Mornington Crescent....

[BratFarrarsPony]

Well as I won the last game fairly and squarely despite not being as quick as the old lags....I will start another game.

Gants Hill

Oh, this is getting ridiculous! The next move has been staring you in the face for days! Bercow's Amendment to the '81 Codicil means there's a compulsory Schleswig to

Tufnell Park

Quite right, Maud, and I've have played it myself had I not been locked in meetings at the Cabinet Office for days. Unfortunately engaging in MC on one's work Blackberry is still counted as gross misconduct (though I note that doesn't stop the Perm Sec ).

As we all know, a Schleswig can only be followed by a Holstein, in this case to:

Hampton Wick

Irene Was that you I saw at the Cabinet Office in the tartan jeans and the yellow bowler hat? I was in my usual outfit for these occasions so you will have spotted me. Wasn't the coffee dreadful?

After Holstein comes Pilsner - so Notting Hill Gate it shall be.

Pilsner? Oh dear, no! Let's execute a Francophile Frappé to the Champagne bar at

Kings Cross St Pancras

And I know what you're going to say, Andrew, you're going to tell me that one may not play a French Classic move in the first month of the year when there has been a change of 2 World Leaders within the last 9 months, but I have a Special License here, signed by 2 cabinet members and the White House Press Secretary that say I'm quite within my rights!

Wrong again, Pingu, wrong again. The objection is not to the French Classic bit: it's to a four word station after a three on a day when Venus is visible for more than four hours in the evening sky. Forgot that, didn't you?

Windsor and Eton Riverside and yah boo shucks to Rule 273 and all who sail in her!

On a more conciliatory note: The Archdeacon says that the badger is doing well and is back on the plum-and-apple jam.

Have you noticed that all that they are advertising on the televisual apparatus these days is sofas and holidays? (Of course, I generally refuse to watch anything but the British Broadcasting Corporation, but the parlourmaid does like to wCountdown while she is doing the dusting). The Voyages Jules Verne brochure arrived today and so I am planning a holiday to the exotic, mystic Orient, otherwise known as

Wanstead

Your parlourmaid does the dusting? Oh dear. Mine hires help for such menial work, or so the butler's under-butler's manservant tells me.

Advertising on the televisual apparatus: what next? News on the front pages of The Times?

Epping Forest.

What is this 'dusting' whereof you speak?

Chalk Farm. Ha!

To be candid, Irene (and when am I anything else?) I don't really know - never done it myself - but I recollect it was item 53 on the parlourmaid's job description. I pay her a guinea a week so really don't want her standing idle (unlike dear Aloysius, who's been rusticated yet again).

Let's stay with the agricultural theme

Shepherd's Bush

In an ode to the one who shall not be named Ill take a quick shunt too...

Kentish Town.

A guinea a week^

Maud, no wonder the costs of domestic staff is rising!

Sorry about Aloysius. The usual, was it. They should not allow hamsters in College in the first place.

From Kentish Town it can only be Maidstone - can't it?

Do I espy a new player? Welcome Ciaovenora. Didn't we meet in Tipperary in '78? Wasn't it you who thrilled the assembled throng with a Butterworth's Inversion to Paddington?

And sadly not, Andrew. This time there's been a bit of fuss about the little celebration that Aloysius and his chums had to mark his birthday. It seems that their accapella rendition of Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive from the college roof at 4am was not universally admired for its lyrical interpretation. A stuffy bunch, dons.

Bayswater

I remember Ciaovenora at Kirkwall '73 but I have promised to keep the story to myself until the General died and he is still alive and up to his old tricks, hey, Irene?

I heard that Gaynor performance from a mile and a half away (though I did not know who it was) and I can see the dons' point of view - it must have cost a fortune to replace the glass and the boiled spaghetti.

Water Eaton

Whatever came of the proposed Jules Verne MC cruise? The lineup was stellar, some french chappie was cooking, all the stars of the circuit were going, then nada. I believe it may have been something to do with you know who. She was peeved at being denied first dibs on the staterooms. Mardybum. So off we go to Pimlico.

I think the problem arose when someone - no names, no pack-drill - revealed the plan to launder the entire contents of the Treasury of a certain county in the crew washing-machines during the passage through the Panama Canal to a cub reporter on the Penzance Tartan-Wearer and Beekeeper's Weekly. Either that or they could not recruit enough galley-slaves for the lower oar-deck.

In either even I am Cross about it so, and not what you think, Banbury.

Loose lips Maud lets just leave it at that.

Kings X

Ah, yes, best say no more.

Chislehurst

It always concerns me when we are south of the river. I have to play the Bakerloo line extension rule to help get on the way to the other side of the Thames. I blame the cost of the falling pound which has suffered ever since the guinea fell out of favour and the end of the ten Bob note.

Catford it is. Hopefully I can get a decent cuppa.

My stepfather always insisted that South of the River they eat their young. He was from Paddington.

Then clearly your stepfather had no idea what he was going or saying (as evidenced by his brief dalliance with Mummy Pingu in Saskatchewan in '47, when she was inexplicably between husbands - it isn't just the Mounties who always get their man).

Bounds Green

That story about Saskatchewan is a long-exploded myth.

It was Medicine Hat. I have sketch of Mummy P's tattoos (done later from memory) to prove it. Such a vivid imagination she and the tattooist both had!

Chorlton-cum-Hardy!

I am surprised that stepdaddy passed that sketch to you, Andrew - last time I heard of it, the Obscene Publications Squad had it in a sealed vault.

Stockwell

I reminded the officer in charge - and the Commissioner and the DPP - who I am and it was released to me in double quick time and with a profound apology.

Bingley

Bingley? I've often wondered whether Mr Bingley would have been adept at MC. Do you recall that scene in P&P where the ladies are playing a rudimentary version of the game, limited of course to stage coach stops and thus offering a somewhat restricted gamut of moves, but much enlivened when Mr Darcy proposed a Pearson's Postilion to

Chester

If you know the code, you will find a complete guide to the early versions of MC in Sense and Sensibility - of course you will need to know which foreign translation to use but I need not specify here, need I?

As you have mentioned a Postilion I am obliged, with profound regret, to play Darwen. I waive hustlings for the enxt more - am I not generous?