Liverpool Stories
The stories on this site are not included in my book.
The tales are snapshots of my life in Liverpool, the home of the Beatles, and the echo chamber of the Mersey Sound that in the sixties resonated around the planet like an acoustic Tsunami. The stories cover a period of 50 odd years and so they touch on every aspect of my life from the rites of passage to the passing of youth. I hope you enjoy them.
Chips with everything - Space invaders
By
John Williams
I was present at the birth of Liverpool's microchip revolution. Actually, I was in the Masonic in Berry Street at the time, having a pint. I used to go there because I was guaranteed a great game of pool as the majority of the players were Liverpool born Afro-Caribbeans and they were all hot shots. There was always a queue to play and so the guys tried every shot in the book to stay at the table because to lose meant waiting hours for another chance.
My game improved enormously and I even learned how to counter the braggadocio of my competitors who confidently sashayed around the table like Paul Newman in his pomp. Whenever it looked like I was about to lose I would ostentatiously lay down my cue and affect deep resignation. The effect was often dramatic as my puzzled opponent, faced with my abject surrender and therefore his certain victory, often muffed the final shot. That was my cue to step up to the green baize and deliver the coup de gras.
One evening I went to the pub with expectations of the usual Saturday night thriller and instead found myself watching in bemusement as my erstwhile opponents queued impatiently for a shot at the latest addition to the place, Space Invaders. Well, they had certainly invaded my space because I couldn't find a single opponent all evening. The onetime Pool wizards were all playing Space Invaders and were bringing to bear all of their insouciant skills as they attacked the alien craft with a vengeance. For me it was a new and expensive learning curve as I lost game after game to the pixillated battle cruisers. The speed of the Galactic conquest was staggering. One day Pool was king, the next it was just a poor pretender.
Now nobody would ever describe Pool as a sport, anymore than they would call knitting erotic, but at least the players got a bit of exercise stomping around the table. Computer games heralded the day when portly young men would no longer be isolated or ridiculed by their football playing peers. Instead, couch potatoes, by sheer weight of numbers, would become mainstream. I know whole crops of them, most of them so young that they can only be called new or early potatoes.
It isn't just children who are caught up in the microchip maelstrom. In my own household the only person not in thrall to the silicon revolutionaries is my wife. Ostensibly that is, because she needs her calculator to add up her marking after exams, the mobile phone, to which she is at times welded, and the digital television.
I myself spend so much time on my PC that my boys have drawn a most unflattering cartoon depicting me as simply a rear view of a head and a monitor. I say unflattering because it is reminiscent of the view I get when the barber insists on holding up his mirror to present me with an unsolicited view of my thinning crown. It doesn't matter how much I tip him he still forces me to confront the unpalatable truth, that I will never be offered the job of being a Roger Daltrey look alike. Before you suggest Elton John, I can't play the piano.
At this very moment my youngest child is engrossed in his Gameboy and the arcane mysteries of Pokemon. He is also conducting a running commentary concerning the 'evolution' of his Pokemon characters. If I hear how 'Hoothoot' evolved in 'Noctowl' once more I think I'll go mad. Saved by the bell, the microwave has just pinged, announcing the evolution of my curry from 'Frozano' to 'Volcano'! Thank God for technology!