Mornington Crescent?!

[Eggsbutnobacon]

Will somebody please please explain to me what this is all about?

I bet your copy opens to the same page as mine.

As for that "birthmark" - come off it. It's a tattoo. The Person Concerned told me that the next was to have been a lion having its wicked way with the Yeti if the mermaid had not been more painful than he (later of course she) wanted expected.

Castleton.

I am concerned at the impact of two nights in Castleton. Maybe demented ma's book is thought to have a second copy hidden somewhere in the village and so there has been an expedition to search for it.

I'm hotfooting it back to London though, and in keeping with the last two destinations, use the strange branch line from Ealing Broadway to Castle Bar Park.

terribly sorry for recent ansence. As I'm sure you know by now I've been closeted in a lengthy meeting with the other members of the MC Special Council (Maps and Arcane Documents Department) debating the impact of the the addition of the Trams to the London Underground Maps. I'm sure I don't need to advise you of quite how perilous use of the Bakerloo line will now be in the immediate aftermath of the Solstice, and Mordern is Best Avoided until further notice - don't worry though, an elite band backbench MPs are working on that one.

Without further ado

West Croydon

Castleton wasn't bad. The town pump is working again, at least intermittently, and there is talk of getting a phone in the Town Hall. The Culture and Drainage Committee are treating it as a matter of high priority and will reach a decision by the end of 2018. Or so they say.

Good to see you back Pingu - I hope all went well when the bailiffs called on Mummy Pingu. I remember last time - tell me, that chap in charge, the former professional heavyweight boxer - how long was he in intensive care for?

Morden is always best avoided but it's not as bad as West Croydon. You obviously meant Canterbury East - it's an easy mistake to make no matter how skilful you are. I made the same blunder once and ended up in East Grinstead, and it has made me very, very careful.

Always, always avoid Morden. Particularly before the solstice. Strange things do happen there. As dear nanny was wont to exclaim.
Well, I feel the call north, as ever, and so to Hull to do unspeakable things in the lift at the Bryn Mawr Jones library.
I trust everyone has their transport in order for tonight's shenanigans at the old homestead? I managed to get quite a striking number in some shop called McQueens? No me neither, but the offspring said it was acceptable. Don't forget, a good lining on the stomach and no more than one glass of the colonels punch.

I'll bew arriving in the Family carriage Slinky. Wearing Mummy Pingu's 5th wedding dress, you know, the one from when she was going through the Emo phase. It's rather splendid.

I cannot hold with being in The North this late in the evening, so back to the outer reaches of civilisation with a Balsingham's Fouetté to

Milton Keynes Central

I'm wearing the dinner suit with the green stripe on the trousers that the Duchess admired so much at Karlsruhe in '83, and this year it's the unicycle - I am fed up with the pogo stick. Slinky, do come and find me, I've got your cousin's DVD, the one I had to persuade the Irish customs to let her keep. Does anyone know whether Saints can make it? Is she still on the run from those awful Revenue people?

Outer reaches indeed. Some people like Milton Keynes, or so I am told, but I believe you can get treatment for it. There's a touch of romance in the air and we are all going to Gretna. Last one in the Blacksmith's Parlour is a sissy.

What? Milton Keynes? Something very rum must be afoot. I'll get things onto a more solid footing with a Davidson's Treble Lunge to

Preston Park

Maud I don't think you and I have ever cross-posted before and I am thrilled at the experience!

Let's compromise. Harvington's flutter will get us both to Wallsend.

