G Is For ‘Games’

I like card games and tetris-type games but that’s about it.  I’m not great at competition because I always feel sorry for the losers.  My family likes games, however, and as this blog is about me and I’ve said all I’ve got to say on the subject and my family is part of my family, I’ll tell you about them instead.

Oh, wait – I’ve just remembered that I played a game of Cranium two years ago.  Have you ever played it?  It’s a cross between Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary and Give Us A Clue, played in teams. 

Pity the poor people trapped in a team with me.  I introduce into evidence the following conversation:

Me: [Reading from a card] Taking turns, spell the word ‘symphony’ backwards, a letter at a time.

Team Mate: Why?

Me: It says on the card, spell the word ‘symphony’ backwards.

TM: Why?

Me: [Patiently] That’s what it says on the card: spell  ‘symphony’ backwards.

TM: [Even more patiently] Yes, Y.  N. O…

*

Table tennis at the 2004 Summer Olympics (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For a while, our boys went table tennis mad.  They set up their table in the lounge in front of the telly; we had to stand to watch tv: that’s okay for a while, but the 2004 Olympics were on at the time – try following both marathon events standing up and, like us, you’ll soon be researching adoption agencies.  We played table tennis constantly for two weeks.  Tory Boy is pretty good at it – years of being the only boy in his school to turn up for boys’ hockey, which no boys would play because hockey is a girls’ game, apparently; he would take on the coach at table tennis instead.

During one session with Spud, the ball kept hitting Tory Boy’s thumb; he got more and more frustrated.  Spud was winning because of the ball hitting TB’s thumb: when that happens, the point is disallowed.  Tory Boy finally lost his temper, slammed down his bat, thrust his thumb into the air and raged, ‘I hate this thumb!  This is the worst thumb in the world!’

The boys get their love of all games from their father.  He would come home from work in the early days of our marriage and play games on his monochrome screened, 20 megabyte hard driven computer, and scream the foulest language at it.  When I asked him why he played something which had such a deleterious effect on his mood, he replied, ‘Because it relaxes me.’   Proving that even back in the Eighties computers were already smarter than some people.

   Spud was at a City game one night and they were handing out free hats before the game, on the proviso that the recipients be photographed for the website…Spud almost devoured the hand that hatted him.

It’s not the first time he has publicised City: a couple of years ago he was at the derby in which we beat united 1-0 and the camera panned round to catch him screaming in excitement.  Sky Sports used the shot to advertise the rest of the season’s Premiership games.  The same footage was also screened at each home game for a whole season.

He has been in match programmes as well, for various reasons.  He is never alone at a game when these things happen, but he is either in the right place at the right time; incredibly lucky; or has a face that only a camera could love, because he is always the only one who appears anywhere.  I suppose that’s what comes of being a Blue at six minutes old.

Game on; you might get a career out of it.

Next up: The Hunger Games.  Having missed the boat on Twilight, coming to it three years later than the rest of the world, I thought I’d read the book before seeing the film.  I’ve got a year before it appears on telly. 

I nobbled the curate two weeks ago.  This is not a euphemism: she was carrying a copy of the book so I asked to borrow it.  I expect to like it; if it’s got the word ‘hunger’ in the title, there’s bound to be food.  Maybe game. 

Related articles

• The never-ending game of table tennis (richardosley.wordpress.com)
• Ping Pong Diplomacy Celebrated With Limited Edition Commemorative Paddle From Table Tennis Nation (prweb.com)

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