Part 11 – Somewhere Over the Rainbow Island

Beer. Lovely stuff, as I’m sure you’ll agree, but you should never, ever, EVER, make life-changing decisions while beer is in possession of your soul.

I suppose that, given the bad decisions I could have made, I got away lightly by instead only ending up with a financially crippling hobby that puts lots of strain on my marriage. I mean, I didn’t wake up next to my best mate with a pack of used condoms next to the bed. I didn’t jump on a plane and wake up penniless in Peking, I’m pretty sure that I’ve never offered to fight the heavyweight champion of Old Peckham Rye, and I’ve always made it home it in one piece. Well, almost always…

What I have done, loaded on beautiful beer, is: kissed almost everybody I know (and several people that I don’t), given watches and mobile phones to strangers, jumped on to a sleeper train, for London, and stayed on it till Edinburgh, broken my teeth, and lost a countless procession of coats, umbrellas, ties and one bag (not the contents, just the bag).

Ex Liverpool goalkeeper - Bruce Groebbelaar, doing his
already tarnished reputation no favours.

And under the influence of Fullers London Pride, on the eve of my 30th birthday, I decided to collect arcade machines.

As we all know, most beer influenced plans and ideas get no further than the public bar. Many things, that seem flawless during alcohol-drenched evenings, do not stand-up to the ‘cold light of day’. Kebabs, is one example. Telling your boss exactly what you think of him, is another. And so is the notion of ‘living on a desert island’. Many of these things seem like a good idea when thoughts of dismissal, paying the rent and throwing up are nothing but a distant possibility, but in the morning – the flaws become all too apparent. Mostly, it doesn’t even take until morning.

But this one, collecting arcade machines, stuck. A conversation, which started out as a quick rant about the joys of emulation, had progressed to a sort of proto-Rodent discussion about the good old days, and that. And, since we were in a pub, the conversation turned to that mainstay of seventies pub gaming – the tabletop arcade machine. The cocktail machine.

Now, there is something peculiarly British about tabletop arcade cabinets. Obviously, they were mostly designed and built in Japan, but they only seem to work in a pub, in a British pub. Specifically, a seventies, or early eighties, British pub. Where it should be sat in a dark corner next to the gents, or strategically placed among the other tables – a stealthy attempt to trick unsuspecting punters into playing Space Invaders?

Horse brasses in pubs, ahhhhhhh. That's better.

As that beery conversation flowed, I started to realise how much I missed arcade games. Not the games themselves, the software—I had that on my PC, emulated by the megabyte—but the machines – the beautiful, evocative, hardware. I missed having to get change to play the latest game, I missed putting my coins on the corner of the table (or on the control panel) and waiting for my turn, I missed sitting down and supping my beer while my opponent had his life. I even missed the slightly wobbly controls, distorted sound, and less-than pin-sharp monitors. Okay, given that I was just a kid: it was probably lemonade or orange juice back in the seventies, and early eighties, but my memory, that night, had substituted those tastes for beer. Or possibly cider.

So, there I was, standing at the public bar in the Paviours Arms and, as I glanced around, I could almost see the glow of a Space Invaders humming quietly to itself.

“I wonder what happened to all those machines?” That was Steve – ‘drinking partner’ and on this, and several other occasions, mind-reader.

“They must be somewhere, right?”, he continued, “There were hundreds, thousands, millions of them – what happened to them all?”

That was it. That was the trigger, I woke up the next morning with a mild, but not unpleasant, hangover and a determination to find out what had happened to all those machines. And this is my story, my on-going story. Arcade Nirvana indeed.

ahchay, January 2003

Comment Here. (Its working again).

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Things to 'Make' and 'Do'.

Teach your kids about the bad, really bad, effects of dirty beer.

Learn all about the delightful world of horse brasses.

Read Some guides to collecting Arcade Machines (Bank Manager not pictured).

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