Stir up Sunday, soya sauce and shopping

Well Christmas is definitely on its way; stir up Sunday has been and gone, I've baked my Christmas cake and the shops are bedecked with festive goods. I'm well on the way with my Christmas shopping  but for those of you who are still searching for that elusive present for a hard to please friend or relative I may well have the perfect solution.

You see I have invented a new game which I hope that I'll have time to get patented and onto the shelves of all good toy shops in time for Christmas. This blog is by way of market research, so I'd love to hear what you think of it.

The game is called "Where on earth have I parked the car?". Like all good games its quite a simple premise but should afford hours of entertainment. All you really need to play is a car and a supermarket, complete with carpark. The rules are simple, it can be played by one to five players (perhaps more if your car seats more people). You park your car in the large, crowded carpark and head into the store congratulating yourself that you've remembered to bring your shopping bags.

At the entrance of the store you have a tousle with the coin operated trolley and then head in to start your shopping. It's best if you have written a detailed shopping list, which you then leave at home so that you have to wander up and down each aisle in the hope that the things you need will catch your eye or in a perfect world leap off the shelf into your trolley. Ideally you have gone shopping at a time when the store is busy with other shoppers who don't give a fig for shopping etiquette ie they leave their trolley in the most inconvenient place possible, let their children push the trolley right into your unsuspecting calves and stand chatting to friends and blocking the aisle, completely unaware that anyone else in the world needs tea bags or soya sauce.

Trolley laden, you make it to the tills and select the one with the shortest queue, only to find you're being served by shop assistant of the month, who won this accolade by being especially chatty. Don't get me wrong, its good to be served by a friendly face but I don't feel the need to discuss every purchase I've made, yes the wine does look nice and yes we all do deserve a treat, now hand it over!

Eventually goods paid for, the game starts properly because as you head for the exit, hobbling slightly from your bruised shins, you will find that you have no recollection of where you parked your car. The ordeal of trying to remember what you need, playing dodgems with fellow shoppers and being rammed painfully by a large trolley inexpertly driven by a small child, not to mention discussing the cold weather with Miss Conviviality at the till, has induced a state of shopping amnesia and you now have no idea where your car is. You wander off hopefully in one direction only to find that although it's the right colour car, it's the wrong make. You do a u turn and search in another row of cars to no avail. You walk up and down the carpark and are just starting to wonder if your car has been stolen when you realise the car you are standing next to is indeed yours.

The winner of the game is the person who takes the longest to find their car. There are of course bonus points if it's raining, if you're in a hurry and late for something, if you have a white car and if you get home and realise that you've forgotten the one item you went out for. The beautifully presented game will contain, a stop watch with which to time your search, details of the complicated scoring system and score sheets so that you can compare times for previous shops. There could even be online groups where you could see how your time compares to other people.

So what do you think, surely it's destined to be this Christmases must have gift? I wonder if I should be pitching it to The Dragons Den? Let me know if you'd like to reserve one of these highly sought after games but I should point out that due to the high demand I may have to limit purchases to one per household, terms and conditions apply.