I only ever met Jeff Minter once...
There was a computer game shop down a side street near Tottenham Court Road called "Pilot Games". When I was in University back in the mid 80's I wandered in one day. Usually it was bustling in there, but there was no-one to be seen... at all! Not even a shop keeper. I could hear lots of talking downstairs, so I made my way down into the cellar. There, sat at the keyboard of a shiny new Amiga A1000 was Jeff Minter, surrounded by a gang of lads all transfixed by the Amiga Juggler Demo.
I sat quietly at the back, hardly able to believe my luck, and thought that if I kept a low profile I'd get away with it, as this was clearly a private gathering. After watching some demos Jeff turned to everyone and said, "I'm starving... who's hungry?". There was a resounding "yes!" from everyone. Orders were then taken for McDonalds, embarrassingly me (the interloper) included!
We snaffled down Big Macs while we enjoyed loading up games and demos on the new Amiga, and then at a quiet moment I noticed a faint humming noise coming from the corner of the room, where lots of coats were piled up. I turned to the guy next to me and said, "...any idea what that noise is?". "Yeah" he said, "this is a U.S. Amiga. The U.K. ones aren't here yet, so the voltage converter is under all those coats - it's really noisy". "Won't it overheat?" I said. "Dunno... be funny if the coats catch fire though!" he replied.
Time went on and one by one people began to leave. I hung around, until finally there I was.. alone with the Amiga. I cheekily picked up a floppy disc and popped it into the drive. I wasn't sure what I was doing, and it kept asking for "The Kickstart Disc". At that point someone tapped me on the shoulder. He was a middle aged man wearing a cravat. "Do you know what the Kickstart disc is?" I asked politely. In a really camp voice he replied, "Who are you?". Nervously I said, "er... Tim Wright". He mulled that over for a moment and then said, "Sorry, never heard of you. Bugger off now there's a good chap." at which point he turned off the Amiga and stared at me. I sheepishly sloped up the stairs and out of the shop.
So, an embarrassing end to an otherwise great experience... but an amusing/naff claim to fame; "Jeff Minter once bought me a Big Mac!".
That has to rank alongside my other favourite; "I once went window shopping for a new kitchen table with Rick Astley", LOL!
If you didn't follow the links to Jeff's Vimeo page, I met him a few months after this was filmed... just to set the scene for you; http://www.vimeo.com/6515910
