"Congratulations, you have completed the hunt! Time before penalties: two hours two minutes. Total time including penalties: six hours two minutes."
With virtually no competitive streak and no sense of direction, I'm probably the last person you'd want with you on a treasure hunt. This time though, we are following a series of clues on the Shoreditch Street Art Trail in London, and I'm team captain, a fact reflected in our final score. I scroll down (and down) the leader board and find that the winning team completed the challenge in 49 minutes …
In my defence, it was a bank holiday weekend, a Sunday. Two of the answers lay hidden in a closed bar, and we dodged the final destination, which was heaving with crowds clasping cans of Red Stripe. In total, we skipped three clues, gave one incorrect answer and asked for one "hot hint", incurring an impressive penalty of 240 minutes. (It's worth noting that the scoring system has recently changed to include "lifelines" and shorter time penalties. I like to think my six-hour shocker had something to do with this …)
The Shoreditch Street Art Trail is one of 12 clue-based trails, including the new Guardian East End Explorer Trail, devised by HiddenCity: an online start-up offering urban street hunts across four UK cities: London, Brighton, Newcastle and York. Once you've signed up (it's £16 to play), the team captain receives a welcome text revealing the start location. The hunt begins when the captain texts "start".
And that is my first mistake. I text "start" on the bus before we're anywhere near the starting point – a bar populated by leisurely mojito drinkers on the corner of Hoxton Square. The first text reads: "Follow Monica from church to school and beyond to seek a spectacle in silver …" The hunt is on.
My team-mate and I walk from Hoxton Square to Old Street, where we are lead to a Banksy that neither of us had noticed before. From Old Street, we wander across Arnold Circus, through the Boundary Estate and on to Redchurch Street.
Here, as I'm lurking outside a newsagent, squinting at my phone and just generally looking a bit lost and confused, a friendly geezer asks me if I will hold his fag for him while he goes to buy some more booze. We are left outside counting "illicit smokable symbols" on the multi-coloured mural opposite, a work by the street artist Malarky.
"Where are you from?" asks the geezer, collecting his half-smoked cigarette.
"I knew it!" I say. "We totally look like lost tourists." We manage to convince him we're locals and explain that we are on a hunt for street art.
We've lost time and have already given one incorrect answer, so we hot-foot it to the next location: a cosy pub on Redchurch Street, where we can stop the clock and sink a quick drink. The light is fading and the hunt leads you down some shady back alleys, so we don't dawdle.
The final clues take us to Hanbury Street and Brick Lane, where the party is just starting. We resist the lure of the curry houses – we still have to find a massive yellow vegetable, a Chad (remember them?) and a money-eating monster. It's not a normal Sunday night in East London and I may not be very good at it but, for £16, it's six hours two minutes well spent.