You're right Maud, there is something very rum afoot. Rather a lot of excellent Caribbean rum actually. Mummy Pingu's 6th husband managed to smuggle in several gallons of Mount Gay's finest, although sadly we lost a fair amount to the border police. Needs must and all that. I'm planning to slosh plenty into Slinky's punch later, and that's absolutely not a double entendre, so stop sniggering Andrew

Woolwich Arsenal

Don't tell anyone,but Saints has been hiding out in the priest hole (again, not a double entrendre) since she had the knock. She has a devilishly cunning disguise in case of any tricky photographers lurking. (Hint-HH the Dalai Lama couldn't make it this year).
Damn you are all looking fine! Andrew-wit woo! (Leave the dvd in the usual place) Who has been a bit piggy with the salmon balls eh? Ten minutes and the colonel will be joining the Bolshoi on the lawn for their annual al fresco performance of Swan Lake, so not to be missed. Mater will be standing by with the taser in case there's a repeat of the 1998 fiasco. Apparently some American chappie is singing some ditties in the south lawn, he's getting on but apparently goes on a bit, so you may want to retire to the library where the main event will take place.
On that note, I'm Homeward Bound to Crewe.

As you know, Andrew, all social intercourse with you gives me an immense thrill.

I was musing on that very thought as I climbed aboard Hugo, the Bactrian camel, ready to make my customary understated entrance at the ball. It was a little unfortunate that SlinkyVagabond's mater had overdone it on the cherry brandy (that fourth mug was probably a mistake, in hindsight), took aim at the Colonel just as he was preparing, medals a-jangling, for his grand jetee and accidentally tasered poor Hugo. In the resulting stampede - I think the horses drawing Pingu's landau somehow became embroiled - mater sprained her ankle, the commandant secured a black eye and the corps de ballet fell into the trout lake. The Colonel, meanwhile, laddered his tights. It's all too much for me (I prefer the quiet life, as you know) so I'm taking a flask of Ovaltine on a midnight Luffins to

Dollis Hill

Awful news about your landau, Maud

I've recently taken delivery of a rather fine consignment of Chateauneuf (de Pape, obviously, not that Serraine rubbish) and the driver assured me that the vintage was untroubled ; however, the glint in his eye made me close the stable door.

So whilst i would have opted for Finchley Road and Frognal, i cannot in all good faith but opt for Osterley

Do with it what you may.

Meh, it's not the worst thing ever to happen at a May ball. As dear sister says " As long as it doesn't set off a military coup, everyone goes home with all their bits intact and no one gets deported,,it was a good night"
However, I seem to be in the back of someone else's Bentley travelling the wrong way up the A1. At least I'm not on the way to Aberdeen again.

It's my Bentley Vagabond

Im not 100% sure that Chalmerston is driving, the gait and fuel consumption seems... Overly hurried. But I'm sure it will be fine! I have some gin here in the boot. Ice seems not to be forthcoming but I'm sure as soon as we arrive at Green Park twill all be explained away as some Bondesque plot hole. And there will be ice, abd sliced limes. Honestly. Gin in these circumstances?

The ice is in the glove compartment Fast. Or at least it was when I exited the Bentley at

Watford Junction

Sorry about the lack of limes. It turns out the Regimental Sargeant Major needed them for his juggling act.

It's been a good few years since that business at the MC Ball which did indeed set off a military coup somewhere in Africa after someone who should have known better reminisced about the General having cheated on a Foster's Forward to Feltham at Frinton in Fifty-Eight.

The only time things got a bit hairy yesterday was when the ostrich escaped. How's the bruising, Slinky, and can we all see the pictures? Who managed to capture it and how and is the rhea OK?

It wasn't the RSM doing the juggling, that's just the outfit the Precentor chooses to wear. Goodness knows why. It didn't suit her before the surgery and it looks bloody silly now. I would not mind if she was any good at MC but she once played Circle Line stations three times running on a Thursday, which is just amateurish. Still, she's quite a good juggler, I suppose.

I hear South Ealing calling me and the call will not be denied.

South Ealing on a Sunday morning? No sign of the ostrich here.

Time for a walk back to the station and on to Boston Manor.

Oh, is that the time? And what a night it was. Have you any idea how hard it is to find a animal psychotherapist qualified to work with camels in Pinner on a Sunday?

