Tuesday 8 March 2011

Playtime

There is one thing that justifies the existence of Twitter, for me - the hashtag games. I've already mentioned the one a while ago that involved Poetry Retractions.  There have been others since then - #Cheese Films (The Gouda, the Bad and the Ugly; Brie-ing There); #Pathetic Claims to Fame ('My cousin's husband's band played at Prince Andrew's wedding; 'I used to know someone who knew someone who was married to the man who invented Kettle Chips'; #UKtownsongs (All Things Brighton Beautiful); #Fishsongs (Salmon Enchanted Evening) et cetera et cetera.

They are all fun, but there's one thing wrong with them - they are unpredictable; you never know when there'll be a new one. Luckily though, in the Twitter playground, there is one reliable constant. It is a silly but addictive word game called Artwiculate.

Each day a new word is put up on the Artwiculate website and players have to think up an amusing - if possible - phrase that contains that word. Then they need to vote for other people's contributions, by retweeting them.

Recent examples of Artwiculate words have included Roseate, for which the winning entry was, 'I ordered far too many pink spoons. Now I can't afford to pay my roseate spoonbill'; Mendacity ('Is mendacity when you just lie there?'); Ungulate, (which means a hooved animal), for which the winning contribution was, 'Ungulate? Shoddy', (although I also very much liked, 'An ungulate-o-phile sadomasochist necrophiliac is definitely flogging a dead horse', and 'I called my ex-wife's mother an undomesticated ungulate. She bridled'); and Immotile, (which means unable to move), for which the winning phrase was, 'Immotile? STILL?'

If you are an infantile time waster like me, I cannot recommend Artwiculate highly enough.

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