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Simon Parkin
@SimonParkin
non-fiction writer // cw @newyorker // fellow @royalhistsoc // @myperfectcnsle // THE FORBIDDEN GARDEN OF LENINGRAD 2024/5 (@sceptrebooks/ @scribnerbooks).
UK
Joined February 2009
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    The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad is a finalist in the 2025 Orwell Prize. Delighted to be nominated alongside such a wonderful clutch of books. Thank you to my editors at @SceptreBooks and @ScribnerBooks.
    “These books show us how we got here." – Kim Darroch, Chair of Judges Announcing the eight finalists for the 2025 Orwell Prize for Political Writing. Discover them now: orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-pri… #OrwellPrize2025 #PoliticalWriting #Nonfiction
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    Replying to @SimonParkin
    This, from Shigeru Miyamoto, on how Nintendo only hires designers who have deep and wide interests outside of video games, to the point where perhaps they don't even play games, is close to the heart of it all.
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    The New Yorker interview: Shigeru Miyamoto. Super Mario’s maker on philosophy, his kids love of Sega, abusive bosses, video game guns, and how he tries to ensure his work adds more to a person’s life than it takes.
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    Replying to @jennygzhang
    red text? guess you hate the colourblind, jenny.
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    ’closeness lines over time’ by olivia de recat:
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    (l) 1859: journalist berates young man's chess tournament win, a game that 'robs...valuable time that might be devoted to nobler achievements'. (r) 2019: journalist berates young man's Fornite tournament win, a game 'responsible for so many lost childhoods'. plus ça change.
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    Here is a photograph of Kojima's farewell party on October 9th at Konami, which Konami claims no knowledge of:
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    Get yourself a girl that looks at you the way George Osborne looks at exit polls.
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    Yesterday a Hearthstone tournament winner said ‘liberate Hong Kong’ during his post-match interview. Now the game’s publisher Blizzard, part-owned by the Chinese conglomerate Tencent, has rescinded the player’s winnings and issued him a year-long ban...
    [BREAKING] Hong Kong Hearthstone player @blitzchungHS calls for liberation of his country in post-game interview: invenglobal.com/articles/9242/… @Matthieist #Hearthstone
    00:00
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    Recently discovered Götzendiener, a 1994 PC Engine game in which you play as the damsel in distress, whose rescuer dies in the very first scene, leaving her to GET SHIT DONE HERSELF:
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    An ex-Konami employee recently told me that the company examined other photographs taken at this event to determine out who took the below shot, and duly disciplined the individual.
    Here is a photograph of Kojima's farewell party on October 9th at Konami, which Konami claims no knowledge of:
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    Something I think about often is how the 1996 arcade game Art of Fighting 3 would check the date from the system clock and, if it was one of the character's 'birthdays', would make that character super-powerful for 24 hours.