Читать книгу Ting Tang Tommy - Simon Godwin - Страница 28

Games with balloons first became popular during the late nineteenth century. In 1896 Parker Brothers brought out a new game called Pillow Dex, which was a forerunner of Ping Pong. The kit provided all the ingredients you would need to volley a balloon across a net stretched over your parlour table. You can imagine this more genteel version of table tennis in action, with Victorian ladies gently wafting the balloon from one side of the net to the other. This game is my own addition to the tradition of balloon games. You might want to use it to build on the crazy momentum of the Sofa Game; it’s equally silly but slightly less perilous.

You need two teams with at least three players each. In the centre of a room place a dining chair. Each team is given a balloon. On ‘Go’, the first player in each team sets off to try and blow their balloon underneath the chair to the other side. Once successfully blown under, the balloon is then puffed back directly to the starting line so that the next player can go. The first team to bring all their members home wins.

Players aren’t allowed to touch an opponent’s balloon but they may blow it. This becomes particularly relevant when the balloons clash on entering the vicinity of the chair. As players scramble to get their balloons under the seat, all sorts of breathy interventions are allowed by the two players fighting it out. Those waiting to race, however, must remain behind the line. The only pressure they’re allowed to exert is via cheering.