(Remind me to tell you the anecdote someday of how me and the Tech Support Bloke destroyed a brand new 1Gb hard drive one time by repeatedly whacking it with the blunt end of a big screwdriver in order to fix what turned out to be a small problem with the chip fan. But not today.)

So it was with some pretty damn tricky technical questions that I ventured onto the manky grey streets of Bristol, with an imaginary £1500 in my pocket and a mission to buy a pretty beefy machine for frame-grabbing, DTP and sound sampling, as well as for playing all the top new games with and viewing full-screen video on Web sites at plausible speeds.

I also armed myself with a curveball - as well as all this power, I wanted to be able to slow down my monster new CPU to run some old programs that weren't frame-locked and were likely to run miles too fast on anything nippier than a DX-50. (Actually, this bit is true - I do want to do that, and it seems to be impossible, which is ridiculous. You wouldn't buy a Ferrari if it couldn't go any slower than 70mph, would you? How hard can it be to slow a P166 down so it can pretend to be a P75?) What suggestions would our victims make? Would they be anatomically plausible? Etc.

1. Dixons - Broadmead

Damn. Friendly, swift service. People who knew what they were talking about. Unexpected specification flexibility. All my normal questions expertly fielded. A frankly ideal machine just a fraction over my budget pointed out speedily. Time for the tough one. After trailing around the shop for about 10 minutes while Mr Dixons consulted earnestly with every employee he could find, doing his absolute darnedest to answer the unanswerable, I began to feel a bit guilty, made my excuses and left.

Buy Your PC From Here Rating: 8/10

2. Radio Rentals - Broadmead

This turned out to be much more like it. On wandering in to the empty shop, I was confronted with a small display of PCs running an InterActiveCust-O-Demo-type program, in which mouse-clicks and keypresses brought up helpful FMV clips of smart Radio Rentals employees explaining the ins and outs of the whole PC-buying malarkey. Sadly, although the speakers were switched on and connected to the machine, for some reason absolutely no sound was to be heard emanating from them, which reduced the value of the exercise somewhat.

Ploughing on through some of the screens with actual visible writing on them as opposed to a mute saleswoman, I was slightly taken aback to find Radio Rentals seemingly trying to sell me PCs which had fallen through some manner of a timewarp from an early episode of Dr Who. Their idea of a "Starter Multimedia" set-up included a refurbished SX-25 (remember those?) with 4Mb of memory and a whopping 120Mb hard drive, going for around £1100 (payable at £30 a month with slightly alarming interest rates), but even as I reeled dizzily away from the small print on the price card, no-one from the shop came over to offer a calming cup of tea and a sit down, though I'd been there more than five minutes and they appeared to have nothing else to do.

For the next little while, I wandered backwards and forwards between the two machines on display, peering intently at the various information cards and screen demos, but to no avail. I peered plaintively in the direction of the two assistants a few times, but it seemed I was going to be left to my own devices. I explored to the top of the range, a P133 with 12 Mb, a 6-speed CD and a built-in 28.8 modem, which was fetching a fearsome £2924 including credit and service contract, but even this prospect failed to attract any interest. Eventually, in desperation, I got out a pen and paper and started taking copious specification notes in the most conspicuous manner I could muster, but, after almost 15 minutes standing around a tiny and otherwise customer-free shop, I admitted defeat and left unserved.

Buy Your PC From Here Rating: 1/10

3. Silica - Debenhams, Broadmead

Distressed to discover Tim apparently still inside 45 minutes after entering the shop, I raced up the escalators, prepared to cause a distraction in the nearby china department and free him in the confusion from what must surely, I reasoned, have been some manner of hostage situation. But no. Locked deep in lively and animated conversation with the manager, Tim seemed on the brink of forgetting his mission and forking out his life savings on a spanky new P200. Knocking a couple of display stands over to attract his attention and snap him out of the trance, I then wandered around for a bit while Tim and the assistant swapped addresses and compared photographs of their children, and was dismayed to find almost all of my questions answered in advance by the extremely informative display stands, leaflets and literature scattered liberally around.

Silica's set-up was genuinely impressive. The machines were the best-specced and lowest-priced we saw all day (yet still reliable names like IBM and Hyundai), and there were even a couple linked up to the Net which you could have an exploratory surf on for £3. The info on display meant that by the time I came to talk to the manager myself, there was nothing left but to jump straight in with the trick question. Flummoxed, he pondered for a while with his assistant, tentatively suggested looking around shareware libraries for a software slowdown program, but seemed about to commit hara-kiri in disgrace (an admirable spirit to cultivate in retail staff, generally speaking, but a little harsh in the circumstances). A victory of sorts, then, but an assuredly hollow one.

Buy Your PC From Here Rating: 9/10

4. Currys - Cribbs Causeway

We had planned to go in here and see how they performed against their sister store (Dixons) in the town centre, but since every time I see a Currys it makes me think of Paddington Bear's scary next-door neighbour and I get a bit nervous, we decided to give it a miss.

Buy Your PC From Here Rating: marmalade sandwich

5. PC World - Cribbs Causeway

A bit like the Crystal Maze, this is a dangerous place for the browser. Predatory red-shirted staff leap out from behind concealed entrances and attempt to sell you things before you realise what's happened. I encountered a chap called Tony, who listened intently to my problem and suggested that the best thing to do would be to buy an alarmingly powerful Apricot machine at around £2000, and keep the slowish 486 which I was pretending to have at home to run the old programs on. When I explained that I didn't have the office space for two machines, an evangelical gleam appeared in his eye and he embarked upon a detailed and convincing portrayal of a utopian future where Luddites like myself would leave behind all that was old and creaky, and throw ourselves wholeheartedly upon the mercy of shiny new software that would do the old job just as well. Only better. My protestations that I wanted to use these old programs specifically, and that no-one was likely to write a more modern Dragon 32 emulator, fell on deaf ears, and Tony's advice that I should buy the machine now and worry about the other problems later seemed almost imperceptibly to be becoming less of a suggestion and more of a threat. I backed away slowly as his sharp teeth glinted in the flourescent light, and finally lost my nerve and ran as he told me firmly that the space problem wasn't an issue as they didn't actually have any 15-inch monitors in stock at the moment anyway, so there'd be lots of room to have both machines running. What I was going to use for a display, I couldn't hear for the blood pounding in my ears.

All in all, I considered myself fortunate to escape with my life.

Buy Your PC From Here Rating: 7/10 (with a bodyguard)

6. Toys'R'Us - Cribbs Causeway

As in Tim's experience, I appeared to be standing in some weird light-bending gravitational anomaly which rendered me entirely invisible to the three assistants standing less than five feet away from me, apparently doing nothing at all. Pointed study of the machines on display, standing around looking bemused-yet-purposeful, and vigorous coughing all failed to garner any attention, so finally I walked up to a chap wearing a huge "Multimedia Product Adviser" badge, fixed him with a steely gaze and prepared my well-rehearsed question list. I decided to start off with a nice easy one - "So, how many free expansion slots does this one have, then? I need at least three for my scanner/frame grabber/backup drive etc." Distressingly, it turned out that I'd hit bullseye first time - the Multimedia Product Adviser didn't know, didn't know anywhere where it was written down, didn't know anyone he could ask, and, frankly, gave up. I didn't have the heart to tell him that all you actually have to do is turn the machine round and look at the back, and walked off, sadly, into the night.

Buy Your PC From Here Rating: 0/10