Mechanical Memories Magazine

Issue: 2012-December - Issue 71

Editorial
Hello, and welcome to the last magazine in 2012. As usual, it will probably be late,
although I'm hoping you'll at least receive it before Christmas.
So, another year has flown by, and what a crap year it turned out to be!
Remember the lovely weather we enjoyed back in March? Little were we to know
then that that was as good as it was going to get. From April on, it was completely
downhill. I remember being open one weekend at Brighton during July, thinking how
surreal it was to see everyone wondering around in winter coats and scarves in the
middle of what should have been summer.
And talking of Brighton, I bet you're all thinking, "He's going to start moaning
now!" Well, no. It's nearly Christmas - the season of goodwill, so I shall save the
moaning for another time (not that I have any goodwill to share with Brighton, or in
particular, the mentally disabled lunatics who run the local authority). Suffice to say,
unless a new site comes up in the next month or so, I shall probably still be there next
year. Anyway, I shall go into more detail in the New Year, when I plan to publish an
over-view of vintage penny arcades and their future.
However, 2012 wasn't all bad news - what about our auction? Yes, it would
appear that once again the annual slotties' bash was a great success and enjoyed by all.
Many thanks for all the emails and 'phone calls - it took so long answering them all,
that it' s made the magazine late! (OK, very poor excuse, I know) . See centre pages for
more on the auction.
So, with 2012 nearly over, Sharron and I wish you all a merry Christmas and a very
happy New Year.
Until 2013, all the best
Jerry
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Dreamland
MA RGATE
Save Dreamland Update December 2012
We're delighted to pre-announce our forthcoming presentation of Tim Hunkin and his
Under the Pier Show at Turner Contemporary in Margate as part ofGEEK 2013.
Tim Hunkin is an engineer, cartoonist, writer and artist. He is best known for
creating the Channel 4 television series, The Secret Life of Machines, in which he
explains the workings and history of various household devices. For 15 years Tim
produced the cartoon strip, The Rudiments of Wisdom, for the Observer newspaper.
More recently Tim has been building interactive museum exhibits, curating and
designing exhibitions and has designed numerous public engineering works, chiefly
for entertainment.
GEEK (Games Expo East Kent) is the biggest retro gaming festival in the UK.
We are very interested in telling people about our gaming heritage from its pre-home
entertainment days when the only place to play your fave game was in an amusement
arcade.
Surprisingly very little has been written about the history of amusement arcades
despite their far flung success (I would of course recommend my own book, Pennies
by the Sea from 2006!), so we 've invited Tim to give a visual talk about the history of
the amusement arcade and his ten year long obsession with creating his own
amusement arcade of home-made machines on Southwold Pier in Suffolk.
Times, dates and venues will be posted on the GEEK2013 website at:
http://www.geek2013.co.uk
PROJECT UP-DATE
Last month Jacobs Engineers returned to the Dreamland site to complete a survey on
the condition of the Scenic Railway and Japanese Knotweed was removed from
underneath the structure.
Thanet District Council has now lodged a request for an expedited hearing of the
CPO judicial review - if this is approved we may have a hearing date early next year.
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