games

Giant Games
Giant Snakes and Ladders
Giant Captain's Mistress

Make your own Game of Chook Chook
A splendid Educational Parlor Game for Yong Children and Grown-ups

Board and Playing Card Games based upon Television Programs
The Patty Duke Show
Each of the scenes depicted on the board are typical of activities middle-class young teen-age girls living in New York City in the early 1960s might be engaged in

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Comments: games

you do come from a big family. ! that site is wonderfully manky. captain cook reduced to a sort of plastic grid in an omaha back yard..
Posted by David at November 24, 2003 07:13 PM

Yes I have often talked here of Croquet chez boynton, and that might be Giant something. (Guess scale is all relative)

Hadn't seen all the "layers " in that Captain's Mistress myself. What a cultural text!
I like the warning:

"it would probably not survive too long in a rowdy pub or any other environment where people might fall on it etc."

wonder what "etc" could be?
Posted by boynton at November 25, 2003 12:40 PM

260 quid for a game of Captain's Mistress! What's it made of, gold?
Posted by Gianna at November 25, 2003 01:06 PM

There is a theory that croquet is giant billiards, or that billiards is midget croquet, which I think was originally a peasant game played in the fourteenth century with giant mallets.

Croquet took off in Victorian England because it was the only outside pastime that men and women could play together.

There is a giant form of croquet that came back from France in the 18th century called (if I remember rightly) Paille Maille. It had a really big field, one of which was laid out in the West End of London and eventually became Pall Mall, from which we get our Mall.

I want to see Giant Croquet played in Chaddy. The curve and the two levels would make it really interesting. All conversation should be in pre-revolutionary French; all participants should wear a sword; all umpires should be so elaborately courteous they would not be fast enough to stop duels..
YES!
Posted by David at November 25, 2003 01:12 PM

Yeah G - some Mistress.
(and let's not forget the full set of Spare Disks for an extra 90. Possibly quite wise.)


David - love this Giant/midget territory.
Aussie Rules started fairly free range didn't it -
both space and time-wise? I like the idea of mini games being set free. Rehabilitated into the wild.

Basketball is gradually becoming 'mini' given the players increase in height, perhaps outgrowing the old scale?.

& mais oui, I'd play Giant Croaky in Chaddy - the opportunity to converse in pre-revolutionary French would just be too hard to resist.
Posted by boynton at November 25, 2003 03:27 PM

that basketball idea is just great - Alice In Wonderland goes to the Geelong Stadium..

I sometimes think that international peace might be possible if we just set up parallel championships for short people. Max height 5'6" (gee that dates me..). Then the world could play basketball, soccer and AFL with all the nations plugging in .. except, sadly, for Pygmies and Masai.. but the West would be disadvantaged because the Huge Hotties would continue to dominate their domestic competition and therefore get all the practice..

OR; maybe we find a way of crossing team sports with ferret racing - transparent tubes laid out in the middle of the field so only the shorties could get through.. with a constant dramatic tension - is the Big Person just too big to try.. stuck in the middle after a few too many midweek pies..

you can tell I am not a tall person. or particularly skinny, for that matter..
Posted by David at November 26, 2003 03:09 PM

I've got one word to say to you:
libero and volleyball

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics2000/other_sports/935587.stm

Yes as a 5'6" person myself I endorse the suggested height limit, and may think of some more unter-sporting ideas for the smaller scaled
(shorter sports).
In my case it might also be useful to think of sporting activities for people who throw badly.
(or "thinking outside the square" Or diamond.)
Posted by boynton at November 26, 2003 03:54 PM

i have played cricket twice in my whole life.

Once where the batsman slugged me in the temple with the ball.

And once where I was bowling. Can't hit, can't catch, must be able to bowl. I had the action down pat. Arms windmilling around, I raced up, let go of the ball.. and it disappeared. Everyone just stood around looking bewildered.. until it landed SMACK on top of my head. I had thrown it almost straight up in the air and then stopped right underneath it.

This is why I am a middle aged man on a bicycle.
Posted by David at November 26, 2003 05:03 PM

Also, I think Gianni could pose a fantastic IP dilemma by handcrafting Captain's Mistress out of locally available NSW rural stuff (I dunno, old truck tyres or something..) while dandling her new baby Milan on her knee.

If it was played by Captain Cook, surely we have the right to replicate it?

If not.. the Americans will be patenting conquest (tm) next. Come to think of it..
Posted by David at November 26, 2003 05:10 PM

I've never had to play cricket fortunately, otherwise I'm sure I too would have bowled myself a few bouncers accidentally, just to intimidate myself.
My last embarrassing experience of throwing was in the park with Flo. I threw the ball in a northerly direction and it ended up going west in a high lob. Must have been the top spin.
Flo looked bewildered and even a bit miffed.
The lunching Council workers were no doubt highly amused.
I only do 'frisbee' now - or hitting with raquet.

Posted by boynton at November 26, 2003 05:15 PM