The Christmas Special: Part One

Near the start of the festive season last year (2013), it was brought to my attention that GAME, the largest high street and online computer games retailer in the UK, was selling an "all-day Christmas feast in a tin" in some of its stores, for gamers who couldn't bear to drag themselves away from their consoles to cook on Christmas Day.

GAME had commissioned design student Chris Godfrey to create the so-called "Christmas Tinner", consisting of nine layers including scrambled egg and bacon, two mince pies, a full roast turkey dinner with all the trimmings, and Christmas pudding at the bottom. Godfrey had previously produced a 12-course meal in a can, with layers including a selection of local cheeses with sourdough bread, halibut poached in truffle butter, and a rib eye steak.

GAME's statement about the Christmas Tinner claimed that:

"According to new research almost half (43 per cent) of the nation’s gamers plan to spend the majority of Christmas day playing on their new consoles and games. That’s why GAME has developed the Christmas Tinner, enabling gamers to get their teeth into GAME play all day without having to miss out on a mouthful of their favourite food or do the washing-up."

It all has more than a whiff of a marketing ploy about it to attract shoppers in the lead up to Christmas, though to be fair that's probably not as bad as the smell that would come from the tin itself. I have no interest in computer games whatsoever, but would of course have been more than willing - keen, even - to give the tin a try. Sadly though, it was only available in a small number of stores, and by the time I heard about it, it had completely sold out online too. I contacted GAME earlier this year to find out if they would be relaunching it for 2014, but alas they said they had no plans to do so. For a tin cannoisseur, such news was as upsetting as the ending of The Snowman.