"If Pacman had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music."

Ah! Bloody Pacman.

If only I weren't so damn proud of that gag I would drop it from my set. It is no end of trouble, so many people have had it sent as a text or an e-mail that I can watch as the crowd splits into those who are laughing their asses off and those who are looking at me thinking - cheeky bastard he's had that off the internet. I suppose that because it is part (and has been for years) of a much larger routine about games, children, behaviour, parenting, negative influences, violence etc etc, it would be easier to drop from my set.

It is my joke. I wrote it, then I took the rest of the day off as I was so chuffed with it. I am gutted that it has been claimed and passed around by so many people. Intellectual property law will not save me, the false claims will continue until I am man enough to give it all up. All I can say is - it seems that it is very unlikely that it was written by a Nintendo employee in 1989, being as Pac Man was still around and not much of a childhood memory, there were very few claims that gaming influenced childrens behaviour, and that the wording of it is identical to how it has been deliverd in my stand up routine for 6 years! For those that are interested it has also been atributed to Bill Gates, but then so has Windows! Bitter? Well perhaps just a little. It was sent to me by someone at Channel 4 a few years back after I did it on Channel 4 in a late night stand up show!

Hope that clears everything up.

Marcus