Forgive me father, for I have sinned. For I did steal to fund my weaknesses, and I have worshipped false gods, ones that rain’d fire onto my Promethean rock, digitally revived, only to be torn apart again and again in the endless Pantheon of a Welsh summer. I have had impure thoughts too, about Chun Li as she lay defenceless in a semi-Capcoma. Amen.

It started off small, in the way that crime often does, at the Black Cat arcade, in Towyn, Rhyl. That was where we spent our holidays every year at the Ty Mawr or Happy Valley caravan park. Some years it didn't rain every day. Once I remember having to wade through 18 inches of floodwater to reach our caravan, strains of Blondie’s “the Tide is High,” wailing ironically through the camp speakers.

What? We can’t even spell “gratuitous”. Oh wait, yes we can…

The sea was full of jellyfish and grey turds, if you looked really close you could tell the difference. Bees, (pigeons in rugby shirts, Dad would declare, as he sent another Daily Mirror skywards with long flailing strokes) would harangue you the length of the sea wall, sending you and your cornetto windmilling down a ridiculous concrete incline, to the knee-skinning mercy of shingle below.

Needless to say, the pursuit of indoor activity was crucial, or you ended up playing swingball in the rain. Or "go-fish" in six-berth paisley misery. So the arcade it was; which suited me just fine.

The eldest of five, with three younger brothers and one sister each no more than a year or two apart (mum and dad must've played vatican roulette a fair bit, and lost.) meant I got two pounds a day to fritter away as I saw fit. The older two of the brothers hung around, their measly allocation quickly expended on something frivolous like candy floss, or a toffee apple, whilst I avidly stalked the arcade floor, twenty tens tap-tapping the inside of my trousered thigh like a silver stalk-on.

“Here you go kid, now fuck off and stop bothering me.”

Cabinets grabbed me and wouldn't let go. The spirit-crushing Defender or as I quickly came to think of it : "Mister Solid-Bollocks." The thumb-bloodying frenzy that was Track and Field. The what-the-vector-saw gogglesomeness of Battlezone. I’d emerge, pupils bleeding blue ichor, days later, grab my donut-sated siblings and return to the caravan, swatting giant bees as we went. (I swear we actually carried a dinghy paddle for this express purpose)

So what was so dishonest about that, you ask? Well, the truth is, there’s no way two quid was gonna last very long, and I certainly didn’t pack the kind of skills that could make a 10p last forever. The reality was, that within a breathtakingly short amount of time I was as skint as the little runts trying to eke out an airless game from the hockey table next to the sit-down phoenix cab.

So, middle brother Andy, who we affectionately referred to as “bony freak” or just plain “bone” was persuaded to make the penny falls machine vomit silver with a well-aimed hip (timed with the bingo calls to drown out the sound of pelvis on steel.) Or, if the coins were really hanging over the edge, a Biafran-slim arm up its bakelite quim. No alarm see, and Andy was admirably qualified, possessing nothing thicker than a layer of beige cling-film over the entirety of his skeleton. Fortunately, the guy in the change kiosk seemed to be dying of terminal disinterest, or perhaps Copper poisoning, which rendered any further diversion unnecessary.

Two years later, and my other brother Steve, who would have been about 11 at the time, was laid low for months with some kind of kidney infection. Before long, he had the ultimate lead-swingers accolade - a bed downstairs, a regular order of Lucozade from the "pop-man" and - sweet nirvana - the long school-less days mitigated not, as you might expect, by extra homework or private tuition, but by the purchase of an Atari 2600, with a single game: Pac-man. You can guess he was soon a whiz, effortlessly dodging wave after wave of meanies, pausing only to have more cream slapped on his bed sores, or to empty his bladder in the pot provided. We hardly got a look in as he high-scored his way to gaming supremacy. If only I, - I mean he - hadn’t doctored his piss with Vimto, and got packed back off to school, lord knows what dizzy heights he would have attained.

And so father, I did covet my brother’s Atari VCS2600, and yea, did steal three games, in successive weeks from the Rumbelows purveyor of family entertainment, doubtless causing them thereafter to take all the carts out of the boxes, thence securing them in sturdy glass cabinets.

Oh look! Another Atari thief. Yes, it's Bruno Chairman of 'Atari'.

As a trainee accounts clerk at a Steel stockholders just outside Manchester, twenty quid was a week’s wages in 1980. I knew it was wrong, but the lure was too great, and again, the same flat soul-less gaze from the myopic sales assistant, who might easily have been the kiosk guy in drag made it all-too-easy. Even as I dashed out, blushing furiously with the plastic slab of sin tucked into the waistband of my Farah’s I knew I’d be back. And so it was, that in the fullness of time. Centipede, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Pole Position all broke bread with us at the table.

For a while, the lust was kept under control, thanks to the conventional acquisition of goods beyond the normal reach of my paltry income – the Grattan catalogue. From this hallowed bible, came VIC-20 and his superior cousin C64. VIC had Mr. Punch and Bongo (programmed by the never-to-be-forgotten Udo Gertz) but C64 had Jet Set Willy, Boulder Dash, Operation Wolf and Defender of the Crown. I had also found a new job, equally boring, but with “proper” wages, which paid for games and Tudor pickled onion crisps.

But my life on the straight and narrow couldn’t last, and 105 weeks at £5.42 a week is a long time in gaming purgatory. It is here that I attempt, somewhat feebly, to justify my actions. Since about the age of 12, I’d had the only kind of acne that could make you look a Columbian crack pimp at that age, leaving one with some vague plutonian landscape for a face, and a social acceptability rating of “Aargh!” Cystic acne, as my diminutive Indian quack would scrawl on each prescription. “Take these twice a week, and try and get some sun.” Its fucking Manchester mate, not Mustique.

View from the Arndale, just outside Thomas Cook’s window…

I’d be well into my late twenties before the miracle of Roaccutane™ banished the dread chancre forever. Although intrinsically sad, this meant never having to say Sorry, I can’t come to my niece’s stupid christening. Instead, this week I’ll be mostly playing Arkanoid – Revenge of D’oh, in a dark room full of empty coke tins. Taken as read, short of an iron mask, I wouldn’t be making any public appearances much before Miami Vice audition for a new Puerto Rican sergeant or they make Noriega – The Musical. In the meantime, whatever new bit of kit came out that meant I could lock the door and forget, had to be mine, see? My precious. Craved, in the same way Quasimodo craved Esmerelda, or the ubiquitous Gollum, his golden trinket. And I didn’t care if it was within my means or not. I had to have it because I was ugly and blighted and cursed and it was beautiful and shiny and magical.

And not content with my lot, father, I did stray from the path of the righteous man, falling into bad company with the false prophet Amiga, embezzling from petty cash, the sum of three hundred and ninety nine pounds ninety nine pence to secure the price of his allegiance. And knelt I at his altar, uncaring of the vengeance of auditors, nor of expulsion into the wilderness of unemployment by my own reckless and wicked hand.

Of course I am now all growed up and suitably ashamed of these past indiscretions. Besides which, a nice income allows me to indulge most gaming whims without forging any dark alliances. And I finally took the docs advice and the kids to Florida this year. Luckily the arcade was on free play, which eliminated any potentially tricky contortions. Just as well really, Andy's a 16 stone roofer now.

Didn't see many bees though. Waste of time taking the paddle. Bah.

F0ZZ, February 2004.

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Things to 'Make' and 'Do'.

Its only fucking still there - visit the happy vally caravan park in Rhyl.

Bee Prepared. Learn how to avoid attack by killer bees. Please, please scroll down to the fantastic panel of 'Bee Tips' - you can't write comedy that good.

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