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

OOOoh.. Pogo Sticks! Erm.. not the plastic kind, the metal kind.. the ones that looked like the front fork of a chopped-out bike! Now there's a classic I'd forgotten about.

I think I still have some packed in a box somewhere.

I just saw a commercial for those spinny things not long ago... And someone cheating using an old HiFi.


Spirograph was my favourite toy for a long time... Then they came out with Spirograph 2, but my parents said, "Enough with the pins already!"

Ah... I remember Kerplunk... one of those newfangled things based loosely on --get this-- Stix!

You know, Pick up Stix? Those long, wooden toothpick-shaped (except about 4 times as long) brightly coloured sticks you'd hold together and let fall, then the players would take turns trying to remove a stick from the pile without moving the rest?

Ah... so many ideas! Paddleball! (twang, poing, twang, Aw rats!.. thwap, thwap, poink, twang.. aw rats! ) (Reminds me of a Peanuts strip.. Sally: "No matter how hard you try, you can't bend a cracker.")

Domino games (yeah, they're good for more than just setting up demolition mazes ).

Hey.. I played tiddlywinks... well.. sometimes... usually by myself *pout*

Not only do I remember KerrPlunk but played it last xmas with my 4 year old neice, although in her rules the one with the most marbles won.

But then I lost my marbles years ago

Still have a set somewhere, including the stripey one with the hooked end

Who remembers Yahtzee?

Well, I find anything football-based to be uniquely tedious so I'm with you on that.

In my experience the world divides into two on construction toys: Lego builders and Maccano builders. Whether this is because of differences in the skills required, or due to the huge cost involved in building up an appreciable collection of either, let alone both, I don't know.

Do you know anyone who had a decent sized collection of both and didn't have a strong preference one way or the other?

Yatzee and triple yatzee.

There's a computer version floating about somewhere, too.

And Word Yahtzee.

I had a GF once whose parents used to imbue games with a terrible seriousness. They always insited it was yat-zin or some such, after the original Chinese game. They also used to play mah-jongg, which is OK I guess but definitely not a patch on Scrabble.

Have you seen Networdz? It's a computer scrabble game. You can play it against the computer, a person sitting next to you (the thing will flash a "So-and-so's Turn" dialog and wait so you can switch players before it shows any tiles to play), or across the net with someone else.

"No Rules" Scrabble is great fun as well - you ignore all those boring rules about place names, spelling and obscenities. Basically, you're allowed anything you can convince your fellow players is legit. For example, they would have to concede "Phrij" for a refrigerating device, but they might take issue with "Xphrij", however much you might protest it's a word meaning "a fridge I used to own", and that you needed to get rid of the "x". But then, you could put the "x" down and claim that it stands for someone you used to have a relationship with, so it's up to your imagination...

That's an Ex.

Anyway, Networdz allows you to add words to the dictionary, but only when you're playing either with a person or the computer, not on the net.

The one glaring omission in Scrabble, in my book anyway, is that it doesn't allow anagrams

Oh man, I lost my reply somewhere in Netscape. It was all so slow I thought I'd try IE!
The worst toy ever invented was a #$@#$!%$$*^%$ 'puter (and I mean that nicely guys!)
I'll go back and try and find all my fave toys, or maybe I'll come back and share all my childhood memories all over again!!
Still think it's a nice column though!!

Okay, it's definitely got lost somewhere in the toy closet*sob**sob*
and of course I've forgotten half of what I wrote before!
But what about knucklebones? I'm guessing they're kind of like Jacks, but we only had 5 and they really looked like knuckles! Came complete with a lot of scary stories about how they originated! *brrrr* - shivers at the mere memory!
As for blowing bubbles, that's how I got tricked into doing dishes! We got taught to use the end of the bottle brush dipped in the soapy water, and voila - magical fairy(TM) bubbles were soon floating round the kitchen! Hmmm, maybe I should go and wash up! Ne, on second thoughts!
And then there was the big ball with handles, possibly a pogostick, redesigned by an armchair athlete?
Coitts? (Possibly pitiful spelling, but I'm embarassed to say that I have no idea how one would construct that word!) You banged a stick into the ground and then took turns to throw rings onto it. The person who managed the most rings won - logical, huh!
Okay, I'm off to raid the old closet and see what I can drag out...oh how I love this column!!

But don't you see "zis guy", that's the beauty of no-rules Scrabble - anagrams would be wolleda - I mean prettimed.

Mr Monster - I think it might be spelt "quoits". They used to talk about playing it on cruise ships, when it became "deck quoits." They don't play it in cars, so you dont get "car quoits", though you do get "car pools". All the shouting, splashing and diving tends to distract the driver though.

Whatever they're called they reminded me of Jarts (more of a modern) or (generic term) Yard Darts. Used to be a family reunion favourite we were *required* to bring.

You get 2 yellow plastic rings (which were designed to be broken down for storage and thus often broke down in mid play voluntarily), 4 pointy, heavy, metal, stick-and-screw objects which each held one of six (you only used four, but they gave you two extras since they would invariably end up sliced beyond recognition) large plastic three-finned things, supposedly resembling dart feathers in two different colours (red and blue, I think).

You'd set the rings at X paces from each other, and would throw them like horseshoes, attempting to get in the ring (ringer) or at least closer to it than your opponent.

Speaking of those... Horseshoes!

I've just been seeing a lot of fish around and it reminded me of something else we used to play...
Cutting out paper fish, we'd attach paper clips and throw them all in a bucket. Then with a magnet attached to a piece of string, we'd see who could catch the most!
Um, no, I didn't grow up to be a fisherman!

But what was the electric rotatey-thing called? None of my family can remember!