The Software Piracy Chronicles of Slobberchops – Part One

If you read The Kwiksave Chronicles of Slobberchops , then I can tell you this is going to be in a similar vein to that series. Yeah, it's going to go on and on and maybe never end. Ready?

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Writing my latest Focus on music article kind of brought the past back to me again, and got me thinking I should write about what a bad lad I was once.

Like many I was once a Software Pirate. That's not unusual in itself but I have a few stories to tell about what happened, and I'll try and not bore you all to tears.

Sometime in 1983, I bought myself an Atari 800 Home Computer. This was to be my third computer after owning a Sinclair ZX81 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

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The nightmare that I remember as 'Kwiksave' did have a hand in this actually. While working at the aformentioned torture house... Sid, the good-natured greengrocer was very aware that ‘I knew my stuff’ when it came to home computers, and gave me the number of a fellow Atari enthusiast in Manchester of all places.

Sid was completely computer illiterate so where he got this information from I really don’t know, and I didn't question him.

I can't remember the details of the first telephone contact I had with this character named 'Pete', only that I scheduled a visit to his place in deepest Whalley Range, a suburb none too far from the infamous Moss Side.

Moss Side in the 1980s was regarded as a place to keep away from. It was full of those high rise flats that were built in the late '60s that proved to be somewhat of a failed experiment.

This is similar to what the flats looked like, though this one is being demolished.

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Drugs, Knifings, Muggings, and Rape were only too common as well as the occasional Riot.

Not a problem to the young @slobberchops! My danger sense was close to zero when I was young like most people.

I needed to catch a bus from central Manchester to Whalley Range, a route that would take me right through Moss Side.

While waiting, a young bloke sat right next to me, in fact far too close for my liking and whispered, ‘You're in my way'.

I hastily shuffled along the bench a little, only to find this bloody weirdo shuffling up to me AGAIN!

‘You’re in my way’, he said this time with a little more urgency.

I’m in his way? What the hell is this bloke on?

I got up and quickly walked away giving him a funny look but remaining silent. People were strange in this city; I knew that from visits previously and I don't react particularly well when put on the spot.

At this point, ‘strange bloke' also rose from the bench and walked off in what looked like a huff much to my relief.

What the hell was all that about?

I took me several weeks to realise, ‘You’re in my way’ = ‘You’re gay’.

Like some others I know, I have a very poor Gaydar. I have since looked this expression up on the internet but to no avail but let’s face it, it makes perfect sense.

The route through ‘gangland’ was uneventful and considering this was Sunday morning around 9.30am it's no surprise. I wouldn’t have liked to have walked around though even that early.

I disembarked the bus and found my way to 79 Darnley Street quite easily and stopped. This was a butcher’s shop; did I have the wrong address?

There was no mobile phone's in 1984, so I did what everyone did then and started banging on the door.

It didn’t take too long for an upstairs window to open and a bloke’s head appeared. He looked astonishingly like a mature Jimmy Greaves and peered down looking quizzically at me.

As if remembering something he simply stated, ‘@slobberchops?’

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This is Jimmy Greaves in 1961; add 23 years to him and it's the man hanging from the window.

‘Yeah’, I shouted.

‘Give me a few minutes.’

'Pete' opened the door after around five minutes. He looked disheveled and older than I expected. ‘This bloke is 40 something', I remember thinking. He was severely balding, unshaven but had a friendly grin and appeared inviting.

It was a little strange to find someone ‘so old’ who was a fellow pirate and enthusiast in 1984. This was a teenager or young person thing.

‘Old people’ usually said the same thing, ’I don’t understand all these computer things’.

With an internal shrug, I entered the butcher's shop and followed Pete upstairs. The shop stank of meat and was a little unpleasant but the odour quickly dissipated by the time we were on the upper floor.

There were just three rooms on the this floor it seemed, a bedroom, bathroom, and the computer room. Pete lived alone and I was to find out in a very short period of time that he too was gay, just like the weirdo at the bus station.

Just what I had I let myself in for?

To be continued...

All images have been cited and are under the catagory 'Labelled for Reuse'
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