Postcard from Norfolk – Amusements

My friends have car pets. A stuffed toy pig and a stuffed toy donkey. When they give me a lift anywhere it normally takes me between thirty and fifty seconds to annoy them by simulating intercourse between the two and speculating about the resulting pigley or donig.

They have decided that I need some car pets too, as the assorted coffee cups, old newspapers and magazines and paperbacks that adorn any of the flat surfaces of my car are not, they think, conducive to soothing travel. I point out to them that I am a bloke and that a glove compartment full of wine gums is of much gather importance to me than a soft toy, but grudgingly admit that in a snoozing emergency, a car pet can play the part of a piggy pillow.

So it's off into Hunstanton to win some car pets which is, I soon discover, nothing but a very thin excuse to visit the amusement arcade on the seafront. Mo properly, the amusements are on the stub, which I believe is the correct technical term for the area where the pier joined the esplanade, until salt corrosion and a particularly stormy night turned Hunstanton's premier attraction into a scrap metal bonanza.

I love amusement arcades and, at this one a little bit of Vegas comes to Hunstantion. A very little bit. The arcade is small, but they have managed to fill it with a truly fit-inducing collection of machines that flash, beep and chirp.


There are many varieties of the traditional seaside game here. Like the grab claw, except you have to win an arcade game first before you can activate the claw. It was actually a lot of fun, and not a little tense because the skill was to try and wring at least thirty seconds enjoyment from the machine for your fifty pee. I was concentrating so hard that I forgot to breath, it was great.

There were also the traditional copper falls, where the suspicion is that they use magnets so strong this is where the guys at CERN came to study. I was, for a shirt time, in the grip of 'copper madness' (not the medical complaint suffered by those who steal signalling equipment and suffer one electric shock too many as a result but rather a delight in seeing your two pee start a little fall of coppers), with my pot of two pences and my stupid gambler's grin.


They obviously believe in starting them young here, as helpfully the management had provided stools for toddlers to stand on and gamble away their parents' benefits. It's a shame though that even standing on a stool, the kids are not quite on eye level with the tiny 'gamble aware' signs that adorn the gloomier corners of the arcade.


It did make you wonder though, with the prizes in the copper falls constituting mostly of lollies, sweets and branded children's television character toys, if the amusement is not being a wee bit cynical. Are they exploiting children, or is a casino for toddlers actually quite cool?

Nope, it's sinister.

Of course, there is the suspicion that the professions wait Neil you have loaded the copper falls to the point where the bloody thing has to pay out big time...but stubbornly refuses to, and then swoop in when you huff off in disgust. Nothing adds to that arcade experience quite like hearing a waterfall of coin and the whoops of delight of somebody winning on the machine you just vacated. There should be a technical term for it but until I learn it 'coinbagging' will have to do.

It was, though, tremendous fun. OK so the falls are probably rigged but how much fun were they? And for a quid you could have about ten minutes entertainment, longer if you win. And I finally know what to do with all of my loose change. The days of carefully bagging it up and heading to the bank to change it up, or of using one of those machines in the supermarket that charge you the sort of commission normally associated with boutique merchant banks to change it into notes are over. From now on I am taking all my coins to the arcade on my annual holiday, the only flaw in the plan being that I'll need the money to pay for the petrol to get my consequently heavier car there.

Finally, once you stagger out into the sunshine after gambli the afternoon away in the beeping twinkly arcade of delight, you can continue the Vegas theme by going to Anzam’s seaside boutique for your hooker shoes.