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

• Or even for the next move.

The heritage railway rule now comes into play as I do not have any translation of any of the works of Jane Austen. Off to Rawtenstall where there is a pub, scene of the first attempt of northern railway workers to engage in a game of MC, so it is believed.

It wasn't MC - I regret to say that the people in that scene are all players of (whisper) ch*ss (normal voice) in disguise.

You cannot, however, be unaware that Ms Austen wrote her novels in Classical Chippewa so that the versions you have read are in fact all translations?

Staying with heritage: Dymchurch.

Sorry for the hiatus, I was away in Bremerhaven for the strategy summit. Not the Brexit negotiations (I leave my assistant's assistant to get on with that) but the far more complex - one might even say Byzantine - deliberations about whether, as the secretary general of Nato keeps arguing, the archbishop should have been expelled in 2014 for insisting that the '74 codicil to appendix XXII of the Consolidated Rules enabled her to play Southgate on a northerly shunt. You'd have thought the matter had been settled to everyone's satisfaction by that Times editorial in May last year but, no, he just won't let it go.

Anyway, I won't say any more as I think I saw several of you there in the crowd.

Surbiton

Maud You were away all right, but not in Bremerhaven unless the main German prison for dangerous and escape-prone offenders of both sexes (usually but not always one at a time) has moved there since we last met. Those negotiations have in any event been adjourned (to suit the convenience of the Ruritanian Ambassador) to Vienne.

I am disappointed in the Archbishop's insistence, which is not something I would expect from a man of the cloth. I did not partake in that particular game of MC. Probably wise.

I think that via the trolleybus rule last played in 1962 and a short further journey we can end up at Barnes by the wildlife haven there.

Saints Either you've got the wrong archbishop - check Maud's pronouns - or you've got the right one and he's changed back for the how-manieth time? I lose count. Which was he when he married Mummy Pingu (as spouse, I mean, I know the answer when he officiated for her and her third - and whatever happened to him after the business in the Round Pond, does anybody know?)

Barnet is nasty in February (as in all other months, of course) and I'm playing a Winterley's Wobble to Weymouth. If it was good enough for that eminent amateur MCer, our late Sovereign Lord King George the Third, it;s good enough for me.

Indeed. I recently watched a most amusing and informative televisual entertainment (I was polishing my lorgnette at the time) about dear old George III, in which the promenade at Weymouth was glimpsed.

Let's head out to the wild west. Hounslow West.

The madness of the first of the Hanoverians to speak our native tongue sometimes overshadows the rest of his near 60 year spell on the throne, during which railways came into being. No MC without railways and so he is the monarch under whose reign the game essentially came into being, or at least its gestation.

I think one of his family had a house not too far from Hounslow- perhaps near Osterley where we now head.

Yes, a splendid fellow in so many ways, much given to science.

Osterley is a beautiful spot and from there we'll go to admire the restored mosaics at

Tottenham Court Road

Time for the Elizabeth line to come into play, to celebrate one of only two monarchs to reign longer than George III.

So we move from Tottenham Court Road to Whitechapel. Not too far to walk to Brick Lane for a curry.

Once we start on an MC curry it could be a long time before we move, especially if a Certain Person insists on regaling us yet again with the story of the Minister of Transport of Uttar Pradesh, the jar of French mustard, and the copy of Der Spiegel - which I so want to believe is true. Even if the Next Commissioner of the Met but two denies it. We've all got her number.

Mine's a Chicken Malay, I don't have to prove that I can eat the hot dishes, and I'm sure Mummy Pingu will join me in a Cobra.

After which it has to be New Cross Gate, doesn't it?

From what Pingu says, Andrew, I suspect her esteemed mater would join you in just about anything legal (and quite a few things that aren't).

This is an obvious move, but it never fails to amuse

Peckham Rye

The layout of Peckham Rye can be confusing to some, and nothing like the cinque port of its namesake. The five cinque ports would have been an ideal setting for a group of people to attempt the reckless task of a one day game of MC, fuelled no doubt by sloe gin or brandy.

A quiet place to sit i am sure can be found by the one stop move to Denmark Hill

Denmark Hill on a Saturday when the Samurai Sudoku in The Times is a Medium? I think not, Saints.

We need somewhere safe yet piquant, reliable yet challenging, bold but not brassy, brave but not foolhardy, and that can only be Aylesbury.

Two days on the cobbles? Hopefully no injuries have resulted.

Time for the closed Underground lines rule to be played, so off to Brill

Oh-hoh-hoh, someone is trying to be clever, probably in the hope that we won't mention the Jesuit, the rabbit, and the left-handed screwdriver.

You reap what you sew, what comes around goes around, and karma will bite you on the bum when you arrive at Stirling.

After another two days I have left Stirling (loved the castle btw) and moved south over the Forth Bridge to Edinburgh Park. Possibly so new this may be the first time it has ever been visited in a game of MC. The left handed screwdriver may come in handy if the gates are locked.

You have (no doubt inadvertently) triggered a Baxter's Bounce and here we are in Ballachulish out of season (that town's season begins on 31June and ends ten minutes before it starts).

No jokes about the left-handed screwdriver, please, or I might feel myself compelled to be serious about the right-handed adjustable spanner, the bottle of turpentine, and the Ruritanian au pair - and heads would roll.

transverse oblique via Charing Cross gives us Finsbury Park

Oh dear. No wonder we have been stuck in Finsbury Park for three days. Not just sharp elbows which would offend the Major, but rail replacement works. So the Northern Heights rule will have to be played, to take us to Highgate.

Not so soon after the Full Moon, Saints, what are you thinking of?

The only way to correct that error is for us all to creep to Crawley.

Still, all is not lost. a certain Very Distinguished member of the Grand MC Council made parole last week. Tagged for eighteen hours a day, and not allowed to own any German novels but considering the background that's lenient. I understand that a bottle of Drambuie would always be welcome.

Come, come, people. We have not welcomed our new player, JuliaScurr, with the customary absinthe cocktail with crème de menthe chaser. Where are your manners? I can see from that move that Julia is an adept player, although possibly - and I mean this kindly - not familiar with some of the more recent plays to emerge from the summer school held in Tring in (obviously) November.

I can't abide these moves north of the Watford gap, so will return us to the sanctity that is

Oval

The so-called summer school in Tring was a diversion planned by undercover agents of the Ch*ss Revival Front. I am sorry to hear that you were fooled by it, Maud. The real event was in December in Princes Risborough. The Bishop was there and in sparkling form so you can guess what that meant. Yes, the Manx cat and the Trebor mints and the party bucket of anti-freeze!

From Oval it can only be Round Oak although I am given to understand that that fellow Beeching talks of closing it. Damn his eyes.

Beeching is a man who never played MC it is certain. Never would a man with such a lack of taste have closed so many stations and lines. I think that the chemicals made at ICi where he previously worked must have been placed in his gin without him realising.

I feel that we should go to Princes Risborough to remember the event in December.