Inevitably, we ended up in an amusement arcade.
As well as the modern video games and penny-pushers, there were some vintage machines, and I had a reading by a mechanical fortune-teller. A little card popped out telling me that I was well balanced, happy-go-lucky and popular wherever I go.
I was very pleased with this but Wilson, being a bit of an expert on the psychic readings game, was sceptical of the result, telling me that there were basic errors in the Cold Reading algorithms of the machine, and that one only had to look at me to see that I was a born worrier and I'd never be popular wherever I went. 'I'm sorry, New Dad, but sometimes I have to be cruel to be kind!'
W had a go himself, and his card said that he was cute, cuddly and loveable, enthusiastic and shrewd, a born leader and businessman. He told me that this was a fair and unbiased assessment of his character, and maybe the machine had started working properly by the time he put his 20p in.
On the way out, W complained to the lady in the Change Kiosk that the instructions on the Automatic Palmistry machine should be changed to read "Hold hand or paw firmly down…" She narrowed her eyes and told W, 'Dogs aren't allowed in the arcade.'
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