I used to live in London in a neighborhood called Wood Green. I lived off Lordship Lane, a major thoroughfare. Many years before I lived there, a company called Universal Publications Ltd. thrived at 581 Lordship Lane by producing the latest in party games. In a pre-TV world, people were hungry for new ways of interacting in groups—all year round. The promotional copy points out that these games “are just as popular during August as they are during December.” Once TV went mass market, the game players could stay home instead.

All About Yourself (no. 71 in the series) allows players 30 minutes to fill in a card where the answers to 39 questions are body parts. (Could they not have rounded it up to 40 or is there some symbolism about 39 and the body?)

The questions are posed in a cryptic fashion…but some are straightforward: A cave has this? Mouth. A snake sheds this? A GI chews this. You get the picture. But then they get a little obscure and/or questionable.

I challenge you to identify:

1. A very thin paper.

2. Cooks usually “jug” this animal.

3. Beheaded you could stand on it.

4. Rows of Knit 1, Purl 1, form this.

5. You could grow another one but not have a third.

6. The first half is a child or young animal.

7. A deep breath is this if you lisp.

8. These show when you smile – if you have them.

Next up from Universal is Watch Your Step. I have read the instructions multiple times but still don’t understand quite how the scoring system works. However, the instructions are entertainment enough.

Players sit in two rows opposite each other: “it is preferable to have the Ladies in one row and the Gentlemen in the other…”

The Ladies, for example, are given an answer card, which instructs them to “answer YES if the question refers to people, fish or birds. Otherwise, your answer must be NO.” The categories on the answer cards vary. “The Ladies are allowed two minutes in which to read and memorise what is on their cards.” (That’s a lot to ask of the fairer sex.)

The Gentlemen then pose a number of questions to the Ladies who must answer in accordance to their cards. Let me share a sample of questions…

Hot tip for the MC: if “he makes up a set of questions particularly applicable to Ladies (e.g. Do you use haircurlers?) and takes care to see that these are reserved for a round when the Ladies do the questioning, he will be sure of an uproarious round. When the first “victim” has to answer such a question, the rest will howl with laughter—unaware that their fate may be even worse.”

And you wonder why TV was ever invented?

To finish, another popular game produced by a rival company takes photos of familiar objects from unfamiliar angles on the theme of “used in the home.”

Ok, you got bun tin off the bat, I know. But what about…

…yes, smokers that was a lighter.

And now for the number one item on the list on the theme “used in the home”:

Sausages, of course.