Slots and Roses

I can't say I ever visited an amusement arcade in my own city or any other city I've ever visited.

They don't really suit modern day cities at all and besides 'Casinos' are really the grown up, city version of the 'slots'.

I've never in fact entered a casino (and it's far easier these days to do so), but every time I watch a Bond flick I'm inspired to don my Sunday best and waste a bit of money...I feel it's probably time I visit one, so I'll put this down on my ever expanding 'things to do in 2008' list.

In seaside towns I visit (unless it's Cornwall) I'm suddenly impelled to walk towards the flashing lights, the arrhythmic sirens and the uncouth post rave fairground music and spend a small sum mindlessly emptying bags of 2ps into the thin mouths of the slot monsters.  

Of course it's all very much of a scam, but it's a whole load of fun.  I love the 2p slots where you try and 'nudge' piles of teetering coppers off the edge and into your grubby little hands below.  To add to the game several cheapy toys are placed amongst the coppers and your brain (of which you lose control...it's a bit like Derron Brown in machine form) then locks onto the blighters until they eventually cascade to the descent below (and to be honest often get wedged in the contraption flap below).  What fun – you've just paid a mark up off 500% on a character key ring and left your eyes looking like a crack head who's just run the London marathon with a game of kerplunk tied to his ankles.  Like Fagan all those years before us,  at the end of the 'session' we collate all our swag together in a pile  - a shrine in fact to 5p toys our hands radiating the wrong stench of money.

I try the over 18 machines very rarely...I just do not understand them at all.  You see experts whistle up to them and flick their palms over nudge buttons and flashing chunks of electronics before, it they're lucky, causing the machine to ejaculate large amounts of money into the trough below.

I'll stick 10p in watch the wheels turn, wonder what the fuss is about then play the post 'Out Run' driving game.

In their true environment of the seaside, amusement arcades are palaces to cheap fun: the romance of the neon jamborees and the space jazz of the colliding musical messes, fire me into a corner of my brain I rather like.  As it stands, many of these places are closing down – forces beyond their control have dampened their spirit – the smoking ban has cleared a few but it's often cheaper to fly to other countries for your hols rather than stay at home.  Maybe these vivid towns can one day re invent themselves, but keeping their heart intact...stranger things have happened...now if I can only find a virtual 2p slots of my iPod I'll rest a lot easier.