About Me

Who are you?
I'm Nick Thorpe. When I'm on the internet, I usually have the username HKT3030.

What are you?
That's a great question, and one I'm seriously struggling with. If it helps, my secondary school technology teacher once greeted my class by saying "Hello boys, hello girls, hello prats, hello aliens, hello Nick."

Why are you?
The same reason you are, unless my A-Level English teacher is to be believed. She once told me that my parents must have built me from a kit, because I couldn't possibly have been conceived in the normal human way.

Get serious, please.
I mean all that stuff is true, but okay. Professionally speaking, I am a writer and have been since 2013. Mostly I write about old video games, but I've also been known to write about new video games, computing, music, pro wrestling and even politics.

Prior to that, I was also a writer but nobody was paying me to do it, so I did some other jobs and the usual educational exploits. As a result, I've had a weird and wonderful life in which I have done things like:

  • Helped to organise events attended by foreign politicians and academics
  • Looked after university computer labs
  • Gone into schools and taught science to children
  • Panicked over the location of a missing flask of liquid nitrogen
  • Watched a customer shove a bottle of Lambrini down the front of his jeans
  • Performed on stage at a circus
  • Played on a Girl Guide quiz team
  • Been diagnosed with Squeakybellyitis by Ronald McDonald

All of the above are also true. I'm not sure where that clown qualified as a doctor.

Wait, old video games? I thought you wrote about some other thing?
For some reason, there are a number of published authors who share my name. So no, I'm not the BBC journalist Nick Thorpe, nor am I the Nick Thorpe who wrote Urban Worrier, nor am I the Nick Thorpe who wrote 52 New Things. Maybe I should get them in a room and ask them about Sonic The Hedgehog some time?

So, why HKT3030?
This is the model number of a Sega Dreamcast, and specifically the European version. The Dreamcast is my favourite console of all time.