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Nostalgia Fuels UK Boom in Vintage Video Game Repairs

Retro video games and consoles are displayed at the headquarters of RetroSix in Stoke-on-Trent, England on April 1, 2025. (AFP)
Retro video games and consoles are displayed at the headquarters of RetroSix in Stoke-on-Trent, England on April 1, 2025. (AFP)
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Nostalgia Fuels UK Boom in Vintage Video Game Repairs

Retro video games and consoles are displayed at the headquarters of RetroSix in Stoke-on-Trent, England on April 1, 2025. (AFP)
Retro video games and consoles are displayed at the headquarters of RetroSix in Stoke-on-Trent, England on April 1, 2025. (AFP)

The shelves lining Luke Malpass's home workshop are a gamer's treasure trove stretching back decades, with components of vintage Game Boys, Sega Mega Drives and Nintendos jostling for space and awaiting repair.

Parcels from gamers seeking help arrive from around the world at RetroSix, Malpass's Aladdin's cave.

He has turned a lifelong passion for gaming into a full-time job, answering the common question of what to do with old and worn machines and their parts.

"I think it can be partly nostalgic," said Malpass, 38, as he surveyed the electronics stacked at his home in the central English city of Stoke-on-Trent.

He said the huge revival in retro games and consoles is not just a passing phase.

"Personally, I think it is the tactile experience. Getting a box off the shelf, physically inserting a game into the console... it makes you play it more and enjoy it more."

Electronic devices and accessories, some dating back to the 1980s and the dawn of the gaming revolution, await to be lovingly restored to life.

Malpass has between 50 to 150 consoles needing attention at any one time, at a cost of between £60 ($78) and several hundred pounds.

It's not just nostalgia for a long-lost childhood.

He believes it's also a way to disconnect, unlike most online games which are now multi-player and require skills honed over long hours of practice to reach a good level.

"Retro gaming -- just pick it up, turn it on, have an hour, have 10 minutes. It doesn't matter. It's instant, it's there, and it's pleasurable," he told AFP.

With vintage one-player games "there's no one you're competing against and there's nothing that's making you miserable or angry".

Malpass, who is a fan of such games as "Resident Evil" and "Jurassic Park", even goes so far as to buy old televisions with cathode-ray tubes to replicate more faithfully his experience of playing video games as a kid.

Video clips he films of his game play, which he publishes to his YouTube channel, have won him tens of thousands of followers.

"I think people are always going to have a natural passion for things that they grew up with as a child.

"So I think we'll always have work. It'll evolve. And it won't be, probably, Game Boys," Malpass said.

"There's always going to be something that's retro."

This week a survey organized by BAFTA, the British association that honors films, television, and video games, voted the 1999 action game "Shenmue" as the most influential video game of all time.

"Doom", launched in 1993, and "Super Mario Bros.", in which Mario first started trying to rescue Princess Peach way back in 1985, came in second and third place.

And on Wednesday, Nintendo unveiled details of its long-awaited Switch 2 console.

It includes new versions of beloved favorites from the Japanese giant -- "Mario Kart World" and "Donkey Kong Bonanza".

Held every four months, the London Gaming Market, dedicated to vintage video games, has been attracting growing numbers of fans.

"I'm a huge 'Sonic the Hedgehog' fan... You never know what you're going to find when you're out here so I'm just always on the lookout," said Adrian, a visitor wearing a T-shirt with a Sonic image.

Collectors and gamers sifted carefully through stacks of CD discs and old consoles hoping to find hidden treasures.

For Andy Brown, managing director of Replay Events and organizer of the London event which is now in its 10th year, the Covid-19 pandemic marked an upturn in the return to vintage games.

"I think people were stuck at home, wanting things to do that made them remember better times because it was a lot of doom and gloom around Covid," he told AFP.

A study earlier this year by the US association Consumer Reports found 14 percent of Americans play on consoles made before 2000.

And in September, Italian customs busted a gang smuggling counterfeit vintage video games, seizing 12,000 machines containing some of the most popular games of the 1980s and 1990s.

