Fanning the kipper

The best bit of Christmas is the games and the best game is fan the kipper. To play: Cut some sheets of newspaper into fat fish shapes. These are your kippers. Get two dinner plates and place them adjacent to each other but spaced apart at one end of a room. Clear furniture/people/dogs to the edges of the room. Get some magazines or newspapers; these are your fans.

Now draw up a list of all those there, put their names in to a hat and have someone draw them out to establish the order of play. On a sheet of a paper draw up a tree-style framework like those that are used for a knockout cup competition - finals, semis, quarters etc.

If you have 12 people, say, in your family group put four blank pieces of paper in the hat to signify byes in a draw of 16. In this way the competition will work itself fairly through the rounds. If you get the luck of a draw you have a bye through to the next round.

Choose your kipper and fan. Now you are ready to start. In each match two people "fan off" against each other. The object of the game is to fan your kipper down the room and on to your plate so that no part is touching the floor. The one that achieves this first is the winner.

Our family kipper trophy is a silver rabbit that was given to me many years ago as a corporate gift. As an employee of the Financial Times at that time, the policy was to hand over gifts for a charity raffle among staff. I handed in the rabbit, then won it back. This year I won it again.

I could never bat for England or turn a cricket ball but if fanning the kipper is ever granted international sporting recognition the manager of our national team could be comforted that in one small corner of this great country there is a pretty mean kipper wafter just waiting for the call.