Well go on then!  See if we care! 

I play chess with the children and little 'un has joined the chess club as one of his after-school activities.  Trivial Pursuit is quite useful for children as it increases their general knowledge.

The bidding is the most important part of a bridge game.  Get that wrong and you're screwed!  Once that's sorted, it's to my mind just like Whist when you're playing it out.  I'm a bit naughty with the bidding, if I get a few hands with not many points in so that I'm not playing for a while even in defence, I get fed up so I start what is called "nuisance" bidding.  That way I can often force my opponents into contracts that I know very well they can never achieve, so they go down and we get the money instead. <devilwickedemoticon> 

Yes, you have to take sides or else it's no fun at all! 

I used to enjoy card games as a child and feel quite ashamed that I haven't organised card games more often with my own children but we do have some favourite board games and an excellent dice game called Perudo (highly recommended) which we all enjoy. Must play some card games with the kids this winter - it's very cosy sitting inside playing games when the rain's beating down outside (just like most of August!).
That's good! I don't know backgammon. I taught my class Shut the Box last week and they've really taken to it. You can buy nice wooden Shut the Box games very cheaply (only about £3 I think) in Home Bargains. I no longer teach my mixed Y2/Y3 class of 29 children. I'm now teaching a special needs class of 9 (mainly statemented for learning) Y4/Y5/Y6 children every morning (English and Maths) and I'm teaching other classes in the afternoons (mainly PPA time). I'm really enjoying it but mornings are pretty intense as my TA and I are working very closely with so few children -some have statements for behaviour too so it can be difficult at times. There's great job satisfaction when it's going well though. It's taken a while to gain the trust of some of the children with social/emotional problems but I have taught some of them before when they were younger.

Alas, boring old fart here isn't encouraged to keep up with the youngsters. In their last year of school (was it really two years ago?) a game called Magic was immensely popular, with huge collections of cards, many with very nice illustrations. And of course, before that, there was Pokemon.

Nothing for me to do but keep poking Ubuntu with a sharp stick and see what I can break.

Games are great for Ld kids and yo's aren't they,and I guess cards for grown-ups are a symbolic mcGuffin.  I am contemplating taking one of my adult clients toa 'family contact centre' wherethey see their 7-year old oncea month while closely observed. Something like cards might break up therigidity methinks-thanks guys.
Up at ungodly hour with vague prospect of moving to the nethereaches of the district line-going for a bit ofdinner with prospective housemate,also a dayjob colleague,this evening. Escape from stalag N9?
Also seem to have got my laptop working tolerably again having deleted a bit of software that provedto be still lurking.

Yes. The first couple of weeks were a little bumpy but it's quite fun now, being able to tweak things, and fix small things when they go wrong.
I.e. a couple of times the panels (equivalent of the Windows taskbar) have gone missing and I now know what to do to get them back, and yesterday I added a quick launch button for Thunderbird mail.
I keep promising myself I'm going to do more about learning Python scripting at some point.
And once upon a time I used to use AWK to do all kinds of things on a Unix system but I think I binned most of my listings thinking I would never need them again.

O dear, sorry Mary and Janthefan, I wont be in your gang then!! I love card games, board games, especially Chess and Monoply and other stragegy games like 'Risk'. Great fun! I play chess regularly with my son.