...well, as the subject says. I'm in London, which I haven't been for almost a decade now. So I'm a bit rusty. Now, back when I used to visit a bit more frequently, there was this place up off Notting Hill Gate called "Computer and Video Games exchange", part of the general "Exchange"-sort-of-franchise-series of second hand shops for most any sort of goods on the planet, which was a mecca for retro nerds of my kind - I.e. the kind who won't care about mint packaging or street value, but will jump at the chance to snag a godawful piece of weird crap just because it is weird. The perfect place if you want to get your mitts on a Commodore 16 or a homebuilt half-functioning kit computer from the seventies, or...
ANYWAYS...For those of you who are a little more local - Is it still there? Or is there any other place of similar ilk that I, being a cross between a hamster, a nerd and a retro fanatic, ought to visit?
Those Exchange stores, by the way, are/were very close to my ideal of the "crap shop". This is not in any way derogatory - They were fantastic! Room after room full of the most surprising mixture of crap, crud and gold. You went into one of them, say the Musical Instruments Exchange, went up stairs and through rooms and across piles, and suddenly you found yourself getting out of the Music and Video exchange instead, carrying a snare drum stand and a scratched vinyl copy of "Welcome to the pleasure dome". Excellent.
ANYWAYS...For those of you who are a little more local - Is it still there? Or is there any other place of similar ilk that I, being a cross between a hamster, a nerd and a retro fanatic, ought to visit?
Those Exchange stores, by the way, are/were very close to my ideal of the "crap shop". This is not in any way derogatory - They were fantastic! Room after room full of the most surprising mixture of crap, crud and gold. You went into one of them, say the Musical Instruments Exchange, went up stairs and through rooms and across piles, and suddenly you found yourself getting out of the Music and Video exchange instead, carrying a snare drum stand and a scratched vinyl copy of "Welcome to the pleasure dome". Excellent.