Mousetrap weblog: taking the Wii to new heights of laziness

GORDON BROWN does not have a reputation as much of an athlete, and now he has confessed his four-year-old son John beats him on the Nintendo Wii video game console.

The prime minister has said in an interview that John, not content with beating his father at tennis, has now challenged him to a boxing bout.

“I have played a game of tennis, but I didn’t succeed, and my son has challenged me to a game of boxing,” he said.

Microsoft and Sony Ericsson's smartphone

Sony Ericsson's flagship phone for 2008 will run on Windows, the first time the two companies have partnered in a mobile device

• Microsoft to take on YouTube in online video

• Yahoo! set to revive merger talks with AOL after rejecting hostile takeover

• Microsoft is ready to oust Yahoo! board to achieve swift takeover

“It didn’t leave me out of puff but that was because I was probably beaten pretty early on by my son - and he is only four.”

The Wii has been one of the most popular family toys of recent years. It uses motion-sensitive controllers to reproduce the action of the player’s arm on the screen, so a game of tennis is played by doing pretend tennis strokes with the hands rather than by simply pressing buttons.

Brown made a public attempt at a real tennis serve while visiting a school last summer but gave a heavy-footed performance.

The prime minister may have lost to his son at tennis but young John had better watch out in the boxing bout. Last year Tony Blair issued a stark warning to his successor’s political opponent: “However much he dances around the ring beforehand he will come in reach of a big clunking fist and, you know what, he’ll be out on his feet, carried out of the ring.”

Times Recommends

• Milk: do we need a dairy godmother?
• DIY: the women doing it for themselves
• First double portrait of Princes unveiled