Whilst it does change from time to time, I always find myself coming back to Cluedo. I don’t really know why. It’s certainly not the best board game in the world by any means. There’s just something about Cluedo that makes me remember it extremely fondly from my childhood and keep wanting to play it just one more time.

I’ve long since had a love and fascination with murder mystery novels, and can’t get enough of Agatha Christie (Miss Marple, Poirot etc). I’m not sure which one feeds which. Do I love Cluedo because of a crazy murder mystery fascination. Or do I love murder mystery stories because I was introduced to Cluedo as a child and never looked back?

Either way, I’m certainly not alone. On both the Cluedo front and Agatha Christie!

Cluedo (or Clue as it’s curiously known in the USA) is still in production today. Unbelievably it was first made way back in 1949 in the UK by Waddingtons Games. It’s hard to believe the game is really that old.

The other intriguing thing about the game name is that in latin ‘ludo’ means ‘I play’ – so Cluedo is really a play on the words ‘clue’ and ‘I play’. It’s not Greek but there you go 😉

I guess I’m also generally a fan of board games. I love all sorts of them, right from the simplest luck based games like snakes and ladders, through to some of the fairly complex strategy games like Risk, and those produced by Avalon Games with hundreds of counters/pieces to them. Of course I already told you about my secret crush game before, but I guess I’m just a big kid and love games of all types. I love playing computer games too – puzzle games, or even those 3D adventure/shooter type games. Even the odd RPG sometimes. I know, and I’m a girl too.

Thing is, I think games are valuable. Strategy games like chess are widely regarded as valuable teaching tools. They are even considered valuable in military terms. I also think most games are useful in some way – whether they are teaching children how to count, how to deal well with winning and losing. Even improving hand and eye co-ordination is a useful skill which many computer games improve. It’s even been shown they can help with real world skills, people who play racing driving games do learn some race driving skills that work in the real world too!

Never look down on people who play games. They can be a lot of fun, but can also be very social and teach a lot of skills. If you’ve lost the love of gaming (which we all had as kids!) then try playing an old board game – you might just surprise yourself.

I know some people think it’s a waste of time, but I have a secret crush for the lottery.

C’mon, stay with me on this one. I mean, where else can you get that much excitement and fun for just £2? You can’t even rent a decent movie for that these days (not where I live anyway).

My favourite game is called, quite simply ‘Lotto’. How sweet 🙂

Lotto is one of the main lottery games in the United Kingdom and actually one of the most popular. Players select six of forty-nine numbers, and must match all the six winning balls drawn to win the jackpot. The good news is that there are smaller prizes for those who have matched even as low as three numbers. That’s me mostly.

Tickets are available from authorized national lottery merchants or online. The UK lotto game underwent some changes in the early October 2013 that included addition of a lotto ‘raffle’ which made the game a lot more interesting as there are now 20 bonus prizes of £20,000 given away to somebody every draw.

Playing Lotto Online in the UK

While in UK, playing online is quite straightforward. You only need to visit the Buy Lotto Tickets page at the official National Lottery site, and follow the simple instructions. You will be emailed with an official receipt. After the draw, your numbers will be automatically checked and again you will receive a notification via email if you win a prize. Simple.

Play Outside UK?

Outside the United Kingdom, you can either buy your tickets from a lottery agent, or better still, go for a lottery syndicate (check https://www.lotterysyndicatereviews.co.uk for reviews).

Agents buy the tickets on your behalf, and sometimes you get a scan of the Lotto ticket sent to you through your email. It depends on the company. But this option is typically pretty expensive.

With a syndicate it’s usually much better value for money, plus you get the extra benefit of a much better chance of winnning. This is the approach I take, alongside buying my own tickets too sometimes.

UK Lotto holds draws twice per week, Wednesday and Saturday evening. In addition, the full Lotto draws results from the two draws are published on the Results page shortly after the draw. A prize breakdown is also available shortly after too.

You can play other games the same way too of course, like EuroMillions, but it’s just not my preferred choice. If that’s your thing though, you can find reviews of syndicates for that here: https://www.lotterysyndicatereviews.co.uk/euromillions-lottery-syndicates/

But wether you win or lose, the whole point is that playing is a lot of fun. You can make choosing your numbers as technical or as exciting as you like – it doesn’t have to be a boring ‘lucky dip’. Then if you make sure you watch the draw, you will get plenty of heart pounding adrenalin fun as you see some of your numbers start to appear while the tension builds for the next number coming out of the draw machine.

There you go, that’s my secret crush. I love it and I’m not going to give up any time soon either 🙂

I love a bit of messing around in boats – but this is a step too far my friend 🙂