbow grease. It means the movie that will be made about our meaty struggle against the borg oppressors will be even better, cuz it'll feature wing-ed beasts scratching away at the inner wiring of an airborne termination unit, a dog fight between nature and creation. Wow!

Or, as I found out from Jonny Ames, head honcho over at birds-of-prey sanctuary and conservation area Eagle Heights in Kent, it won't be like that at all. In fact it'll probably be the opposite. The eagles will get absolutely fucked by the drones. But why? Mr. Ames and I chatted about the drone attacks, eagles in general, and why, when it comes down to it, birds of prey are just a bunch of selfish pricks, really.

VICE: Hi Jonny. Can you tell us what you do at Eagle Heights?
We started about 20 years ago as a small bird of prey centre. We built ourselves up to be a bird of prey and wildlife sanctuary as well. At Eagle Heights, our main purpose is education. We do big displays where we fly a bird freely outside. We also go to a lot of schools with birds of prey, country shows, and the odd bit of film work. We have a breeding project and we do rescue and rehabilitation of wild birds of prey.

Basically everything you can think of to do with birds of prey, then.
I would say so. We even have a bald eagle that flies at Crystal Palace Football Club as their mascot. Her name's Kayla, and she flies at all the home games. We drive her up for each game with two to three members of staff.

Wow. How do you tame an eagle to the point where it's happy to fly around a stadium filled with thousands of people?
There are two ways of doing it. One's called hand-rearing, which is when you have an eagle from a chick, and it only knows humans and doesn't know its parents. It grows up thinking it's a human, and will bond with you quite well. Hand-reared eagles can also be quite aggressive, because they have no fear of anything whatsoever. It's all basically down to food. It isn't loyalty like a dog. With birds of prey it's down to trust and food.

If an eagle is parent-raised, when it first comes out of the aviary it'll be quite scared. We have a big dark area for them, because when they're in the dark they're quite calm. We go in and slowly but surely let them get used to us. Once they fully trust you they'll fly free and then come back to you for their dinner, basically.

I've been there. In comparison to other intelligent animals such as an octopus, where do eagles rank?
They're nothing like an octopus or a dolphin; they're nowhere near as intelligent. They're not a stupid animal, but again they're not as smart as a parrot, because in the old days, people could train parrots to ride bikes and all sorts of stuff. You wouldn't get an eagle to do that. Because they're a top predator, they're quite fixed into flying and food and not a lot else comes into it.

In the old days, people could train parrots to ride bikes and all sorts of stuff. You wouldn't get an eagle to do that.

What do you think the eagle's primary usefulness to humanity is?
There are a few different ones. In places like Mongolia and Kazakhstan, there's been a long history of golden eagles being used by farmers to kill wolves. And in the olden days people used to use birds of prey to catch food. That's probably our main thing with eagles.

Sounds like a lot of smashing things up and goring stuff, which also seems to be the aim with the drones.
It's all food association with the drones. What they're doing is teaching a bald eagle that when it catches that drone, it gets fed. That's how they train them.

How do you feel about using eagles to catch drones? Is it fair?
I think it's a publicity stunt, to be honest. Eagles aren't very manoeuvrable. If somebody knew what they were doing with a drone, they could outfly an eagle. Welfare-wise, bald eagles, which is what they're using, are very, very tough. There wouldn't really be any injuries, apart from obviously if the propeller hit the eagle in the eye. That would be the main risk.

I get the feeling that the eagles talons could quite easily crush the drone.
Yeah. The power in an eagle's talons is unbelievable. They would destroy the drone.

What is it about eagles that people like so much, do you think?
I think it's purely because of their sheer size and power. They're the biggest flying killing machines, if you like. In New Zealand, there used to be an eagle called Harpagornis Moorei (Haast's Eagle, now extinct) that would kill humans, because humans would dress up in the feathers of its prey, which the eagle would mistake them for. This eagle was enormous. I think it is all to do with that primal, hunting, pride and power aspect.

Have you ever had any incidents involving the eagles?
They can be quite aggressive towards the staff. We've never had a problem with the public because they don't associate the public with food, but quite a few of our hand-reared bald eagles, if they don't think you're feeding them quick enough, they will beat you up to try and get food out of you. People new to flying an eagle will panic and throw the food away from them. The eagle then learns that if it beats you up, you're going to throw food. It's a novice mistake.

So the best thing to do is to just chill out.
Yeah. I mean I've been grabbed by them and bitten by them and all sorts of stuff. When you're training eagles it is part of the job. You've got to accept the fact that you're working with a wild animal and now and again they're going to catch you out.

