h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I once worked on the re-launch of Chessington Zoo before it became Chessington World of Adventures.

The managers of the zoo very kindly gave me and a colleague a tour of the zoo whilst it was shut for the winter season. Whilst we were looking at the gorillas one came up and took a very long look at my male colleague, who stood closer to peer the gorilla up close. The gorilla then lent backwards, and deliberately spat a huge great big green lump of gorilla gob onto his new cashmere coat...

When we got back to the office everyone decided to have a bit of fun with the guy. We had a really boring meeting lined up with some clients and decided on a points system. Everytime someone mentioned anything to do with apes, gorilla's or anything related to the monkey family they got a point, but they had to just slip it into the conversation. So 'Let's monkey around with the idea' or 'I think this advert is apeing another one' would be point winners.

This game can be played in any boring meeting, we later starting picking other subject areas to entertain ourselves. The secret is to hide it from your clients, if they guess what you're doing you lose the game.

What was the ape doing wearing a cashmere coat?

We have a similar game called 'Buzz Word Bingo'. Everyone is given a piece of paper marked like a Bingo card. In the squares are catch phrases like 'touch base', 'synergy', and 'comfort zone'. Every time someone in the meeting says one of the phrases, you mark off a square. Can be played with or without office supplies as prizes.

We used to do that it some of our less interesting lectures... except it had to be the lecturer that mentioned the phrases!

We made a rule that the phrases didn't count if someone playing the game said them.

Wish I'd thought of something similar for lectures. Dr. Rogers' classes would have been much better.