Today - avoid social embarrassment with a handy guide to: people who hate you.

* Sarcasm.

POND LIFE

No.1 - Nintendo

Got your N64s yet? That's an interesting SCART lead, isn't it?

All consoles output essentially the same signals. All TVs accept the same signals. So why does EVERY SINGLE NEW MACHINE that ever comes out need a different, incompatible SCART lead?

You probably now, like me, own 15 separate SCART leads, costing around £300. The only possible, necessary reason for this? NINTENDO HATE YOU.

DIRTBAGS

No.2 - Adidas

Nice to see Power Soccer at No.1 in the PS chart. It's a cracking game.

EXCEPT THAT it's not a game at all - it's an interactive advert. That unstoppable 'Predator Kick'? Learn it first - you win. Don't learn it first - you lose. Both learn it - game completely pointless. Good boots, eh?

Psygnosis write a really good football game. Adidas completely ruin it. Why? Because they hate you.

DOG MESS ON THEIR SHOES

No.3 - All console manufacturers except Atari and the 3DO Company.

Tekken 2. Sega Rally. Super Mario 64. You love them, you do. You want to buy them. You'll even pay twice the price for an import, you want them so much.

"Aha!" say the console manufacturers. "How dare you want to buy our games?"

"We shall insert territorial coding protection so you have to wait nine months then play a crap PAL version."

This happens BECAUSE THEY HATE YOU.

SCUM-SUCKING LEECHES

No.4 - The entire 'leisure' media.

Grown-up newspapers, who fear anything new they don't understand.

'Style' magazines, who don't like young people doing anything which doesn't involve bloody Orbital. Zzzz.

Games mags, who'd have such a nice, endless-PR-lunch-filled life if it wasn't for those pesky whining readers.

All these publications have one thing in common - THEY HATE YOU. Yes they do.

CUSTOMERS

But why do all these people hate you so much? I'll tell you - because you want them to. You lap it up, LIKE DOGS.

Oh, you might complain otherwise, but it's the classic tragedy of unrequited love - the worse they treat you, the further you debase yourselves to try to please them. You know it's true.

No? Then explain: £600 N64s? Fawning "I love Sega" letters? CU Amiga? Exactly.