On the tenth day of Christmas, Pocket Gamer gave to me...

Games are all about virtual activity. Basically you're either shooting something or jumping over it; maybe punching it if the designers get overly creative. It's somewhat ironic for a leisure activity, especially as other similarly recumbent screen-based relaxants, such as TV and film, tend to provide a character-based, dramatic experience that's light on physical movement. Even John McClane gets the odd sit down before or between action sequences. Not so Mario and Sonic, who will be continuing their tireless efforts this year in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.

And co-incidentally, there was yet another effort made to get competitive computer games included as an exhibition event in Beijing 2008.

Fat chance.

"There's a big campaign in the International Olympic Committee to get kids away from computer terminals," reported CNN Money. "[Lobbying for] video gaming would be like asking the IOC to approve power smoking."

Now that's a sport Team GB might actually do well in, especially if it included pipe-smoking. Indeed, getting back to the tenth day of Christmas, we could enter the former 2nd Viscount Stansgate and pipe smoker of the year 1992, Tony Wedgwood Benn - on a trampoline, of course.