What's the worst injury you've sustained from one of these eagles?
I had my bottom lip split open by a bald eagle. I've also been grabbed in the back of the head with an eagle's talons because I stupidly turned my back to an eagle that didn't like me. Normally it's my mistake. Like I say, there's no danger to the public with eagles. Unless someone was to run up and grab one without a glove on.

Well, that would be fucking stupid, wouldn't it?
Yep.

Lastly, do you think it's OK to use animals for reasons that may also have political connotations, such as the taking down of drones, or even using sniffer dogs?
Yeah I do. I train animals and also have a lot to do with conservation, and I don't see anything wrong with it as long as the person who's in charge knows what they're doing. You get people who ignore the rules and the dangers and they're the sort of people who cause risks.

Thanks Jonny.

@joe_bish

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All this could be yours for a mere £11

Free gifts are always better appreciated by people who can already afford them: that is just the cold truth. You there, with your mug full of change, waiting by the big machine at Morrisons hoping to get voucher enough to buy three tins of beans: a $31,000 skin cream voucher would be wasted on you. You, you there, with the Wonga.com app already loaded on your phone, ready for its just-like-clockwork boot-up on the 20th of every month: free Audi rentals for life are not going to help you. It makes sense that the great and the beautiful good get rewarded beyond supermodels to have sex with and multi-million dollar salaries at the Oscars this year. It makes sense that the goodie bag for each nominee includes a ludicrous $200,000 (£138,000) worth of free shit.

The Oscar's press team described the contents of the goodie bag as being, "once again a blend of fabulous, fun and functional items meant to thrill and pamper those who may have everything money can buy but still savor the simple joy of a gift". Hey, guys, be nice: incredibly wealthy people enjoy free shit too.

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The bag is filled with a mixture of things, from the completely bizarre cosmetic procedures (a voucher for the 'Vampire Breast Lift' promises "blood-derived growth factors to revive rounder cleavage without implants") through to more predictable items, such as a 10-day first class trip to Israel, or a $250 dildo. Also: a $249.99 vape, because vaping is cool.

Unfortunately, for reasons, we weren't invited to the Oscars this year. But we wanted to get involved in the goodie bag-shaped fun anyway. So here's how we put our own together, on a slightly pared down budget of £10.98.

Oscar winners get: a 10-day first class trip to Israel (£38,000)
We got: a framed oil painting of Larry David (£4)

Why go all the way to the Holy Land? As any Curb enthusiast knows, Larry David's relationship with Israel is profound, which is why we put him in a frame instead of buying £38,000 plane tickets and hotels and flights and a guide and a book called 'What Israel Is?'. Most notably Larry David's love for Israel (and world peace) was brought out in the Curb episode 'Palestinian Chicken', where Larry attempts to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by wooing a lady at a Palestinian-American restaurant. Needless to say many viewers found the episode distasteful. But there's nothing distasteful about this £4 Matalan picture frame!

Oscar winners get: Ultherapy – a laser skin-tightening procedure courtesy of 740 Park MD (£3,800)
We got: 50 wooden pegs (99p)

Yes lasers are scientifically more likely to have a lasting tightening effect on the skin when properly shot at you by a trained professional, but they are also expensive (bad) and can possibly be retooled by a Bond villain to be some earth-destroyed hyper weapon (v bad). Instead, peg your saggy face back onto your skull with these actual pegs: hygienic, affordable, and a 50-pack should last you weeks.

Oscar winners get: a lifetime supply of Lizora skin creams (~£21,000)
We got: 1 x pot of Hollywood Beauty Cocoa Butter (£3.49)

I mean depending on how often you use it: this pot could feasibly last a lifetime. It is extremely petroleum-heavy and rich. A little goes a long way. Unless you have exceptionally warm fingers, it is quite hard to get out of the pot. And, fundamentally, aren't all creams basically the same? A wholesale scam by the beauty industry to make us invest in unguents? If anything, the Hollywood Beauty Cocoa Butter (which says the word 'Hollywood' multiple times on the pot, guys) is too expensive for what you get.

Female Oscar winners will get: a £173 "arouser" (dild) offering "gentle suction and stimulation" (dild stuff)
We got: 1 x cucumber (50p)

Suction and stimulating are both incredibly board terms, terms that (depending on how you slice it) a cucumber could undoubtedly fit under. Also – and not sure you've noticed this, but – a cucumber is roughly similar in shape if not size to a human penis. Who needs a bedazzled dildo! Not us!