Anyway, enough of my domestic ills. I'm leaving Mellors the under-gardener in charge and taking advantage of the weather to play a Murgatroyd to

Kennington

Goodness, it seems like a missed tremendous fun last night. How jolly annoying. I had planned to attend of course,and the puce taffeta had been re-lined in lime and tangerine silk, to give a suitable fruity feel.
However my afternoon visitor mislaid the keys to the cufflinks and I was left tied up with other matters.
It took the combined efforts of London's finest firefighters and a platoon of the Household Cavalry to release me from my predicament!
I think Bank is suitable for a Sunday.

All this fun I seem to have missed whilst catching up on the cricket. No idea if they play MC in Columbo or Galle, though judging by the performance of the country formerly known as Ceylon, they would probably be more competitive than they are at test cricket currently. The RSM probably remembers when the Don toured these shores and hordes of people went to watch, assuming they were not searching for their ration books.

MC in the late 1940s was apparently a very confusing affair with all these Underground stations being built and open, though not as bad as in the 1990s when the very existence of the game was threatened by the 6 year lift closure.

Bank may be suitable on a Sunday, but a nice walk in a park is more so. I'll be off to Great Portland Street and make the short walk to Regents Park for a stroll.

Come off it Saints - we know you were there and we know who you were disguised as. You are of course wise but don't worry, the warrant expires on Tuesday - last day of the month - so on Wednesday we can see you back at the old place.

We missed you dementedma and the subaltern from the Cavalry told me all about it. Very careless of you. What a place to leave your keys. It must have been a bit sore afterwards.

I prefer to do my strolling in Green Park - anywhere named after that slob the Prince Regent is inherently downmarket. The fella had no taste and he was useless at MC - unlike his brother the Duke of Kent, Victoria's father, who won the local Amateur Championship when he was Governor of Gibraltar and gave a Cup for his successors which is keenly contested to this day. They have a variation on Rule 108(xiii) which I honestly admit to have found confusing on a first read-through until I realised that it is based on the system someone devised in the early days for Newfoundland.

The ostrich has turned up safe and well but I can't reveal where. Nor can I disclose which member of the Grand MC Council was slung across its back - or was it the other way round?

Do excuse my longer than anticipated absence. I received an urgent telegram two days ago, summoning me to Nairobi, where the minister for fisheries and drains and the inspector-general of street lighting were in dispute about whether Russell Square could be played on a Saturday when the Metropolitan Line is in millings. The country was paralysed - nothing to eat, plunged into darkness - so I thought the expedient and diplomatic thing was to suggest an Arbuthnot to Rayners Lane. They were thrilled. The deadlock was broken, the trawlers left the ports, the street lights went back on and a day of national celebration was declared. It turned into quite the party - just about everyone turned up for the ambassador's husband's legendary halibut kedgeree and bottomless champagne - so I've only just got home. Seems my luggage, on the other hand, may arrive next week.

Covent Garden

It seems whilst i was knocked out on the gin, Pingu made her escape. But I'm hot on her heels. It seems very much as if my stash of Peruvian limes (which in no way were a covert receptacle for the missing Faberge Eggs of Sino-Prussian reconvergent artistry, nohow no way) have simply disappeared at the same time as Pingu.

I am not of course suggesting any underhand tactics but whilst I was searching for the ice promised in the glove compartment, I suddenly found myself on a solo mission.

Thrice-damned counterspies! If only I had thought to bring my omniscient parrot (kindly passed down to me by the late Lord Spetchley - although i think, in hindsight, the parrot may have been flawed. The dear late lord's demise confirms my theory somewhat.)

The parrot says Elephant and Castle

I don't trust him.

Nor should you. The parrot has obviously been nobbled by the PC
Enemy - the Players of Ch*ss - the word Castle is a dead giveaway.

We must go underground but not Underground to Neath.

Maud - of course I couldn't break cover but your performance in Nairobi was fantastic! The Prison Commissioner says he will treasure the little memento you left for ever. After it's been washed.