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Firstly a couple of products from Upstarts ! How about a lightweight football, nothing ingenious of gadgetry there but there is you can blow it up with a couple of puffs of air, I did not take their word for it I did it myself, it’s called Port-A-Ball and they also do rugby and basketball as well. Finished playing, just press the inset valve and it deflates just as easily. No pump no adapter and best of all no you required to inflate it. Their second product is a spinning top, but again there is a gadget angle as it has inside something that detects north and an LED counter that increments by one for each rotation. For kids just guessing the number of rotations can be fun, for parents I see great chances for a gamble at parties by having a book on nearest the correct number. There are a total of four different games, and perhaps best of all it comes with batteries. Prices the ball is £2.99 and the top an excellent value at £7.99.

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Now something from Radica, it’s a sort of oval object around 6.5cm across with an LCD display that has a total of six buttons. If I say 20 questions you know what I am talking about but after 20 questions if it is wrong it asks more questions and strange as it seems it is nearly always right. It is stated for age 8 upwards, I certainly tried a number of times to defeat it and on one occasion managed it. You think of something and after the animal, vegetable, mineral or other opening it asks the questions, each one can be answered by pressing Yes, No, Sometimes or Unknown. After 20 questions it guesses and should you say no, then it asks a few more. On one occasion I selected an adult object it got it so this is not solely for the kids. Described as a pocket mind reader, I found it quite convincing. Likely price around £12.99 and once again the batteries are included.

Now Yo-Yo – I’m sure your saying there is nothing new there, wrong – this is Power-Yo in fact there are seven different models ranging from £4 to £15 but as you might expect they do different things and are all nothing like the piece of wood or plastic we all remember from our youth. The basic yo-yo idea was to let it fall and then get it back up again, only after hours/weeks of practice could you do basic tricks however with the Power Yo even young children (5+) can do tricks as the construction allows the unit to sleep simply by the axle and clutch mechanism things like ball bearing surrounds and lots of other technical details are unimportant, if I at senior citizen status can do it then I am certain most children can. As they progress the better specified units can do even more tricks something to do with the gap between the two sides of the Power-Yo.

Lastly something called Magnetic World from Treasure Trove. This is a sort of construction toy a little like Lego or Meccano but with magnetic balls holding the plastic pieces together. Just like other modelling toys there are lots of sets and if you really get into it you can build huge items but I suspect it will be the older kids who manage to build the Eiffel Tower or other large structures. It is stated as suitable for 6-99 years, likely price for the 46 panel set I saw around £14.99.

Links Upstarts www.upstarts.co.uk

          Radica   www.radicauk.com/20q.htm

          Power-Yo www.poweryo.com  

       Tresure Trove www.treasuretrovetoys.co.uk