1983.

Smug.

Not a word that had ever been used to describe me prior to my ownership of that little slice of Commodore heaven but oh boy was it apt now. See, when you're twelve years old, fat, spotty, greasy haired AND you have a thick Birmingham accent, there's not a lot to be smug about. But when you are one of the precious few who actually own a Commodore 64 then you have every right to be smug. In fact, the 64 actually came with the Commodore S1G Smug Git expansion pack pre-installed and ready to use and use it I did. To the max.

My first day at school after that grey slab o' fun came into my life was an absolute corker. The Easter break was over and I knew that most of the other kids would be none too chuffed to be back at school. I, on the other hand, couldn't wait to tell them about what I had been doing during those oh-so-short two weeks.

I had been reporting to Joystick Port Two for I was a Matrix Pilot. I had been fighting hordes of aliens, sending them back from whence they came, saving mankind from certain death and freeing the world from an extraterrestrial invasion.

And stuffing my face with chocolate, of course.

A Miner. From China. What could be finer? Maybe a sixty-niner… (That’s definitely enough
‘iner’ rhymes – Ed).

I was now also an intrepid explorer, a seeker of hidden treasures and untold riches. I was China Miner. Actually, to be perfectly honest, I was only nearly an intrepid explorer – if, that is, not being able to get off the first screen classes me as a ‘nearly’- anything. That game was hard. No, that game was bloody impossible. Back then and even now I'm not much of a hardcore gamer and I'll happily set the difficulty level to 'Wimp' every time. But China Miner was some sort of sick joke from a twisted mind. But, as it accounted for 50% of my games collection, I would still spend hours and hours trying to better my pathetic attempts and just occasionally catch a glimpse of Level Two.

So, the first day back at school and I didn't just charge in there shouting it out, letting the whole school know that I was now different from them. I chose to be much more subtle – pulling out the C64 Reference Guide during breaks. If you did something like that now you'd get mercilessly teased and called sad. Back then, ‘sad’ was a word used to describe girls who nobody would dance with at the school disco. Or was that ‘ugly’? So I sat there pretending to digest every word on every page – which was daft really as I'd already read the bloody thing from cover to cover many times. China Miner sessions were preceded by a twenty-minute loading time so I had to do something to occupy myself.

The best book ever written in the whole wide world. Apart from
maybe ‘Sinclair Spectrum – Introduction’.

Before long, word got round that I was indeed the proud owner of a C64. I greeted each inquisitive child with a smug grin and a "Yep, its true…". I basked in my smugness, because it was an entirely new feeling for me, and one I hoped would last forever. I now had friends – hundreds of them. They all wanted to come on over some time and see for themselves exactly what a proper keyboard looked like. Oh, the joys of being popular. Some of the other fortunate few came to find me to assess my potential for swapsies and even when they discovered I only had two games they wanted to keep in touch in case that situation changed.

At one point I looked over the crowd and straight into the enchanting deep blue eyes of the most beautiful girl in the school. Veronika Simpson (I shit you not) was the fittest girl you ever did see, and she was looking at ME! I believed, in my unrequited, love-struck fashion, that she was pointing me out to her friends as a popular guy who always had a throng surrounding him. A real cool guy – someone who she could see herself going out with and someone she could see herself kissing. In reality she was probably asking her mates why everyone was hanging round the fat Brummie.

Whilst enjoying my new-found feelings, someone came unto me to ask about my new toy, or so I thought. What he said struck fear into my heart and turned me back into the fat, spotty, greasy-haired kid who talked like Barry off Auf Weirdersen, Pet.

"Mickey Steggs is looking for you”, he said.

Mickey Steggs?

Looking for me?

Oh, shit.

Before they changed the way years are numbered, the fifth year was the last year of senior school unless you were a clever bastard who stayed on to do 'A' levels. Every school has hard kids – most have a kid in the fifth year who is the hardest kid in the whole school. Mickey Steggs was the hardest kid in the whole school – except he was in the third year. And now was looking for me. I was dead. I knew this already but it was confirmed when another kid in the group offered me some support by saying: "Can I have your 64 'cause you won't need it?"

I managed to avoid Mickey for the rest of the school day, but I had gone from elation to facing a fatwa. Veronika Simpson had looked at me, our eyes had met and now my life was about to end. How could there be such agony and ecstasy within so few hours? I was totally gutted and I was dreading Tuesday because Tuesday meant Games – never much fun with my physique, but Games also meant sixty minutes in the company of Mr M. Steggs, esquire.

”Got any cheats for Skool Daze, you little shit?”…
“Haha. This is SO ironic…”.

In the end, I didn't have to wait for Tuesday because Mickey was waiting for me outside the Spar shop I had to walk past on my way home. He was calmly smoking a cigarette and I was calmly shitting myself. It was as unavoidable as it was inevitable. I decided to get it over with so I walked up to him, a dead man walking. "You've been looking for me?" I croaked. He exhaled smoke through his nose, nodded and stared at me for about twenty-five years. He took another drag on his cigarette, looking every inch the hard man that he was.

"I'll lend you The Hobbit if you'll lend me Matrix," he said.

I nearly cried.

CIPPY, March 2004.

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