TWITTERGAMES

I don’t really write anything any more. Instead what I seem to do is play word games on the inter web which kind of keeps my brain in “wordsmithery” gear without dragging me towards to keyboard for hours upon hours that I simply don’t really have available to me.

Usually this means going onto twitter and joining in with a “Hashtag Game” which, if you’ve never tried it, involves basically typing in as one word your game idea (say “Scottish Films”) and adding a “Hashtag” to the start of it (i.e. type #ScottishFilms ) and using that as a “search” to find everyone else’s responses. 

After so many years of insomnia, the need to at least attempt something resembling sleep far outweighs the need to get up and write nonsense for no very good reason. 

Nevertheless, whilst I find these word games both enjoyable and distracting, I never contribute the best of them, and am always both surprised and delighted when I read a pithier, witter contribution that blows any and all of my own humble efforts back to the backwaters where they truly belong. 

Sometimes, however, my thoughts actually coincide with those of others, and sometimes later on in the very same thread contributors get a far better reaction to exactly the same thought that I had myself, which basically does prove the old adage that it’s who you know that matters, or, at the very least, how many people “follow” you. That said I do usually try and do a “search” to see whether whether my own “witty” thought has already featured, but I suspect that’s not what most of the Twitterati do. 

Unfortunately, when it comes to “just popping upstairs to potter on the computer for five minutes”, I also find that these word games are a very good way of finding that far more time than you imagined has managed to slip away from you unnoticed, which can lead to a less than happy outcome, even when I have finally managed to concoct something that is deemed worthy of being “favourited” or “retweeted” every now and again. 

Those in the know refer to Twittering as “Microblogging” and I will admit that it has served me very well when it comes to still having a desire to wrangle words in recent weeks despite my brain having been unable to string a coherent thought, argument or evcen sentence together. 

I (usually) only play the film or book based ones, because they are pretty much the only thing I know anything about without having to go away and look things up. “Celebrities” are a pretty unknown quantity to me, as are modern pop songs and band names, so I generally shy away from displaying my ignorance in such fields. 

After a while, of course, like most things (although compressed into mere weeks instead of a lifetime – this, perhaps, is how we live now…) you do start to notice the same ones coming around again which can start to feel rather tiresome if you have actually seen it all before, but sometimes there’s something new to be found in the zeitgeist of another day, and the four week data drop-off point does mean that everything old is new again, but you have to dredge your memory to find out what it was you thought was “so very witty” all those days ago. Unless you’re “precious” enough about everything you’ve ever written ever to have stored it somewhere for future reference… (See below). 

I did play Foyles Bookshop’s “Bookgame” for a few months towards the end of their two and a half year weekly (Fridays 11.00AM – 4.00PM UK Time) run, with a new game theme filling my Friday coffee and lunchbreaks for a while. I did finally gain one “honorary mention” in the week before they stopped playing it, which was, coincidentally, the week I’d also decided that I would finally stop playing it. That we both returned to it within a fortnight of that decision only goes to prove how addictive such things really can be. 

Anyway, such creativity, or time-wasting (or whatever it is) should not be allowed to go unrecorded, so I’m going to reprint some of them in these very pages over the next few weeks. After all, I’ve put the work in and sometimes I really can’t think of anything else to write about, so you might as well get to read some of my own humble efforts which are, after all, the only ones which I’m entitled to share, no matter how humble and unamusing they might turn out to have been. 

Here are a few of the “Hashtag Games” I joined in with just before Christmas, all of which had a festive theme which might now seem mildly inappropriate but seemed quite funny at the time... 

#LesserKnownChristmasTraditions (This may be passing into history but...) Disagreeing about the setting of the TV recording device of choice.

#LesserKnownChristmasTraditions Buying enough booze to float a battleship & realising far to late that there's only 2 of you to drink it.

#LesserKnownChristmasTraditions Suddenly remembering that you're supposed to eat some meals before December 25th, too...

#LesserKnownChristmasTraditions Covering an extraordinary amount of miles just trying to make sure you're keeping everyone else happy.

#LesserKnownChristmasTraditions The last minute dash to the corner shop for the one thing that you forgot & can't live without for 36 hours.

#LesserKnownChristmasTraditions The churning of the clutter so that at least one room is tidy-ish



#PoliticallyCorrectCarols The Drummer Person of Restricted Growth.

#PoliticallyCorrectCarols Away in a Dwelling specifically intended for the sheltering of approved livestock.

#PoliticallyCorrectCarols Once in a City that can in no way be said to "belong" in any way to Royal David.

#PoliticallyCorrectCarols We Three Democratically Elected Representatives of Asian Nations Are.

#PoliticallyCorrectCarols The Holly and the I-V-F.

#PoliticallyCorrectCarols Mary and Joseph's Boy Child.

#PoliticallyCorrectCarols God Rest You Sober Gentlepeople.



#RejectedCarols Mary's boy toy.

#RejectedCarols Away with a stranger.

#RejectedCarols Good Thing Wesley's Cat's Locked Out.

#RejectedCarols Once in Welwyn Garden City



#ChristmasFoodFilms My Ferrero Lady

#ChristmasFoodFilms Cracker Barrel: East of Java

#ChristmasFoodFilms Total Treac-all

#ChristmasFoodFilms Cranberry Torino

#ChristmasFoodFilms The Green Berries

#ChristmasFoodFilms Coldfinger Buffet

#ChristmasFoodFilms On Her Majesty's Silver Service

#ChristmasFoodFilms Diet Another Day

#ChristmasFoodFilms Bring Me the Bread Sauce of Alfredo Garcia

#ChristmasFoodFilms Citizen Kake

#ChristmasFoodFilms Jack Frosting

#ChristmasFoodFilms Casabianco

#ChristmasFoodFilms Close Encounters of the Curd Kind

#ChristmasFoodFilms A L O I N

#ChristmasFoodFilms Return of the Cheddar-i

#ChristmasFoodFilms The Day The Earth Ate Stilton

#ChristmasFoodFilms Cold Ham Luke

#ChristmasFoodFilms Satsuma Night Fever

#ChristmasFoodFilms The Goose, The Duck, and The Turkey

#ChristmasFoodFilms Rum Truffle in Little China

#ChristmasFoodFilms Minspies Like Us

#ChristmasFoodFilms Gravyheart



#ChristmasSitcoms The Black Advent

#ChristmasSitcoms Fawlty Treelights

#ChristmasSitcoms The God Life



#ChristmasCelebs Myrrh Oberon

#ChristmasCelebs Frank Insatra

#ChristmasCelebs Spruce Willis


#ChristmasCelebs Mistletoni Braxton

#ChristmasCelebs Ever Green