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Varieties

Brigitte Macron Visits an Old Friend in China: Giant Panda Called Yuan Meng

FILE - French First lady Brigitte Macron attends a naming ceremony of the panda born at the Beauval Zoo, in Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher, France, on Dec. 4, 2017. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, Pool, File)
FILE - French First lady Brigitte Macron attends a naming ceremony of the panda born at the Beauval Zoo, in Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher, France, on Dec. 4, 2017. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, Pool, File)
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Brigitte Macron Visits an Old Friend in China: Giant Panda Called Yuan Meng

FILE - French First lady Brigitte Macron attends a naming ceremony of the panda born at the Beauval Zoo, in Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher, France, on Dec. 4, 2017. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, Pool, File)
FILE - French First lady Brigitte Macron attends a naming ceremony of the panda born at the Beauval Zoo, in Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher, France, on Dec. 4, 2017. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, Pool, File)

French first lady Brigitte Macron caught up with an old friend — a giant panda born in France — at the tail end Friday of a visit to China with President Emmanuel Macron.

At a panda reserve in southwest China that Yuan Meng now calls home, the first lady marveled at how big he has grown. She helped choose his name — which means “accomplishment of a dream” — when he was born in a French zoo in 2017.

“When they're born, they're like this,” she said, holding up two fingers a short distance apart. Meanwhile, the chunky male roamed in his enclosure, feasting on bamboo and ignoring bystanders who cried out his name, hoping to elicit a reaction.

“They have a very independent character,” she said. “They do only what they want.”

For decades, China has deployed what's often called “panda diplomacy” to smooth and promote relations with other countries, gifting the animals to friendly nations and lending pandas to zoos overseas on commercial terms.

Emmanuel Macron’s state visit this week to China, his fourth as president, included meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and other officials, discussing Russia’s war in Ukraine, trade ties and other issues.

The China Wildlife Conservation Association said during the visit that it signed a letter of intent to send two of the animals to the Beauval Zoo south of Paris in 2027 under what would be a new 10-year round of panda cooperation with France.

The French zoo sent two 17-year-old pandas — Huan Huan, a female, and her partner Yuan Zi — back to China last month after 13 years on loan in France.

Yuan Meng was their cub, conceived using artificial insemination.

Despite being made in France, he officially belonged to the Chinese government. Yuan Meng bid ‘’adieu’’ to France in 2023, sent off to a new life in the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in southwest China where Brigitte Macron, considered to be his “godmother,” dropped in to see him.

Huan Huan and Yuan Zi also produced female twins in France in 2021.

Huanlili and Yuandudu are also expected to leave the Beauval Zoo for China in the future. The China Wildlife Conservation Association has previously said that it expects them to remain at the French zoo until January 2027.

Varieties

Florida Kicks Off 1st Black Bear Hunt in a Decade, Despite Pushback

FILE - A black bear is weighed by FWC Biologists Alyssa Simmons and Mike Orlando at the Rock Springs Run Wildlife Management Area near Lake Mary, Fla., Oct. 24, 2015. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP, file)
FILE - A black bear is weighed by FWC Biologists Alyssa Simmons and Mike Orlando at the Rock Springs Run Wildlife Management Area near Lake Mary, Fla., Oct. 24, 2015. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP, file)
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Florida Kicks Off 1st Black Bear Hunt in a Decade, Despite Pushback

FILE - A black bear is weighed by FWC Biologists Alyssa Simmons and Mike Orlando at the Rock Springs Run Wildlife Management Area near Lake Mary, Fla., Oct. 24, 2015. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP, file)
FILE - A black bear is weighed by FWC Biologists Alyssa Simmons and Mike Orlando at the Rock Springs Run Wildlife Management Area near Lake Mary, Fla., Oct. 24, 2015. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP, file)

For the first time in a decade, hunters armed with rifles and crossbows are fanning out across Florida's swamps and flatwoods to legally hunt the Florida black bear, over the vocal opposition of critics.

The state-sanctioned hunt began Saturday, after drawing more than 160,000 applications for a far more limited number of hunting permits, including from opponents who are trying to reduce the number of bears killed in this year's hunt, the state's first since 2015, The Associated Press reported.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission awarded 172 bear hunt permits by random lottery for this year's season, allowing hunters to kill one bear each in areas where the population is deemed large enough. At least 43 of the permits went to opponents of the hunt who never intend to use them, according to the Florida chapter of the Sierra Club, which encouraged critics to apply in the hopes of saving bears.

The Florida black bear population is considered one of the state's conservation success stories, having grown from just several hundred bears in the 1970s to an estimated more than 4,000 today.

Opponents have questioned whether the hunt was necessary, but they were unable to convince the courts to halt it.

Here's what to know.

A limit of one bear per hunter The 172 people who were awarded a permit through a random lottery will be able to kill one bear each during the 2025 season, which runs from Dec. 6 to Dec. 28. The permits are specific to one of the state's four designated bear hunting zones, each of which have a hunting quota set by state officials based on the bear population in each region.

