Pinch punch - let's net get too wobbly - Mornington Crescent...

[Arlanymor]

Well good evening... I'll start without too much pomp and circumstance (because they cancelled the b*stard elephant). No I am fine, I AM FINE.

And find myself on the platform at Blackfriars... not sure if I am heading east or west...

Sympathies! A similar thing happened at Exeter in the semi-finals, was it 1996? Not to me, you understand, but to an acquaintance. The kind of words were had that are not easily taken back.

Anyway.

Mansion House (haven't played a Schiller in a while).

Interesting choice of starting point, cannot recall the last time the District line was used.

Tower Hill

Starting with the District used to be one of the second bassoon's favourite ploys, when we were all at Ross on Wye. I seem to remember someone questioned him at the concordance in about 2017, and things got slightly testy. I always. thought it was a rather elegant play, personally, especially bearing in mind Smith's Dictum.

Ladbroke Grove

A move to Goldhawk Road.

Oh, clever!
Euston, using my Tippet.

Where is everybody?! Surely there isn't a conference this weekend? From memory, there hasn't been a late May one since that unfortunate Bury St Edmunds weekend about ten years ago. The reverend still gets a thousand-yard stare if it comes up in conversation.

This may become the slow game similar to the one in 2018 (?) which lasted 11 months. Nothing wrong with that of course.

A move south via the Victoria line to Pimlico.

Oh lawks. This game started a month ago and yet I’ve only just found it. How very remiss of me.

LittleBitofBread, have we met before? There’s a certain, let us say, edge to your play that I haven’t seen since that rather frisky tournament in Eastbourne which had to be broken up by the riot squad and the Inland Revenue. (There’s a reason the Reverend did not get the bishopric).

Anyway, a nimble transverse to

Moorgate

Maud, I'm in fact a long-term player, just here under a new username. The reasons for the change need not detain us and have no bearing on my participation in these threads, nor on my presence at in-person MC events it says on my briefing sheet from my solicitor

I was at Eastbourne that time, yes. The Reverend and I were and have managed to remain quite good friends, but it was complicated for a time; one of the Inland Revenue senior bods was also an... acquaintance of mine, which generated a certain frisson.

I prefer the Barnstaple tournament these days.

Holborn

Ha! I knew it! I am still awestruck at how you clinched the semi-final with your deployment of a decisive inverse Boddington.

Victoria

You are too kind, Maud, thank you. I was taught about Boddingtons (and a few other things besides, but that's a conversation for another day) by the tree surgeon.
Cockfosters

Chancery Lane.

Comment is superfluous.

Oh. The tree surgeon. What a fine lad he was. Last seen entering a very louche bar at the rougher end of the high road with a fellow who claimed to be related to Luxembourgeous royalty, although my knowledgeable friend said he was actually the fishmonger’s errand boy.

Theydon Bois

That is actually a slightly scrambled version of the truth, at least as far as I know from the old under-butler; there are known to be minor Luxembourgeois royalty who frequent the other louche bar. They'll give you a game of MC in return for the odd glass of Armagnac. They're not bad players, although they tend to cleave to the (somewhat discredited as far as I understand it) Uffington Concord on matters pertaining to the District and Circle.

The tree surgeon’s involvement the under-butler was silent on, although I'm not sure whether that was because there's nothing to say or simply out of his famous discretion. Sadly, relations between myself on the surgeon are no longer of the sort where I could ask him myself.

Anyway!
A medial half-tilt to Kilburn Park.

I’m not entirely surprised by these revelations. When I say that my knowledgeable friend is in fact the Marquess of Borsetshire, you’ll understand why their intelligence quite often turns out to be somewhat off the mark.

Green Park

Ha! Yes, that does make sense.
The Marquess tells a cracking story about the first violinist, the rescue badgers and the rectory orchard. I would not like to put a bet on it being true, but it always brings the house down.

To Epping, using de Sisco's Theorem.

De Sisco? So seldom played now - takes me back to the days of the Antibes internationals. Cocktails on the verandah, cicadas humming and the Vice-Admiral playing the spoons. Heady days.

Hanger Lane

I only ever went to Antibes once. I suspect I missed its absolute zenith, when the Marchioness used to mix the punch and the Reverend was always first on the dancefloor. Still, there is a certain charm to Sidmouth.

Upminster, lateral and half-cocked.

Yes, Antibes was quite the place to be until, well, I’m sure you got the gist from Reverend Mother. On a downward Firbank:

Walthamstow Central

Sadly, the Reverend Mother has not found me to be quite the thing for some time now and so it is a long while since we've spoken. She over-reacted somewhat (although of course one would not say that to her face); it was only a few rose bushes, hardly anyone was there, and the apprentice woodturner's master made a very generous donation...
But!
I'll take advantage of the concavity created by that last move and say, Harlesden

Not to say that I'm not enjoying the old mano a mano, Maud old stick, but it's awfully quiet round here.

Quite. I’m hoping that, the more energetic we are here, the more it might encourage novice and experienced players alike to join the fray. I’ll also ask the under-butler to prepare a tray of his legendary absinthe cocktails; they usually pull in the usual set - at least, those not still in prison.

So now a spliced lateral to

Wood Green

The northern end of the Piccadilly line. Seemingly so suburban yet hiding a multiple of things that are never mentioned at tournaments of the game of games. Well, not since the 1972 one where the use of the closed stations rule caused uproar.

Southgate

Eh voilà! LlynTegid has returned to the MC fold. To celebrate, a transverse shunt to

Finchley Central

Welcome back, Llyn!
How remiss of me to let three days pass. I'll have to blame the absinthe cocktails.
I'm using the bisected wattage exception to go to Finsbury Park

More Piccadilly line move, to Holloway Road.

Cunning strategy, but as you likely anticipated, I'm going to counter with:

Green Park.