Earlier this week I found myself having a conversation about Street Fighter, a conversation which would have bored me in 1991 when it was relevant but oddly in 2013, one I quite enjoyed. This came about whilst reminiscing with a friend, who popped up in the restaurant after I hadn’t seen her for a good 8-10 years, when she mentioned her upcoming birthday party had a Street Fighter theme(Heston and Gordon definitely nip on to the floor for quick chats about Sonic or Zelda throughout the night).
DAN WINS… (Which is a bit tight as it’s Laura’s night really)
Normally I hate fancy dress and all it stands for, although I quite liked the idea of this one, original and old school(throw in a ‘devilishly handsome’ and you could easily be describing me). Also, and please Laura no offence this is merely the observation of an elder statesman befuddled by the modern world, having seen pictures on the Facebook of her and her chap engaging in their ‘Steampunk’ering* I was confident they’d be looking to a higher standard of fancy dress than your average Mankini clad stag do invading the local.
Anyway, on the odd occasion I played Street Fighter(the MegaDrive was all about spending a week painstakingly renaming AC Milan’s team as Altrincham players and then whipping United, Barcelona and Juventus in mini tournaments on Sensible Soccer**) I generally got bored after a couple of fights or would just spend an hour trying every character but mastering none. My main issue with it and similar games was the whole ‘Left, Right, X, Right Hold, Down’… “Wahey! I gave him a Chinese burn” thing. I couldn’t remember any of the combinations. Which meant that when Barry Skellern wanted to play he’d whip me every time. Generally using one of the girls and probably eating a pack of Skips at the same time.
And now like a well delivered Left, Down, A, A, Right, Up (Dhalsim’s Yoga Teleport)(possibly)(could actually have been how Skellern made his lady characters put lip gloss on while I made Blanka roll off the wrong side of the screen, again) we arrive at my point, back then I couldn’t remember the combinations and therefore the special moves and therefore Street Fighter was rubbish, but now I reckon I would be phenomenal.
Why? Well I’ve been training. Not training with the acne riddled oiks at the bus station arcade you understand, I have done all my training at home, and not a NES in sight. For it occurs to me that having just returned from a midnight jaunt to the little girls room(only chap in the house remember) that I did not make a sound going up or down the world’s creakiest stairs(we live in the late 1950’s and only have a downstairs toilet, but I can honestly say I don’t miss an upstairs one)(this is largely because I am a massive liar). My Street Fighter prowess is obviously strong now as after nearly two years of trying not to wake The Child(s) I have finally trained myself to go down the stairs edge, edge, right, edge, far side(corner step), left, left, right, edge, edge to avoid the creaks. Hadouken!!!!
The Wife is, by contrast, still rolling Blanka the wrong way off the screen, so my nimbleness and muscle memory is generally pointless.
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Apology: On behalf of everyone involved in being me, I would like to apologise to Laura for wrongly labelling the chap with her in the top picture as Ryu, I have brought shame on myself and Barry Skellern and I shall refrain from any future popular culture references without first “Googling it man. Obvs!” (Whatever that means)
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* Steampunk appears to involve dressing up as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang extras and patrolling the National Railway Musuem which, although I assume there’s a bit more to it, sounds like a marvellous way to spend a Sunday afternoon… Apart from the dressing up bit.
** The key swaps where Franco Baresi to Paul France, Ruud Gullit to Dave Esdaille(although this flattered Esdaille to be fair, but I could never work out how to change the players… errr… ‘tone’) and most bizarrely Marco Van Basten to Ian Tunnacliffe, which was a remarkable transformation on so many levels, not least because it gave Tunna a smaller turning circle than a barge for the only time in his career.
A Father Of Daughters 