Board game, never boring.....

Christmas is a time for families, so they say, and during the season, every family finds its inner board game, and suffers the attendant yawns. This year proved to be a game changer for me, when Younger Niece introduced me to the most deranged activity since It's a Royal Knockout; I am talking about Bugs in the Kitchen. No arena for the slow and meditative types this, the chief characters of this game by Ravensburger are a pair of electronic bugs, ingenious little gadgets that when switched on, charge head-on through a morph-able labyrinth of knives, spoons and forks. The aim of the game is to capture the little buggers into one of four "dens" each presided over by an individual player. In turn, each player rolls a die to determine what part of the labyrinth to gain permission to alter, thus modifying the progress of the charging bugs and increasing his or her chances of netting a bug in his or her den. Each entry by either of the bugs into whatever den wins the player a token, and the player with the most tokens at the end of each game is the winner. Sounds daft? It is, and gloriously so, affording Christmas revelers, weary with food, booze and seasonal bonhomie a post-seasonal rush of adrenalin. Believe me, this innocuous game reduces otherwise sane and hungover adults to nearly-hysterical ciphers begging and pleading the little plastic pests to move in their direction. Friend, these electronic amis will light your fire and ring your bell and fill you with such conviviality towards the insect world that you will never again swat away a fly or try to murder a wasp. Somewhere, out there in the wider universe, I'll bet that BITK groups are forming leagues and holding heats and championships, alight with joy as the bugs charge about the labyrinth. Sadly, I won't be joining them. Come 2019, I'll be returning to sober normality - well, normal for me. A happy New Year to all.