Mornington Crescent?!

[Eggsbutnobacon]

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

Gosh this is a close run thing!

Well if you're taking that line Gonnagle, I shall flee with all dignity and an ecclesiastical feint to Angel with a genuflection at the second pass.

From Angel to FenCHURCH Street is as obvious as it is that you can't play the Central Line three stops after the Tyneside Metro - remember when that ass of a Law Lord tried it and the ketchup went bloody everywhere?

Barbara makes me concerned for the state of schools in this country. OK, she's new to it, obviously she cannot be expected to grasp the fine details, but it is sad that her education does not enable her to see the inner symmetry and outward beauty of first class MC.

Swiss Cottage.

I won't patronise anyone by explaining why.

Nrublik - scene of the 1919 incident where an ancestor of mine got stuck half way up the stairs.

Tutoring and playing MC has been banned in most schools, after the unseemly ruckus at the Junior Championships 2 years ago, when St Rupert's under 15 Champion was unmasked as a 32 year old Russian woman with a penchant for jammy dodgers and a complexion like cold tapioca.
Barbara may not have had the opportunies which so many of us have enjoyed in inter-house tournaments in the dorms.

Indeed demented. The best I could hope for in 1980s Yorkshire was advanced flat cap tossing, which I did excel at to County level but I've kept an eye on the thread and will bravely play Lambeth North under the Gideon Tunstall 1965 Rules.

dementedma You are right about the schools, but there are plenty of MC speakeasies where the game of games, the skill of skills, is still imparted. You just have to know where to go, when to go there, and what to say when the door is opened a crack.

If that Russian woman was 32 I'm a bloody Dutchman and there is no Van in my name. I recognised her (I was acting as reserve juror in the under 13 category, sweet lord but those girls were vicious) from Leningrad '57 and she was no spring chicken then. I wonder, I am the last one standing who heard Khruschev play Vladivostok after Ulbricht played Kiev?

Oh well played Barbara you're a bloody quick learner!
Andrew you were a reserve juror? Then perhaps you can explain why my great niece was banned for playing a Smetherington's Sweep, which, admittedly reduced the opposition to tears, but was perfectly legal as she was still 10 minutes short of her 13th birthday!

dementedma Was your great-niece the one dressed up as Captain Pugwash? She was a good player and very charming (although that nun she kicked shitless after she won the Seniors might have other ideas) and I'm glad to be able to explain - she would not let me get a word in edgeways at the time - that her Smetherington's got her banned because the previous player but one had played the East London Line - which as you will at once see put her in breach of Subrule 9 of the arrangements for the day.

Barbara - you ain't no newbie, and you and I and our fellow MC professionals are off to Marburg an der Lahn.

Well goodness, thank you for the clarification Andrew . The little minx made no mention of the East London Line play. Silly child was probably too embarrassed at being caught in such a trap.And the nun thing was just temper. Such a fuss, and my poor niece had to placate the Mother Superior for months to avoid losing the child's place in the Regional choir...
Anyway, I call some order and shunt us all back to Pimlico.

Refuses to get sucked in but Colindale is woefully overlooked unless playing using the Herbert Norstrop variation.

colindale is a good move but the Norstrop was discredited after the last meeting of the Grand council, and cannot be played unless the moon is waxing in Aquarius.

Yes, yes, yes. I can now play Gospel Oak. Hurrah!

Hmm. That limits our options somewhat, but I think I can move things forward with an obverse Belmont to

Hendon Central

Oh, and you'll be pleased to know that St Rupert's is still leading the way in MC training for today's youth. Dear Aloysius is current U14 champion, and we continue to hope that he'll be selected for the 2020 Olympics (you had heard that it's becoming an Olympic event, hadn't you?)

Hendon Central? On a Tuesday? There's a name for people like you, Maud - such brazen play is beyond my sensibilities, even if the Colonel did put you up to it when he pulled a tricky oblongated Isoceles shift to Hendon in the European semi-finals.
I had to fetch the smelling salts when dear Mater heard about it, and she still gets the odd palpitation.

I hope you'll all agree it's high time we had a move back towards traditional play, and where better to start than Baker Street? Saxophone solo, as always, is non-negotiable.

Righty-ho, then. It will have to be a Vertical Subjunctive to Queen's Park.

novemberchild - give the Mater our love and I hope she gets that transfer to open conditions. The trouble is that the Parole Board has been infiltrated by chess players who don't much like MC. Who is playing the saxophone, you or that eccentric cousin of yours who insists on wearing celery in her hair?

Ha! That gives me the opportunity to play Sir Montague's gambit, forsake the option of a triple jump, and say

Gunnersbury!

Almost the two games collided at Queens Park!

But no need to avoid each other coyly on the platform as we have separated and so from Gunnersbury I move the short distance to Turnham Green, the scene of my first ever MC win back in 1996.

Turnham Green! Who else remembers the Governor of East Carolina playing it at Tirana in '87 when the President's brother-in-law retorted with Stanmore and the cheering went on for hours?

You can say what you like: sometimes the tried and tested is best. We obviously have to leave London for three moves. Barbara - if you can't see why you will need to consult the 1902 edition; in all bad bookshops, usually inside a bundle of well-thumbed copies of Sun and Health. I nominate Hartlepool.

Good news about the Olympics, I suppose, but I don't watch them and I can't be arsed with them until they get rid of all that running and jumping and throwing things. So pointless.

Who else remembers the Governor of East Carolina playing it at Tirana in '87

Remember? I've got the photo of the brother-in-law at the pool party afterwards. Yes, THAT photo. And the negative. And no, I'm not telling anyone where it is.

Finsbury Park (taking into account the quaver-splice introduced by that Gunnersbury move).

From Hartlepool to Liverpool Lime Street, the second play in the required non London triumvirate, using a rare Northern Ninja creep, not seen in many a year I fancy.

Fruit themes, is it? Who liveth by the apple shall perish by the banana or something of the sort. Orange Hill driver and don't spare the horses.

Northern Ninja is elegant but of course we can't see it again until the day after the next transit of Mercury, can we?

Since we are just before noon and in an ideal position for a crescent sweep at this point I shall say Vauxhall which of course throws Crystal Palace and Upminster out of play.

Sadly true Andrew
I am dreadfully excited to be travelling from my home in the far north today, to the Big Smoke. I intend to travel on the Northern Line via....Mornington Crescent! I shall have the smelling salts to hand in case of over excitement...

I'm as perplexed as the OP: but am I right in thinking that demented just trounced everyone roundly?