Once more unto the breach, dear friends: more Mornington Crescent

[MyNightWithMaud]

Now we have had a little pause, in which to mull over the highs and lows of the last game and possibly rethink our strategies, might it be nice to start again?

I've been reflecting on what the vice-consul said in Ouagadougou in '67. She was quite right, after all, and so I shall disregard the naysayers and offer you a Musgrave's Collateral to

Oxford Circus

I see that the Pappano manoeuvre has already been surreptitiously played, with two players already calling at *Covent Garden.
*
Curses...

I am now forced to use the Enfield Protocol. I call Bounds Green.

The Enfield Protocol if observed correctly requires a second station to be visited within its environs, even on a Sunday evening. So it is Oakwood, well beyond the cafe hours.

Which can only lead to Folkestone - this being what our lively Gallic neighbours call Toussaint in a leap year.

The Vice-President of the MC Council is back in . . . well, you know. They'll let her out as soon as it is safe. Visiting day is 31 November.

It being the feast of All Saints I think a trip along the coast to ^St Leonards Warrior Square* is fitting. Whilst they still have trains before yet another strike by the RMT.

With the first frost of November, we need to slip and slide across Marlow, avoiding the tourists and just in time for a cup of tea and scone (to rhyme with on)

I have just attended mass for All Souls at

Bow Church

Hmm. That rather puts the kibosh on the lateral Fanthorpe I had planned, but I think I can get through instead with an elongated Pargeter (with semi-reverse) to

Seven Sisters

Righty-ho, then, a prime double to Three Bridges is called for!

Better leave Three Bridges before the next pesky strike. Almost takes us back to the 70s, so I think a visit to Tooting Broadway before freedom for Tooting and The Glorious Day is in order.

Ah, indeed, I still pay my subscription to the Tooting Popular Front. But from there, I think I must return to the numerical theme with a transverse Mossop to

Sevenoaks

I raise you Nine Elms but I thought the Tooting Popular Front had merged with the Popular Front for Tooting . . . or was the Tooting People's Front?

I think merger discussions failed over the issue of who should make the first move in the post merger opening game of MC, as the Popular Front for Tooting were adamant that they should open with a starting point of Colliers Wood. The Tooting Popular Front had thought there was a fifth columnist in the ranks of the PFT (as they termed them) and it was a move designed to strand them in Morden. So to this day there are apparently two unfinished games of MC as no-one can agree on the second move.

Isn't it wonderful that even with a transverse Mossop, the Elizabeth line rule and a Parson's Privilege we players in this game of MC can manage to co-exist peacefully since the unspoken incident of 2009. So I can play the Northern line extension rule with aplomb and off to Old Street it is.

Of course the Front for the Liberation of Tooting still lurks in the background as does the Tooting Liberation of Front - if they ever settle their differences over the correct interpretation of Rule 312(4)(a) in any future year in which Good Friday falls on a Monday we are going to hear from them, aren't we?

Old Street with aplomb or even without it is a splendid move but in the run-up to the American Colonies having one of their flirtations with democracy it calls for a Grand Master's Opposite to New Street - a place which like the rest of Birmingham looks good as you leave it.

Nothing like a Birmingham diversion! So many possibilities... but I think I'll go for a pirouette round the pagoda, in the direction of

Dorridge

Please please please can someone explain to me what this game is about!? I've always wondered!

I'm afraid you will have to go through the full initiation ritual before we can explain the rules to you, Bibs.

However (and I shouldn't really be telling you this), if you make your way to Green Park station on a Tuesday morning before 7, with a trained ferret, a feather boa and a copy of the Iliad, and knock quietly on the unmarked door at the top of the Jubilee line escalator, you MAY be allowed to join the next beginners' class.

Good luck!

Hmmmm excellent move, Irene.

As it's the first Friday in the month, I do believe that I'm allowed to cite the Swiss Cottage Concordat, so I call Finchley Road .....

Feeling smug

Blimey o Reilly! I go away for my semi annual yoga and gin retreat and come back to a mighty game in progress, such flair, such panachė! I feel my humble contribution of Oxford Circus, is, in such circumstances, an embarrassment .
My dears, guess who I saw, en passant, on the platform in Leeds? I'll give you a clue, he was NOT accompanied by the Honourable MP for xxxxxxxxxx, but by a gorgeous young thing in red. I thought a soutain when not on church business was a trifle infra dig, but they looked happy enough.

Using the Night Tube rule for the first time is brave, OWFITN (please do not consider the use of initials to spare the use of unparliamentary language an attempt at being too familiar). Or was this just an impression and the Met/Bakerloo combination was in use?

The Honourable Members are usually only see in the environs of Westminster, with or without young people in red, a rarity as orange is the colour de jour nowadays. Anyway, in honour of Irene who wishes to join one day, I play the Metroland rule and move to Quainton Road

Oh, fiddlesticks, I think I'm in Nidd.

Unless, are we permitting the Hundersby Amendment? In which case, as it's November, I could escape to Stoke Mandeville.

Irene - it's cruel to tease Bibs.It's the Odyssey, Bibs, not the Iliad, and you will be expected to recite the first hundred lines in Old Slavonic. Backwards.

Nidd is not in force on Guy Fawkes Night in a leap year so all is well.

But I feel like making mischief. Aylesbury.

Crumbs! There has been some very creative play here - some of it only permissible because we're using the Bainbridge Protocol and Saturn is retrograde. I've heard that the Victoria line is likely to go into billings at midnight, what with Guy Fawkes Night and everything, so I'll try to preempt that with

Walthamstow

Bibs - we were all beginners once so, unless you have time to enrol for the undergraduate degree at the University of Felpersham - where all the young people study these days - I suggest you just pitch in. Swiss Cottage is usually a safe bet.

Walthamstow eh?

You do realise that that puts the Northern Heights amendment into play dont you?
Highgate.

I have no idea what's going on

Oh, come on, Bibs. Your protestations of innocence are fooling nobody. You've been sent here by the Grand Council, haven't you? I knew some of these recent moves were likely to bring the Conduct and Discipline Committee out of the woodwork.

One's not allowed to post without making a move, so

Rayners Lane