The story of the British amusement arcade from the 1800s to the present. Amusement arcades are an important part of British culture, yet discussions of them tend to be based on American models. Alan Meades, who spent his childhood happily playing in British seaside arcades, presents the history of the arcade from its origins in traveling fairs of the 1800s to the present. Drawing on firsthand accounts of industry members and archival sources, including rare photographs and trade publications, he tells the story of the first arcades, the people who made the machines, the rise of video games, and the legislative and economic challenges spurred by public fears of moral decline. Arcade Britannia highlights the differences between British and North American arcades, especially in terms of the complex relationship between gambling and amusements. He also underlines Britain’s role in introducing coin-operated technologies into Europe, as well as the industry’s close links to America and, especially, Japan. He shows how the British arcade is a product of centuries of public play, gambling, entrepreneurship, and mechanization. Examining the arcade’s history through technological, social, cultural, biographic, and legislative perspectives, he describes a pendulum shift between control and liberalization, as well as the continued efforts of concerned moralists to limit and regulate public play. Finally, he recounts the impact on the industry of legislative challenges that included vicious taxation, questions of whether copyright law applied to video-game code, and the peculiar moment when every arcade game in Britain was considered a cinema.

The most complete guide to every artist and album that has ever charted in the UK Album chart, with details on over 14,800 albums and biographies on every one of the 3,180 acts that have appeared since the chart first started in 1958. From a Top Ten in 1958, the album chart has grown in both size and stature over the years. Increased to a Top Twenty in 1960, the chart grew to a Top 30 by 1966, a Top 40 later that year, a Top 50 in 1971, a Top 75 in 1978 and a Top 100 in 1981. By 1989, when compilation albums and soundtracks were a major factor in the chart, a decision was taken to produce two charts; a Top 75 artist chart and a Top 20 compilation chart. Every single entry on all these charts is included in Collins Complete UK Hit Albums. 3,180 acts have registered just over 11,300 hit albums; also listed are the approximately 3,500 soundtracks and compilation albums that have also hit the charts. Hit Singles: a brief biography of each of the 3,180 or so artists who have had hit albums, details of BPI awards, Platinum Europe awards and RIAA Diamond awards and details of BRIT, Grammy awards and US Number Ones. Just as with the single chart, the album chart is not without its peculiarities and so you will learn of the album that took nearly four years to hit the number one spot, the album by Sigur Ros that had no title as opposed to that by Fiona Apple which registered the longest title (all 89 words), the artists whose chart career consists of a single week at position 100 as opposed to Fleetwood Mac's Rumours which has spent 477 weeks on the chart, including one week at number one.