INDOOR PLAY AND HUNGRY HIPPOS

No going out today. It's raining as though the sky has just remembered how to do it and desperately wants to prove it still has that old magic.

So, indoor play it is then. Remember that? Sticklebricks and Hungry Hippos while the playground glistens and shimmers out through the school windows.

No Hungry Hippos today though. Just hunger. I missed the coffee van, thought I was going home for lunch then looked outside and realised I wasn't. The coffee van (which is often loaded with pasties) will be back  - at twenty to three, normally.

Who has lunch at twenty to three?

The Finance Guys are playing table football again. I can hear them from here, whooping and yelping as they slam those handles back and forth. The company tournament is in a few weeks and I think they're getting their practice in. Well, it must be light relief from number crunching, I suppose.

Does Hungry Hippos teach kids to be greedy? I mean the idea was to gobble up as many little white balls as possible, before anyone else had a chance, wasn't it? That's an interesting thing to teach children.

I reckon there might be a lot you can learn from old games. I think Kerplunk could be used to teach children about internet security. Maybe Mousetrap is a sort of metaphor for developing and testing a product.

Guess Who? is essentially a game for networkers or recruiters - or probably anyone in HR... and Snakes and Ladders could easily be used to show any of us just how unfair life actually is.

Then there's Operation - a game for a steady hand and focused concentration (skilled workers), Buckaroo - a game for managers if ever there was one! And what about Jenga, the game in which the only way to win is simply by being the last person to crash the system or cause the product to collapse? That teaches you an awful lot about IT, if I'm not mistaken.

Maybe that was always the intention of these games? Crafting a skill into the fun world of rainy recess as the children play happily unaware, knocking down towers, twisting dials and pushing counters. I think I approve... mostly.

I wonder what the Finance Guys are learning from table football? Actually to be honest, I'm quite glad they're not playing Hungry Hippos.