Beach, Beer and Bootlegs

Like all polite middle-class suburban families, our years were divided into moving house, building extensions or having holidays. We tried combining the last two one year, but that proved disastrous; resulting in a new kitchen and a damp, miserable fortnight cruising up the Thames. There was a big storm (it was the year the Fastnet race made the headlines) and I fell into the river at one of the locks. Thankfully, that’s all my memory will allow me to recall.

Suburbia. When you’re young, you want out. When you’re old…

1984 was a ‘holiday’ year. I was busy struggling with and subsequently failing some exams which all seemed very important at the time. Almost before the ink had dried on my last terribly written essay, we were bundled up and flying to somewhere in Mallorca.

It must have been one of those hotel lottery deals, where they get you out there and then see which resorts they can squeeze you into. Everyone piled onto a coach, which then set off on a tour of Mallorca’s cheapest and tackiest towns. I was hiding beneath my headphones, feigning sleep, listening to New Order’s ‘Thieves Like Us’ on the Walkman given to me as a somewhat optimistic exam-pass present.

The iPod of the ‘80s.

Every time the coach wheezed to a halt, the expectant holidaymakers listened for a name-call that would decide their three-star fate. We were deposited a couple of streets back from the beach at Palma Nova. Looked a bit sleepy, but then it was about 3 in the morning.

This was the first year that I’d had a room to myself. I’ve no idea if this was intentional, but it suited my blossoming Difficult Teenager demeanour perfectly. I suppose I must have slept in this room at some point during the week, but I honestly can’t be sure. Free of parents and breakfasts and mornings, I set about creating my own kind of holiday experience.

Palma Nova. Palms and, er, Vauxhall Novas. Also, Germans.

Discarded were the staples of regimented holiday fun: lounging around by the hotel pool; excursions to places of natural beauty, like the obligatory caverns (the spookily named Caves of Drach) on the other side of the island. Instead, I opted for a tour of local arcades, exploratory missions into nearby Magaluf, and the regular “Yes, I am still alive and haven’t run off…” lunchtime check-ups with my parents at a café which revelled in the almost constant showing of Frankie’s banned ‘Relax’ video, the rascals

There was one main arcade in Palma Nova. Plenty of hotels and bars had the odd videogame, but besides gatecrashing someone’s wedding to play a spot of Donkey Kong 3, I stuck to the arcade. All the usual continental suspects were there: Track & Field, Pleiades, Phoenix, The Pit, some old black & white driving game that nobody ever played and a row of largely ignored pinballs. Hidden round the back was a dusty Berzerk with a sign (“Averiado!”) draped over the screen, a Defender with a finger-shredding, metal-only joystick and a Xevious. With a letter missing.

”’scuse me, love. Where’s the English Pub? INGLIIIISH!!”…
“You sicken me”.

Xevios was the first bootleg I knowingly played. Years later, I realised that half the games in my local pool hall were dodgy Korean copies, but for now Xevios was my first exposure to the arcade scene’s seedier underbelly. I’d been hammering its legitimate brother only a couple of weeks earlier at Woking fair, so I knew the trick to bring up the designer’s initials (fly right at the start and hold down bomb for a few seconds… ‘Dead copy making copy under Namco program’). Bit of a giveaway, that.

A couple of older lads, all of eighteen I’d guess, proved a constant source of doubles competition and underage mischief opportunities. When nobody was looking, they taught me how to flick the power switch on the Jump Bug machine for a credit, along with plenty of ways to distract the pinball player from the ’matched’ free games they’d just been awarded. Once the arcade was closed, I tagged along with them for a tour of the Magaluf burger joints and bars, more often than not staggering back to the hotel, head woozy on cheap lager, way past the time everyone else was sleeping.

Xevious – with the version of the hidden
programmer trick that we could be arsed to
screen-grab.

The night before I was due to fly home, the three of us headed out on a couple of mopeds to a remote bar a few miles inland. I had a pocket full of pesetas left, and all of them were going on beer and the Galaga machine in the corner.

I got fucking hammered… but I completely owned the high-score table by the time we were thrown out into the dawn gloom. I squinted at my watch. Fucksticks. The coach to the airport was leaving in just over an hour.

”C’mon everyone. Let’s have a sing-song!
Atmosphere! Not Russ Abbott. Joy Division”.

Fresh morning air and panic sobered me up enough to retrace my steps back to the hotel. I hastily stuffed everything but the Walkman into the suitcase and stumbled back to the lobby to meet everyone. I must have looked like shit.

I found a space at the back of the coach, away from everyone, and buried myself in my headphones once more. Staring out of the window at the slowly waking resort, I felt the first hangover of my life start to gather strength behind my eyes.

It was gonna be a long flight home…

FUSEBALL, August 2004.

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