With winter firmly on the go, it may be time to consider finding activities for those of us who do not consider waiting for the bus as good fun. So it’s time to head indoors people! Having grown up in South Africa, enjoying yourself indoors meant dinner time and bed time, but over here, with the weather being less than favourable, we should look to the Brits for inspiration to coping with the limited sunlight. And what better way to spend a couple of hours than with friends in a fluorescent glow that has become synonymous with ten pin bowling? So strike up a conversation with your friends, aim to convince them and split to your nearest alley. Fortunately they are spotted all across the capital, and this makes it all the much easier for us to don the silly shoes and take part in what is presumably one of America’s favourite pastimes, but also a big favourite on the Island since the 60’s. If you believe everything you see on TV, you will most probably think that the Americans invented the game. But actually it can be traced as far back as 3200 BC in Ancient Egypt. They did not have the same questionable fashion back then that seems to be synonymous with the modern game, or at least not especially for bowling, but the tools, (a ball and pins) were, in essence, the same. After that history is a bit sketchy, with the first written accounts being accredited to King Edward III of England with him telling his troops off for skiving from archery practice and attempting a perfect 300 instead! But the game has gone through its growing pains to reach the format we know today. The zany Germans, crazy Dutch and preposterous Poms are credited with taking the game across the Atlantic to America. But after some fall-outs with the law involving gambling and crimes related to the bowling alleys, the game of ninepin bowling, as it was originally played, was banned under Connecticut law. Not to be outdone by the government, they just added another pin, making it a nice round number and thus preventing the law to be applicable to them. And that is why we take aim today at a ten pins arranged in a triangle, instead of nine. Ten Pin Bowling is split up into 10 frames, and each frame is split up into two shots. Each frame score is combined with the previous frames to give you a points total. If you knock all ten pins down, the first shot from the next frame is added to your score for the frame where you knocked all ten pins down. The scoring continues until 10 frames have been played, remembering that in the 10th frame, a strike would give two more bowls and a spare gives one more bowl with the maximum score in any one game being 300. Apart from the history of the game, rules, the funny shoes, heavy balls and slippery wood lanes, (there is a reason they warn you not to step over the line, the bruise on my derriere and ego can attest to that!) the greatest invention simply has to be the computer that keeps score. How they managed to keep score in the past after swilling a couple of beers during the game, baffles me! Fortunately they have the automated systems now, so the complete social, indoor experience, with beer, hot dogs and good times is just what is needed to get the blood pumping again till the sun comes out in summer!