Brainy members of Mensa proved they can be as silly as the rest of us.

For they came to Oxford, seat of learning, and ended up playing games like who can spit a cherry pip the furthest.

They also got down to a bit of appreciative eye-goggling with an Egyptian belly dancing session.

And, to cap it all, they played at donning silly hats for a Lewis Carroll Mad Hatter's Tea Party in the grounds of Somerville College.

Nearly 100 members of the exclusive club, some from as far as America and Australia, turned up for the special Mensa summer weekend organised by Terry Latter.

She lives at Jackman Close, Abingdon, and is among the 40,000 members in the UK who all qualify by taking IQ tests. She said: "It all started with this debate over when exactly the Millennium is. Did it start on January 1 this year, or is it the next one?

"I decided, therefore, to have a Mid-Millennium Year of Madness weekend and it's gone down very well indeed," she said.

Ms Latter, bursar of The Manor prep school in Abingdon, chose Oxford as the venue because it was the birthplace of Mensa in 1946.

The weekend's activities included a silly games session, as well as the more demanding skills of a game of bridge and an IQ icebreaker quiz.