I live in Nottingham. Ten years ago, that would have felt like a pointless confession. A statement that I'm neither rugged, sexy and friendly enough to be a Northerner, nor repulsive and pampered enough to be a cosseted, soggy Southerner. Just Nottingham: the bit of the Midlands that isn't defined by its accent. Until recently, it's never really felt defined by anything else, either. Nottingham. I mean, what even is it?
But there's been a strange reaction to Nottingham's absolute absence of a reputation - an urgently-marketed surge of council-funded feel-good, so stubbornly pushed that it feels like it's actually taking root. Ambivalent indifference, once the uniform attitude of locals and tourists alike, is having to share the bed with a mantra of local pride. Shops have appeared, selling mugs that say "Ayup, me duck". Anyone heard saying "Th'art a mard-arsed kid - e'll gie thee socks!" is presented with an EU grant for preserving local dialect. And after 10 years of GameCity cultivating a deserved reputation as the friendliest celebration of gaming culture, they've built the National Videogame Arcade.
One of the opening exhibitions is A History Of Videogames in 100 Objects. Now, I've written lists of a hundred things before, and I know how it goes - from 20 to 80, you're essentially putting anything in, just to make the numbers go up. But fair play to the curators. There are literally dozens, scores even, of interesting objects in the show. The problem is, they're not numbered. This severely limits the visitor's ability to say "I can't believe they put the Jet Set Willy DRM sheet at 22, and the Philips Videopac G7000 at 54. This list of a hundred things is completely biased and unscientific bulls***." Being angry at a list of a hundred things is what lists of a hundred things are about, you idiots.
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