Listing to Port

1. That medium-sized tanker in a fetchingly sensible shade of silver. This is a shipment of very fine dream sand, as you would be able to discern if you could get close enough to read the hazard notice. I would not recommend getting quite that close, because if the tanker were to suffer a spillage everyone within a three-month radius would end up furiously sleeping for at least three months.

2. The small grey truck with a conspicuous ‘speed limiter installed’ sign. This is not actually a truck. It is two elephants on a specially-modified bicycle. You are only seeing it as a truck because that is what you expect a large grey object to be on a road of this size.

3. The large green truck with a stylised smiley face logo on it, heading West. This truck is full of spies. Literally full: they are stacked some seven deep in an ingenious spy stacking system which cannot be patented on account of being top secret. They are conservatively-dressed and have very serious faces, apart from the one at the bottom who is making fart jokes and being ignored.

4. That red shipping container, glimpsed briefly in traffic in the other lane. Contents: a slightly smaller red shipping container, containing a slightly smaller red shipping container, containing another, slightly smaller red shipping container, and so on. The source of so many shipping containers of non-standard dimensions is not obvious. In the smallest container is a miniature safe, locked, key nowhere in sight, emitting a furious buzzing noise.

5. The small orange shipping container, marked with a logo in a language you do not read. This is a shipment of fruit, primarily silver moon apples headed for the perilous realm, where they will form part of the fairy world’s seasonal fruit baskets. If you are offered one of these fruit baskets, do not accept it.

6. A small-size black and white horse carrier, no horse visible inside. This carrier was once used by one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and as a result has become a place of pilgrimage for ghosts. At the moment it is being used to transport the ghosts of Arthur Sullivan and W. S. Gilbert. They have obtained some highly sought-after permits to spend the night haunting a theatre in which Hamilton is being performed, and are making their way there right now.

7. Half a house, as transported on a special truck for the carrying of large things. This is a witch-squashing house, as popularised by the film the Wizard of Oz. These days, they are usually remotely controlled; essentially, they are the drones of the mystical world. This one has been damaged by being dropped from a great height onto a particularly rocky coven. It is being sent for repair in Swindon.

1. What’s in the lorry? The point of this game is to speculate as to the contents of the nearest lorry (excluding those with visible loads). As there is no way of knowing if you are right, no points are awarded.
2. Murder mystery. Someone has committed a murder and is even now in their getaway vehicle, on the road with you! Possibly. Your job is to observe your fellow travellers (either in your vehicle or other vehicles) and deduce the guilty party and the details of the murder.
3. Red car stack. How many red cars can you see in a row? You win that number of points.
4. Traffic news bingo. For this you will need a list of your favourite congestion and accident hotspots and a radio with travel news reports.
5. Apocalypse now. The point of this game is to speculate what would happen if an apocalypse of your favoured type (zombie, massive earthquake, asteroid strike, plague etc.) were to start right at this moment. Where would you go? What would you do? How quickly would the road snarl up? Etc.
6. Make a banana. A banana is when you see a yellow car next to a brown car, or, better yet, several cars of each colour together. Alternatively, you can also score a point if you see an actual banana. Pictures of bananas on lorries count as well. Banana.
7. Roadkill or shipping container. You score a point if you correctly guess what you’re going to see on the road next: a dead animal or a shipping container. Entities already visible at the time of the guess do not count.
8. Where’s the letter Y gone? Participants endeavour to keep a letter Y outside the car visible for as long as possible, primarily by looking at numberplates.
9. Count your toes. A fun game for fans of repetition.
10. Road stories. Pick a passing car whose inhabitants and contents are visible. Where do you think they are going, and for how long? What is that dog in the car thinking about? Why the red canoe? Etc.
11. Lorry driver’s elbow. Next time you go past a lorry, note the size of the driver’s visible elbow. Will the next lorry driver elbow you see be bigger or smaller? Score a point if you are right.
12. Placename stories. Your job is to deliberately misinterpret placenames that you pass to make them into parts of a story (e.g. ‘Maida Vale’ -> 'Made of Ale’; 'Loughton Court’ -> 'Lout un-caught’ etc.). Score one point per un-forced happy ending.