Mornington Crescent?!

[Eggsbutnobacon]

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

How kind of you to notice, Andrew. It was pretty obviously you in the diving helmet, vintage tea dress and cricket pads, but I thought it better to play along, just in case you weren't still taking your medication. It is true that my impromptu rendition of Kiswahili madrigals, accompanying myself on lute and musical saw, went down a storm. I think it fair to say that Nairobi has never seen the like. So, in happy memory of that

Bow Road

The last time I forgot to take my medication the Panama Canal was closed for a week and the Mongolians were obliged to annexe the Isle of Wight in defence of their national interests. It made the 11 p.m. news on the Light Programme - third item - and was even mentioned briefly in the gardening column of the Menai Straits Gazette in a quiet week the following month. My proudest hour.

I have to say that you went OTT when the E string on the lute snapped - it was not designed for the purpose you put it to and I am not surprised the Archbishop's cat hissed at you - spiteful creature though it is, I don't know why she puts up with it unless as I privately suspect it's her familiar.

You have set us a challenge but this us top level MC and we will rise to it.

Dieppe Maritime - ha!

Ooh la la.Dieppe, eh? Eh?

I have solved the parrot problem with a spot of Norman Batesery.

Thus, I shall take advantage of the unique weather front we appear to be labouring under, and sail back to Hythe

Andrew and FastWindow- pray tell us how you avoided those French strikers (and i don't mean that Monsieur Eric Cantona the resting actor doing adverts for that muck 1664)? We should know so as to avoid being stranded amongst our Gallic neighbours. A nation without cricket cannot possibly understand the finer points of MC, though maybe we should play a game en Francais to help them achieve this important cultural step.

Hythe reminds me of Herne Hill for some strange reason, so I shall return to Herne Hill and onwards to Stockwell

saints the diplomatic pouch is sacred. I can say no more.

The parrot may be in there, it may not. Schroedingers parrot, if you will.

The dear darlings are clamouring for porridge, so Rotherhithe it is. Quick smart, now.

I find that MC is better understood in Germany than in France: the S-Bahn is a good training ground for beginners (better than the Paris Metro which is rather too simple) and the system of rules and exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions which makes MC so intellectually stimulating appeals to the Teutonic mind as it never can or will to the Gallic.

With which in mind: Hauptbahnhof Hansestadt Hamburg.

As for the parrot: forget it. It has joined its illustrious kinsbird of whom that talented amateur Crescenter, John Cleese, spoke so eloquently.

Und so, vorsprung durch Technik auf

Elmers End

Maud a frighteningly clever play there to tempt me into the trap of going back to elephant and castle but I have seen through your Hanseatic ploy: I shall do a triple sidestep and double axel to Gunnersbury.

Catch me if you can!!

Hard to follow Gunnersbury with anything other than Blackfriars - I considered going down the Parisian route after the distinctly continental flavour the game has taken lately, but then thought no! Blighty it needs to be.

I hope the Colonel would approve of that move.

I have just received a telegram from the Colonel. He is most pleased with Blackfriars but would like to submit that Wimbledon would have been the more appropriate jaunt, given the proximity of some racquetball tournament he attends.

Damn the Colonel and all racquetball addicts - an absurd and tedious pastime.

Let's go semi-continental to Swiss Cottage.

The Ruritanian Minister of the Interior us on an official visit and assures me that the Strelsau Municipal Railway system is of unexampled complexity and would prove a challenge to any but the finest Crescenters. He tells me that for example the Arch of Victory East is to the west of Arch of Victory West - such audacity!

Next time the Rules Revision Committee meets - in 2027 an I err not - it might consider whether that charming city should go on the Candidate List.

I am glad to see we have remembered our continental cousins. I understand a few of them now reside in a cemetery near Highgate so off there I go.

Hmm, tricky... but as we're in purdah now I think I can use a Gladstonian Switch to slide to Vauxhall.

The trouble with that is Article Seven of the Fourth Protocol to the Explanatory Memorandum from the Special Conference at Whitby in '74 (which was a blast - wasn't it, Maud? How long were you in rehab?) which leaves nowhere, but nowhere available except Bath Spa - dismal though that prospect is.

I'm surprised, Andrew, that you remember anything about Whitby, given that only the previous day you were involved in that unseemly fracas at Claridges with the chief inspector of mines, the orthopaedic surgeon and the bag of satsumas that led to your arrest and incarceration on Dartmoor. I distinctly recall contributing to the MCers' whip-round that bought you a parcel containing clean pyjamas and (rumour has it) a file hidden in a cake.

Bath Spa is awkward because it rules out anything clockwise, but I think I can circumvent that with a longitudinal Frampton to

Basingstoke

I remember Whitby. I try not to.
My dear, a Frampton of any ilk must always be followed by a circumflex parry-in this case of the Didsbury type. Any fool knows that. Which gives me the upper hand to play the old favourite Cockfosters.

Slander!

It was tangerines.

And I treasure the file. And the pyjamas.

Slinky If you want Fosters cocked, you cock 'em yourself.

Windsor and Eton Central in honour of the Fourth of June.

How timely to be reminded of dear Aloysius's school. We had a few anxious moments after he was expelled from St Cake's in most troubling circumstances, which I won't dwell on here, but fortunately the Pater was able to pull a few strings and Windsor comp found a place for him. Academics are not his thing, the dear boy, but his woodwork and crewel work are coming on apace so there is still hope that he might leave with a GCSE or two. So, to honour the son and heir to the Maud fortunes

Bank

Dear old Windsor Comp - they do rally round so. Did Aloysius manage to kick his addiction for Maltesers? After all, that was the trouble, wasn't it? Well, that and the Manx cats.

In honour of the heir to the Andrewofgg fortunes - such of them as are not in a numbered bank account in a jurisdiction where unlike Switzerland they can keep a secret - Penny Lane

A station at Penny Lane- the old Liverpool Overhead Railway rule in play I see.

With the aid of the HS2 rule, in no time at all I am back at Euston

Oh no you aren't. That line is still in the hands of VT and you are therefore stuck at Stockport - and you have my sympathy.

They were tangerines. If you look very closely at the waxwork of Lady Di, you will see that she is holding the peel of one of them. Quite the scandal, as everyone knows she was never that fond.

Still, with only nineteen days until Armageddon, the prudent move is deep underground at Hampstead and stay there until the all clear.

From there, it can only be a long-distance transverse shunt to

Stockwell

I've checked my dog-eared copy of the 1965 MC Earl Lindsay (third edition, true) and it says nothing about transverse shunts after midnight.

It does however have a small paragraph about semi-flandicular parcourses. It looks as if it was stuck in later by a previous owner (and I cannot possibly divulge who that might have been, Interpol will be on me in no time) but the parcourse move serves me now, and I'll throw in Richmond so I can visit the excellent chipper and fend off pigeons on the green.

The third edition is a forgery, FastWindow - that fact was determined in the great litigation of 1895 when it was so obvious that the court could detect it before the first edition had seen the light of day. You can find a list of genuine editions of the Rules if you know where to look. It is printed in the appendix to every genuine edition of the Rules.

Richmond is nevertheless lawful, for reasons too straightforward to be worth the trouble of repeating, but you have fired a Horrocks' Homonym and we find ourselves in Richmond in the North Riding. And a very agreeable place it is.

Maud - how is the treatment coming along? Can you sit down yet?