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Oscar winners get: a year's worth of unlimited Audi car rentals (~£31,000)
We got: an Uber promo code (potentially free)

Anyone with half a brain and enough mobile data will know that there is only one way to ride around in a car that doesn't belong to you. So, we give you this: 'NZSOU', or something, a promo code for Uber which entitles you to £10 off your next ride and may or may not work.

Oscar winners get: 3 x private training sessions with 'celebrity wellness expert' and star of ABC's My Diet Is Better Than Yours, Jay Cardiello (£971)
We got: 3 x squishy balls, which my grandma uses to combat arthritis (£1)

If you place a squishy spherical object in your hand and hold it tightly for periods of time during the day, the short busts of exercise will combat the signs of arthritis in your hand. You should try shaking my grandma's hand these days. Grip like a... well. It's not strong, but it's better. She's not winning any jar-opening competitions, let's put it that way. But it's better.

(Photo via Hanako Footman)

Oscar winners get: a Japanese walking tour (~£31,000)
We got: a group tour around London's most Japanese venues, guided by our friend Hanako, who is half Japanese (Price on donation, or: free)

Quote from Hanako about the tour: "Starting out at the Japan Centre in Piccadilly Circus, you will explore the very best of Japan without having to spend a penny, although I do accept donations." Note the wording: donations. Legally you do not have to pay Hanako for this. Morally? Morally it's on you. But legally. Legally this tour is gratis.

Oscar winners get: a 'Vampire Breast Lift' (£1,300)
We got: a large roll of sellotape (£1)

Yeah you could get all your blood taken out and pumped back into your tits OR if you just wrap enough sellotape around your chest, eventually all the blood inside of you will find its way there anyway, giving the vague appearance of a boob job and a hell of a welt when you unwrap yourself after a night out.

Oscar winners get: a Haze Dual V3 Vaporizer (£172)
We got: a cigarette butt from the floor (Priceless)

Because smoking and vaping kills. Well, vaping doesn't kill. Unless you count your dignity. It definitely kills that.

@ameliadimz

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Jo Nesbø is better than you at most things. In his time he has been: a top-flight footballer in the Norwegian Tippeligaen with Molde; a high-flying stockbroker; and a Norwegian pop star. But all that pales in comparison to what he's best known for: writing those books your dad can't stop buying in the airport. Well, your dad and everyone else's. Nesbo's Harry Hole crime series, among others, has shifted 28million units in over 50 countries. According to his publisher, one of his books is bought every 23 seconds.

An adaptation of one of his novels – Headhunters – won a Bafta. Leonardo DiCaprio's production company recently bought the rights to another one, Blood on Snow. And now a film version of The Snowman, starring Michael Fassbender, has just started filming. So we caught up with Jo to talk about his life and career, from punk rock to crime writing.

VICE: Hi Jo. You once described crime novels as the "punk rock of literature". What did you mean by that?
Jo Nesbø: To me, punk rock is about taking away everything that is not necessary so you can see the skeleton of the song. I think that crime writing, at least the crime writing that I like, is the same thing. The story is cut to the bone. The one thing that my books don't do that punk rock does is statements. My books are the opposite; they are questions. I give my protagonists moral dilemmas and force them to make a choice. And I try not to be the judge of the choice they make. One of the big questions I try to ask is, what is free will? What is morality? Is it something God-given, or is it a framework that society has imposed on us to make us more efficient?

I never liked crime fiction as a kid. Well, I'm still not that interested in crime fiction.

Your parents fought on different sides during the second world war, didn't they? Do you think that's where your obsession with morality came from?
Yes. My mother's family were freedom fighters against the Nazi occupation of Norway. But my father, who was older, grew up in America in the 20s where he was conditioned to believe the worst thing that could happen to a country was communism. So when the war broke out he joined the Germans to fight Stalin. Although, it wasn't until I was 15 that he said, "Jo, you're old enough to know now that I fought with the Germans in the second world war."

How does a 15-year-old even process that kind of information?
It was a huge shock. My father was the man I respected most in the world. Everything I thought was solid and true in the world was shattered in a moment. But then he said, "Ok, I guess you have questions, then I'm happy to answer them." So I started this conversation with my father when I was 15 and it continued until the end of his life.

Did you ever understand? Your mother's family must have hated him.
They would've hated him if he'd been pro-Hitler and joined the Nazi party. But they understood that he did it to defend Norway from Stalin; that was his war. He didn't know about the Holocaust. Yes, he'd heard rumours, but thought that's all they were. I remember once he told me, "I had to spend three years in jail for fighting with the Germans, and I think that was a fair punishment for being as wrong as I was." I respected him for his honesty. I can defend my father intellectually now – the wounds heal, but that shock creates an emotional scar that never goes away.

