FORGET all those new computer shoot 'em ups and take a step back into the world of historic console games.

The creaky old games consoles of the seventies and eighties have become fashionable of late, lending credibility to many an advert, album sleeve or T-shirt print designed to tap into this lucrative market.

The Classic Gaming site (www.classicgaming.com) will take you back to the days of the Atari and show you how to build you own arcade machine.

It is great fun to play some of the true greats, Q*bert, Pitfall and Joust. It takes me back.

EARLIER this month the European Space Agency launched its first interplanetary probe, the Mars Express.

The Beagle 2 project (www.beagle2.com) is the British-led effort to land on Mars.

The site offers you a behind-the-scenes look at the craft and the work that has gone into the project.

Almost a third of the craft is full of analysing equipment that will be used to collect and manipulate the samples from the surface of the red planet.

THERE are set to be over 300 events between 20 and 29 June celebrating architecture week.

The site (www.architectureweek.org.uk) provides a database of events, many of them free, including workshops and even sandcastle building.

You can also check over a list of architects who have opened up their offices to visitors, including Norman Foster.

IN August/September 2003 two students from the University of Durham will row the length of the longest river in continental Europe - The Danube.

Their site (www.rowingthedanube.org.uk) will tell you who these mad-cap twosome are and the charitable work they are doing.

The row will take almost two months at 60km a day and their intention is to raise at least £20,000 for charity.

They also hope to draw attention to the need for social and environmental co-operation between the Danube States.