CLIVE GAMMON

Anglophile friends abroad, going on as usual about the glories of the English pub, rarely fail to mention how much they love pub games. What they mean is lined, wise old faces bent over timeless games of crib or dominoes, subjects of many a prize winning entry in local Camera Club exq hibitions. Such pubs and faces no doubt exist, but not significantly in my own ex-i perience of boozers. In these, two pastimes predominate. Darts, of course; noisy, div

tractingly active groups of very slow drin-. kers pre-empting far too much of the limited floor space of the bar; and, a solitary plea- sure up against the wall, the one-armed bandit.

A poor thing it is, too, the normal pub bandit, paying out ludicrous jackpots in-

sufficient to cover the cost of a small gin- and-tonic on the twice-weekly occasions when they are won. Even I, usually in-4

capable of resisting the appeal of a gleaming, well-lit bandit, turn away from them in pubs, though, on one occasion only, I came across an even more miserly set-up.

This was in Copenhagen in the company of an irascible man. a Colonel Williams.

While I was buying the two lagers that our budget permitted, Williams made a dis- covery. Excitedly he said to me, 'I've found the only bargain in Denmark! The bandits here take ten-ore* pieces.' He fed the machine some. As in a fairy tale, it coughed musically and spewed out a great hoard of coins for which we scrabbled on the floor. They were just tokens, but, as Williams pointed out, at least we could buy a couple of bottles of akkavit with them.

Oh, no. The proud descendant of the Vik- ings behind the bar said, In Denmark. all gambling is forbidden. You may put these tokens back in the machine. That is all you may do with them.'

I could see that Williams was on the verge of demonstrating a clear alternative, so 1 held him back. He had to content with snarling, 'We should have never liberated this bloody country.' But he came into his reward last year in the Bahamas, where he found a machine which worked without money being put in it. He milked it of $130 before it ran out. When he got home he tele- phoned me and said, found an unarmed bandit.'

It's getting harder and harder to find the good old-fashioned type of bandit these days, the mechanical kind with the big lever you have to pull, and a polished Indians head on the front that you rub for luck. The international conspiracy that specialises in fouling things up (remember what straw- berries and new potatoes used to taste like before they got to work?) has had them re- placed by the computer-like electric ones where the plums and cherries move so fast that there is only a split second of ten- sion. What's more, these new ones gobble the money too quickly. In the old, sporting days, it took quite a long time to lose ten shillings, often as much as half an hour. and, if you were in a sizeable syndicate, oc- casionally the whole of lunchtime. In a club, of course. Pub bandits are comparatively recent, pallid things.

One had the feeling also that one could influence the result on the old machines by careful manipulation of the handle. I had (and am still ready to employ, given the chance) two basic techniques.

The first was to bring the handle down very slowly, with a loving, .intui- tive feel for the cogs. This was very good for dropping a significant symbol into the right window when it had been stubbornly hovering above. The other was for em- ployment in the all too frequent sequences when ill-omened plums and oranges fell consistently into the first window. It was a violent, crashing. one-movement pull de- signed to throw the machine out of its ob- stinacy, and very often it worked.

It seems odd, therefore, that I can only remember actually winning the jackpot twice. Once it was for £4, the other time for .tt heady £6. And of course trendy lovers of the new machines will tell you correctly that You stand to win much more on them.

They miss the point, of course, As in all the best sports, it's not winning that counts.

• It's playing the game.

*Equivalent to just over one new penny.