Your band Di Derre ("Those Guys") are one of Norway's most successful groups. But you worked as a stockbroker until your 30s. How did that happen?
I only quit the city when the band became too big to hold down another job. I had this crazy idea that I didn't want to leave my day job – I didn't want music to pay my rent. I thought, if I had a day job, I wouldn't have to compromise. I've seen too many musicians sell out in order to survive.

How would you describe Di Derre's music?
We're a pop band with a punk attitude.

A crime writer who doesn't like crime writing?
Whenever I meet crime writers, they are so into crime writing. All they want to talk about is these crime writers that I've never read and I'm never going to read. I'm a slow reader so I have to pick my books carefully. I have a few favourites, like Jim Thompson and Raymond Chandler, but even when I read Chandler for the first time I had already read all the parodies. By then he seemed almost comic and over the top.

So you don't think modern crime fiction is that good?
No. There are definitely good crime novels out there, but I think there's a reason why the crime genre has the bad reputation that it has, and that is the fact that so many mediocre crime novels are being published every year.

What about yours?
When I'm writing, I feel like I'm the best writer in the world. I don't mean that in a competitive way, but that I have to think, "There's nobody who understands this story better than me and the readers are lucky that I'm the one telling this story and not some other clumsy writer." The whole idea of writing a novel takes an enormous amount of confidence. Books are expensive in Norway, but you expect thousands of readers to read every fucking work you've written. And then you expect them to walk up to you in the street and take you by hand and say, "thank you."

Do they?
Sometimes they do. When I'm writing a novel I get the feeling that this is what I am meant to do. Not that I feel necessarily unique... But even if the whole world told me I was not good at telling stories, then I would say that the world is not ready for me. That is the only thing in life that I'm 100 percent confident in. It's not a crazy ego thing, it is just that I have a very clear idea of what I want to do as a storyteller.

So what did you actually want to do with your life – you played for Molde FK when you were a teenager. Was football the original dream?
I genuinely believed I'd play professionally for Tottenham. It was my life, until I got injured. I got tackled as I was passing and my knee buckled. I heard the cartilage snap, like when you tear the leg off a chicken, and that was my footballing career over. I was 19. It was devastating - my entire world fell apart. But you know what, when you're 19, you can build a new world in three weeks. I told myself, "OK, I'm probably not going to play soccer. How important is that to me? Is this a trauma that has to define my life?"

If you could trade in all the success you've had as a writer and a pop star to be a footballer, would you do it?
I've never been asked that before... It's a hard thing to say. Would I really? . Yes, I think I would.

Thanks Jo.

@mattblakeuk

Jo Nesbo's new thriller Blood On Snow is out now in paperback, published by Vintage.

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Read: Sarah Reed's Death in Custody Shows How Britain Treats Vulnerable Black Prisoners

The high red-brick walls that surround the entrance of HM Holloway Prison, the largest women's jail in western Europe, are adorned with hanging baskets of flowers. It's a futile attempt by the authorities to beautify the institution. Holloway has a "fearsome reputation": half of its population are victims of domestic violence, 95 percent are on some form of psychotropic medicine.

It was behind these walls that Sarah Reed – a black woman with mental health problems who was placed in the prison on custodial remand – died having apparently strangled herself to death on 11th January 2016; and it was in front of them that one hundred people descended last night to hold a candle-lit vigil and to demand clarity about what happened.

Organised at short notice by campaign group Blacksox on the request of Reed's family, the vigil lasted an hour-and-a-half as speakers – some representing organisations, others independent – spoke through a megaphone to a mournful and resolute crowd.

Lee Jasper, the anti-racist activist and spokesperson for Reed's family, announced the formation of the Justice For Sarah Reed campaign; black women with experience of the prison system and mental health institutions attested to Sarah's struggle; Stephanie Lightfoot-Bennett of United Friends and Family Campaign declared the Independent Police Complaints Commission and Crown Prosecution Service to be "unfit for purpose"; a poet gave a lyrical history of anti-black racism in Britain; Sisters Uncut heckled George Galloway and stopped him from speaking (he promptly left); and a young woman told the crowd she had come for "all the black, single vulnerable women who find themselves neglected over and over again."

For all its tragic details, the events of Sarah Reed's life are exemplary: they show how state violence operates on the vulnerable – destabilising minds, erasing lives and conspiring silence. One purpose of the vigil was to undo this silence. Cars and buses passing by honked their horns in support; the short speeches ended with a call-and-response between the speaker and crowd, each time becoming louder and louder: "Say her name: Sarah Reed! Say her name: Sarah Reed! Black. Lives. Matter!"

@CBethell_photo / @Yohannk