Best game ever

No, I am not warning off an army of persistantly intrusive paparazzi, but participating in what I feel is the best game ever ... The Name Game.

Loads of you probably already know the game, but incase you don't, here is how you play it:

1) Arrange a group of friends into two to three teams of equal numbers of players

2) Each player writes a name of someone famous (literary, thespian, political, musical, etc) on a scrap of paper, folds it up and places it into a recepticle. We used a hot pink trilby hat, but you can make do with a saucepan or something. You want about 50 names if you have two teams of four.

3) First round: taking it in turns, a player has 60 seconds to explain as many names written on the pieces of paper to their fellow team mates as possible, based on an explanation without saying the actual name written down. For example, one of the names I pulled out was "Janet Street Porter" - an unfortunate looking British media mogul, who looks like my friend Ann, who was also playing. Me - "Female media mogul who looks like Ann!" Team responds - "JANET STREET PORTER!" Correct. Pull next name. At the end of the round each team counts the total number of names they won and records them on a sheet of paper. Then you all fold the names back up again and chuck 'em back in the hat. (Clare demonstrates how to play the first round, below, with "Hilary Clinton")



4) Second round: same format, only this time rather than verbally explaining the names each player, when it is their turn, mimes the name. Sometimes this can be easy. Sometimes not so easy. A handy hint - if you do ever pull out "Leon Trotsky" mime yourself being stabbed in the head with an icepick. Jerome demonstrates by miming "Nina Simone"



See? Easy isn't it? Nina Simone.

5) Third and final round: again, same format, but this time each player describes each name using only ONE word. Lucy demonstrates by using the word "c**t" (George Bush Jr)



Then each team works out how many names they guessed correctly, in total. The team with the most names wins.

Believe me when I say that this is the best game ever. EVER I tell you. Play it now. Even if you are on your own, although it may be quite easy.

(By the way, on the final round David, Ann's boyfriend, "did" Nina Simone with the word "Defecation", which clearly stumped us all. David is insistant that Nina Simone was famous for "doing her business" while performing on stage. None of us were at all convinced but still, I Googled using various relevant words, but there was nothing to support David's theory. However, he did seem pretty sure, so if you do have evidence supporting his claims, can you please let me know by posting a comment below? Thanks! Cheerio!)