Waking Georgi

I wont top like in this video

This is a rant.

I am one of 70,000 or more thoroughly disgruntled fans of EA Sports' Fifa Online Beta, which was a multi-player online football (soccer) game.

What I discovered when I first tried it (to my joy) was that it was entirely mouse controlled and, having a disabled child with very restricted mobility, I'd finally found a game which he could not only use, but which he could actually beat me at.

In their infinite wisdom EA Sports have decided to end the Beta trial. Great, no problem, where can I pay my money to play the final release? Uh? There IS NO final release?

As I write this Georgi just thinks there's a problem with the server and that he'll be able to play his favourite game of all time tomorrow. Really - he has little else in his life which he can do to while away the hours.

He spends most of his life in the same chair in the same room and Fifa Online was a godsend - here was something he could not only play on his own but which he could actually BEAT ME AT, genuinely - no "letting him win" or anything like that. It brought great joy and sense of achievement to Georgi and great relief for my wife and myself - because care-giving is a really tough thing to do, at the best of times.

I wrote an email to the BBC Click programme (a computer show which is where I first heard about the game) and asked if they could raise the question of why EA stopped the beta trial so abruptly, and without any consideration to their many thousands of users. All we got was a "thank you for all your feedback - don't call us, we'll call you" posting on their forum:

http://forum.ea.com/uk/posts/list/436005.page

From what I can tell they've provided no more information since that message and people are crying out for the game to be reinstated. Ok, so they never made any money out of the beta but they built up a HUGE following and could have converted A LOT of those to paying customers if they wanted. Why not simply say that the Beta was coming to an end and call it version 1 (and ask for some money). I would certainly like to pay them some money to keep our little boy occupied.

http://www.collents.eu/georgi

Encephalitis is a life changer

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I just got a quote from Thrifty for a compact 5-door for 13 days from the 20th December to the 2nd January. The first price I got was from their branch at Manchester - which is where I normally fly in to, via Istanbul. This would cost about £308 if I prepaid.

EXACTLY the same dates and car but picking up from Heathrow would cost about £695 on their pre-pay deal.

I'm looking to take Lana and Georgi over for a holiday but although the direct flight from Tbilisi to London (BMI) is both cheaper and at better times of the day - the ridiculous cost of the car hire could be a deal-killer.

Getting Georgi on a plane won't be easy and it'd be easier if we didn't have to change flights, but it's not so bad changing planes at Istanbul - and we don't have to hang around there very long, in either direction. Lana would love the perfume shop there anyway.

I'm not sure we'll go at Christmas - in some ways it would be good but it might be better to wait until June, and maybe go up to the north of Scotland to witness the "white nights" from there.

Our other option would be to drive across Europe - a bit of a hike but quite cheap (about 400 Euros excluding the car hire) and do-able in about 6 days with 5 stops - 2 in Turkey (Samsun & Istanbul), one on the border between Bulgaria & Serbia, one on the border between Croatia and Slovenia, and a final stop on the German-Dutch border.

I should buy a pop-top.