The Game

Happy Valentine's Day to all, especially those of you who work for Hallmark at an executive level, or have strong connections in the chocolate and red-rose industries. I hope that, as always, my journal will entertain and inform you while you sit in your swivel chair counting money and cackling maniacally like the baddie on a children's cartoon.

So, what's today's blip all about? It's about The Game. If you just said something along the lines of "oh shit, now I've lost The Game", you don't need to bother with the next few paragraphs. However, for those of you who aren't familiar with this widespread and profoundly irritating pastime, I'll give you a quick summary that I filched from Wikipedia.

The Game is a mental game where the objective is to avoid thinking about The Game itself. Thinking about The Game constitutes a loss, which, according to the rules of The Game, must be announced each time it occurs. It is impossible to win The Game; players can only attempt to avoid losing for as long as they possibly can.

There are three rules to The Game:

1. Everybody in the world who knows about The Game is playing The Game. A person cannot not play The Game; it does not require consent to play and one can never stop playing.
2. Whenever one thinks about The Game, one loses.
3. Losses must be announced to at least one person (either by using a statement such as "I lost the game", or by alternative means).

Some players have developed strategies for making other people lose, such as saying "The Game" out loud, or writing about The Game on a hidden note, in graffiti in public places, or on banknotes.

The origins of The Game are uncertain. One theory is that when two men missed their last train and had to spend the whole night on a platform, they tried not to think about their situation and whoever did first, lost. Another is that it was invented in London in 1996, "to annoy people".

I myself was initiated into the irksome wonders of The Game many years back, but until recently, The Gaffer at work was blissfully ignorant of it. It was The Monday Night Club, those stalwarts of my working week, who let him in on it a few months back, and every Monday since, they've taken a particular delight in reminding him that he's just lost The Game. But, all credit to him, The Gaffer doesn't just take that lying down. A couple of weeks ago, we found out which pub The Monday Night Club were heading to after leaving our place, and rang on ahead of them to ask the staff of that pub to greet our inebriated friends with a rousing chorus of "YOU'VE JUST LOST THE GAME!" The staff kindly obliged, and my only regret is that I wasn't there to see the looks on the Club's faces.

Tonight, me and The Gaffer decided we could go one better. Why not write a message on the bar shutters informing The Monday Night Club that they've lost The Game? We'd only have to wait until closing time to spring the surprise on them. It was a brilliant and foolproof idea.

However, out of fifty-two Mondays in the year, tonight was the one that The Monday Night Club decided not to show up. The buggers are always one step ahead.

Still, never mind. If anyone out there on Blip is in on The Game, then...you've just lost The Game.