I confess to having felt a swelling pride on behalf of a ‘local girl’ — and friend — when I saw an agency picture of Mitt Romney and his family playing Jenga. The Republican presidential candidate was said to be ‘winding down’ with the building block game just before his first live television debate with Barack Obama.
Though Jenga appears to have been around for yonks — like chess, say, or Monopoly — it was in fact launched at the London Toy Fair as recently as 1983. Its inventor is Leslie Scott, who lives near Beckley and is married to the eminent Oxford zoologist Prof Fritz Vollrath.
Jenga’s origins and worldwide success (with upwards of 50 million sets having been sold) were fully discussed by Leslie in her book About Jenga published in 2009. This also revealed that the author had been one of those legendary waitresses who so brightened visits to Brown’s restaurant in the late 1970s.
Having learned of Mr Romney’s interest in her game, Leslie told me: “Well, I’m flattered of course, but if it did play any part in boosting his performance I would have preferred that Mr Obama had chosen to focus his mind by playing Jenga.”
In another piece of good news for Leslie, she is on the short list of five for the 2012 TAGIE Excellence in Game Design Award. The winner of the award will be announced on November 16 at the Toy and Game Inventors of the Year awards dinner in Chicago.
Leslie says: “I know that I am up against some pretty stiff competition, so I would be exceedingly grateful if Gray Matter readers would do me the huge favour of voting for me on http://www.tagieawards.com/ us/poll/gamedesignpoll.php.”
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