Rob Bright - Staff Writer

What are you up to at the moment?

I've been at Top Gear magazine for the past four years but am about to leave to spend a year as a freelance journalist in India where I'll be filing travel, news and culture stories to magazines and newspapers back here, as well as writing stuff for Indian publications. Either that or I'll enter a huge field of hemp somewhere in the north and never be seen again.

Could you tell us how you got involved with Mean Machines?

I responded to an advert in the magazine. I'd just finished A-levels, was broke and it seemed a lot more glamorous than stacking shelves in Tescos.

What was it like working on the magazine?

A bit like stacking shelves in Tescos. No, it was lots of fun and they were a lovely bunch of people, willing to forgive my ineptitude at Streetfighter II or the fact that I didn't know how to plug some of the machines in.

You're one of the few MM staffers still working in the area of printed media (Top Gear Magazine). Does it suprise you how much techniques have changed since the 'cut and paste' days of MM?

I just caught the end of the cut-and-paste era. I went off to college and came back to freelance in the holidays and suddenly all of the writers were hunched over the now highly-illegal Mac Classics and we'd gather round in wonder at the miracle of Quark as it drew a page in under three hours.

What is your current console of choice?

It will probably come as no surprise to former colleagues that I don't have one. I still get the chance to have a go at Nintendo or PlayStation on friends' consoles now and then.

What is your current favourite game?

Er, I played Donkey Conga recently...

Do you still keep in touch with the other MM staffers?

I saw Rad not too long ago and did a bit of freelance for Computec five years ago.