In order to participate, hunters must hold a valid hunting license and a bear harvest permit, which costs $100 for residents and $300 for nonresidents, plus fees. Applications for the permits cost $5 each.

The regulated hunt will help incentivize maintaining healthy bear populations, and help fund the work that is needed, according to Mark Barton of the Florida chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, an advocacy group that supported the hunt.

Having an annual hunt will help guarantee funding to "keep moving conservation for bears forward,” Barton said.

Hunting as a management tool According to state wildlife officials, the bear population has grown enough to support a regulated hunt and warrant population management. The state agency sees hunting as an effective tool that is used to manage wildlife populations around the world, and allows the state to monetize conservation efforts through permit and application fees.

"While we have enough suitable bear habitat to support our current bear population levels, if the four largest subpopulations continue to grow at current rates, we will not have enough habitat at some point in the future," reads a bear hunting guide published by the state wildlife commission.

Opponents meanwhile have called the hunt cruel, unnecessary and an excuse for hunters to bag a trophy animal when the real issue is the ever-growing human population encroaching on bear habitat.

Stricter regulations than the last hunt This year’s hunting plan has more stringent rules than the 2015 hunt, in which permits were provided to anyone who could pay for them, resulting in more than 3,700 permits issued. That led to a chaotic event that was shut down days early. Of the 304 bears killed, at least 38 were females with cubs, meaning the young bears may have died too.

Ultimately, wildlife officials decided to call off the hunt after its second day after a higher than expected number of bears were killed, though hunters did not exceed the statewide quota.

Doug Moore regularly sees bears on the more than 6,000 acres of timberland that he manages in northeast Florida. The president of a local hunting club, Moore is generally supportive of the new regulations for the bear hunt, even though he and his family members weren't issued a permit this year.

Moore described the management of the 2015 hunt as “fouled up” and “totally wrong" but said, “they’re doing it right this time."

Activists were issued dozens of permits Backers of the hunt have said that growing numbers of bears present a safety problem, with local officials sharing reports of bears on porches, rooting through garbage cans and roaming neighborhoods and playgrounds.

Activists have argued that the state should instead focus on other means of curbing nuisance bears and assuring safety through better trash management.

While opponents failed to convince a judge to stop the hunt, they were issued about a quarter of the overall permits, after activists applied for hunting tags they never intend to use.

“Somewhere out there a bear will be walking the grounds of the Panhandle, and I gave them a stay of execution,” said Joel Cleveland, an opponent of the hunt who was issued one of the permits.

Varieties

British Man Makes Artwork in Size of Human Blood Cell

David A Lindon's latest sculpture is the same size as a human blood cell, mould spores, bacteria, talcum powder or a fog droplet (David A Lindon)
David A Lindon's latest sculpture is the same size as a human blood cell, mould spores, bacteria, talcum powder or a fog droplet (David A Lindon)
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British Man Makes Artwork in Size of Human Blood Cell

David A Lindon's latest sculpture is the same size as a human blood cell, mould spores, bacteria, talcum powder or a fog droplet (David A Lindon)
David A Lindon's latest sculpture is the same size as a human blood cell, mould spores, bacteria, talcum powder or a fog droplet (David A Lindon)

A micro artist said he has beaten his own world record by creating the smallest handmade sculpture ever.

David A Lindon, from Bournemouth, Dorset, says his latest sculpture, The Yellow Smiley Face, is “invisible to the human eye,” with measurements of only 11.037 by 12.330 microns, according to BBC.

Lindon said his artwork lived on a first-class stamp on a micro dot on the eye of the late Queen.

It has now broken his previous smallest handmade sculpture world record, The Lego Brick.

Lindon, who has 12 Guinness World Records in total, is known for his work creating miniature pieces of art, including three microscopic re-creations of Van Gogh masterpieces on a watch mechanism which sold for £90,000.

The Red Lego Brick measures 0.02517mm by 0.02184mm.

“My Yellow Smiley Face artwork is half the size of my Red Lego Brick artwork, which in turn was already four times smaller than the previous record,” the artist said.

He said it was the same size as either a human blood cell, mould spores, bacteria, talcum powder and a fog droplet.

Other of Lindon's tiny creations include unique animals crafted within the eye of a needle, from a blue whale to a delicate peacock butterfly.

“I probably am completely bonkers,” he jokes.

The stamp where Yellow Smiley Face lives is mounted on a glass tower and housed inside a sealed glass box.