The joy of CeX: how to spend £10 in the secondhand gaming mega store

Entertainment (and thrill) seekers on a budget never know exactly what they’re going to find in the ubiquitous technology shop. Just don’t mistake it for a pawn shop

Feel free to mispronounce Ikea (it should be ee-kay-uh, from the Swedish) and Lidl (lee-dal, from the German). But there’s no arguing when it comes to CeX, the bright red secondhand technology shop you get in more or less every UK town centre, usually next to McDonald’s, Primark and/or Poundland. It may be short for Complete Entertainment eXchange, but it shouldn’t be pronounced C-E-X, as you might say to your mum when explaining where you got her cheap secondhand mobile phone from. Officially, CeX is pronounced as sex. The pleasure of it is in the sheer incongruous irony – these stores, with their miles of metal shelving and threadbare carpets are as far from the erotic as it’s possible to get. But somehow, they hold a special place in the hearts of all entertainment seekers on a budget.

I am a regular visitor. There are five CeXs within a three-mile radius of my house and they’re extremely handy. The thrill is in never knowing exactly what you’re going to find. For the purposes of this article, the Guardian gave me a generous budget of £10 to discover what bargains lay in store.