Fruit Machine Chat

I rarely find time to trawl round all the pubs in a town so I'm sure I avoid a lot of the horror locals but I'd have to nominate:

Walkabout Shaftesbury Avenue on a weekend night

Ridiculously crowded, almost impossible to get to the bar, hot and smelly and if you attempt to play the machine you are constantly barged and jostled. It was only to be attempted when there was a real Golden Tit machine present but I never ceased to be amazed that people (a) chose to go there at all for "fun" and (b) were happy to pay £5 for the privilege!

this pub was my last one with the £20 gift for clearing WU.

agreed that it is joyless and pongy in there, mind you, it is a walkabout and i can't think of any walkabout which is a jot better than dismal.

I went to the Walkabout on Shaftesbury Avenue at about 7.45pm a few Fridays ago (albeit I couldn't stay for longer than about twenty minutes). It was pretty quiet, free to get in, and I got served within about twenty seconds. All in all it was fine. And it has two machines, both of which are interesting in their way...

I think city-centre enormo-bars like the Walkabout chain are comfortably trumped in terms of unpleasantness by off-the-beaten-track local pubs in impoverished areas. There's a few of these I visit occasionally in north London and it's never particularly enjoyable. Such pubs are of course very joyless places but my least favourite aspect is the guilt I feel at going into a very obviously poor area and taking the hard-earned cash of local people out of the quiz machine. That's trumped, though, by the fact that very often such pubs have the most interesting (i.e. often the oldest) machines to be found nowadays.

From the annals (and quoting myself from a previous post..)

1. a rundown pub on the outskirts of Wigan when your driver is approached by a random derelict and accused of running illicit dogfights (the wino looked like he was involved in dogfighting, but in a more directly participatory manner).

2. A friend of mine was doing a machine in one of the more dubious areas of Edinburgh when a group of irate customers came over and physically lifted him from the machine and deposited him in the street outside. (The manager of another nearby bar also challenged him to a fight for doing his machine).

3. A tiny pub in a remote area of the Scottish Highlands (which I shall not name for legal reasons) which many years ago had a Concentration. It also had the strangest atmosphere of any pub I have ever been in. The interior looked like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe short story, and every one talked very sotto voce - which was very embarassing when the machine emptied itself of pound coins unexpectedly early on in the proceedings and a vast wad of 10ps proceeded to pour out. Many years later it was revealed in the press that the pub was in fact the meeting-place for a paedophile ring.

4. A friend of mine once took me on a machine-playing pub crawl in Birkenhead. Some quite remarkable establishments were "enjoyed".

grecian wrote:I think city-centre enormo-bars like the Walkabout chain are comfortably trumped in terms of unpleasantness by off-the-beaten-track local pubs in impoverished areas. There's a few of these I visit occasionally in north London and it's never particularly enjoyable. Such pubs are of course very joyless places but my least favourite aspect is the guilt I feel at going into a very obviously poor area and taking the hard-earned cash of local people out of the quiz machine. That's trumped, though, by the fact that very often such pubs have the most interesting (i.e. often the oldest) machines to be found nowadays.

I remember doing a machine in a bar right next to White Hart Lane and being rather embarrassed by it, simply because although the bar seemed decrepit, the locals were really friendly.

xyz

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edi ... 295024.stm

Used to have a Paragon (and did at the point of that news report). Seen worse on my travels, though.. (the establishment where a knife-wielding patron was "escorted" from the premises whilst I was on the machine was a goodie )

When Ernest and I played Shaftesbury Avenue Walkabout, titbox corner stank of wee and I swore that I saw a rat darting about a yard from our position.

^^ stinking...
Most pubs here i've played in seem to be fairly good, i normaly make a nice profit from machines but seem to spend it on booze and taxis lol ...

It's arcades that get me, i know i should stay well clear because im sure most machines are below the 70% mark espcially legal tender. i seen me put 40 quid in and not get a sniff...

had somebody challenge me to a fight. The moron was giving me hassle so I said to him everybody is born with a brain but its what you do with it that counts and by your attitude you patently have not done much.The publican interjected and thankfully ejected me before the buffoon showed me what he could do with his fists.

roberto la vigna wrote:When Ernest and I played Shaftesbury Avenue Walkabout, titbox corner stank of wee and I swore that I saw a rat darting about a yard from our position.

Haha.

I recall a pub which was so remote that it didn't appear to be connected to the main water supply; I believe the toilets were connected to a septic tank. The quiz machine was situated at the entry to the toilets - it was a serious effort of mind over matter to play it as the stench was horrendous.
Apart from that, it was actually quite a nice pub

Many years later it was revealed in the press that the pub was in fact the meeting-place for a 'paedophile ring'. Ive just noticed what an unfortunate juxtaposition of words!

cool wrote:had somebody challenge me to a fight. The moron was giving me hassle so I said to him everybody is born with a brain but its what you do with it that counts and by your attitude you patently have not done much.The publican interjected and thankfully ejected me before the buffoon showed me what he could do with his fists.

Fully believe it. I've had a publican take a swing at me.

cool wrote:Many years later it was revealed in the press that the pub was in fact the meeting-place for a 'paedophile ring'. Ive just noticed what an unfortunate juxtaposition of words!

Perhaps, but I think that's how it was described in the paper, heh.

xyz