I am not a games player. The nearest I have got to it is playing Tetris on my children’s now defunct Game Boy and the ubiquitous solitaire on every PC.

Now I find myself strangely drawn to trying out a Wii. When it first came out my initial reaction was, “what a gimmick. Fun at Christmas but not for life.” Now I am not so sure and the more and more I hear about it the more I fancy having a go on one.

Only last week I was talking to couple who don’t need to pay to go on a bus anyone and the wife was complaining of a strained shoulder. “Did you do it gardening, lifting or was the dog pulling the lead,” I naively asked. “No, I was playing Ten Pin bowling on a WII at a friend’s house and gave a shot so much wellie that I put my shoulder out,” was the reply. Apparently all across the Home Counties the Wiis that were brought for offspring as Christmas presents are now in the domain of the parents.

And now its energetic use is being hailed as a panacea for all and is being used in some schools instead of traditional PE, some sections of the WI are adopting it alongside cake baking, care homes are buying them to keep elderly residents active and in the US it is being used in the rehabilitation of returning soldiers from Iraq.

The downside is (and there always is a downside isn’t there) that, like my friend, some users are presenting with sports injuries without ever leaving home and others are getting RSI in unusual places. So physiotherapists are recommending a warm up regime before starting to play.

Perhaps I should just stick to the great technological advance of yesteryear – the skipping rope.