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

Don't worry - I stopped driving the ghost train years ago - round about the time I gave up on the cucumbers and the Advokaat and for similar reasons.

Playing two Ruislip stations in a row is risky - if the weather or the sign of the Zodiac changes you can find yourself in an endless loop, and there's only one chap who can get you out - that peculiar clergyman from Tipperary - and he charges an arm and a leg, So I am going to play the safe if uninspiring move to East Dereham.

Hmm. One can always tell when Andrew's been on the absinthe, Brasso and brake fluid cocktails - his play becomes even more reckless (and would have been illegal pre the 1967 Act).

To restore some sanity to the situation

Weston super Mare

Probably cold or busy by the seaside today, in fact I think I would have enjoyed East Dereham more.

So I am going to play the rule of starting at the place of the move before last- and make my way via the closed lines rule across Norfolk and Cambridgeshire and stop at Baldock. There was a nice pub in the high street which I help is still there, without the need for absinthe or something stronger.

I will play the old Ivel/Great Ouse switch and go to

Huntingdon

I gave up the brake fluid years ago; once they stared cutting it with dihydrogen monoxide there was no pleasure in it any more.

Closed stations are better and in any event they live on in MC. Over the Ouse to Godmanchester it is.

By the way BigGreyGoose how did the dog's surgery go? Is it now sitting comfortably?

I was in Godmanchester a year ago, so thankfully can now call London Victoria

That opens things right up. Earls Court

@Andrewfog Great thanks. Barely a squeak out of him now.

An interesting set of moves today. I think this calls for a move to Fulham Broadway for a meal in the good curry house nearby.

Parsons Green

Wimbledon Park

Come on, now, where are your manners? When anyone calls Curry play stops for an hour or so while we all enjoy it. That chicken korma was magnificent.

Colliers Wood.

I had the lamb korma which was a mistake I fear, given how good the chicken korma was.

However play can resume and I move northwards to Oval which is quiet today as there is no cricket between India and Pakistan, two countries where I am sure MC is played from time to time.

Yes, one of the more benign effects of colonialism was the bequeathing of MC to many a grateful nation. They seldom play anything else in the Malabar Hills. And so obviously that thought takes me to

Swiss Cottage

Now that is bold, as Julian (or perhaps Sandy) would have said. Especially as it leads to Geneva.

Wonderful omis indeed. I bought my first maisonette in Chelsea from them, when they were running the bona estate agency.

Copenhagen Central

Using the ferry rule brings be back to near Newcastle. I then get the train back to Kings Cross and make the short journey to Great Portland Street

As it's a Tuesday and raining I will head over to Regents Park using the 1721 Baxter and Blue convention rules.

Raining? In professional MC, just like in a Rolls-Royce, you press a button and the rain stops.

Baxter and Blue? If you must but it's a bit infra dig. I raise you Finchley Road and Frognal. With clogs on.

I see your Finchley and Frognal and raise you Goodge Street

Now you are taking the piss. South Kensington - Piccadilly line platforms obviously.

Apparently there are some delays on the Piccadilly line. So I will stop at Barons Court awaiting the District line. I am not familiar with the 1721 rules which I assume were borrowed from another game, perhaps involving travel by horse and cart. Maybe as it was in George I's time they were written either in his native tongue or the court language of the era.

Well, of course, the true and genuine rules of MC are written in the Hanoverian dialect of 18th-century German - nothing so subtle and yet so straightforward, so complex and yet so simple, could be written in any other language, now could it? None of the translations into English has ever quite achieved the perfection of the original. They are like a Beethoven symphony transcribed for the mouth-organ.

Hounslow West

Baxter and Blue? I haven't seen that used since the pro-am tournament in Montreal in '77, when the Life President used it for a move to Leytonstone. Gosh, there was a lot of fuss. Shirley Bassey said she was leaving immediately and wouldn't be back and Robert Redford had to be revived with smelling salts.

But I digress.

Holloway Road

So we are back north of zone 1. Near to lands of lentils and home made jam and other such new age stuff. Where Spanish is probably spoken by more people than know German, not that this should trouble us.

Time for the Crossrail 2 rule to aid us in our journey and so we end up for the time being at least at Alexandra Palace

Not on Polling Day!

Special Rule 185(a)(viiii) is in force so fictional play has been mandatory since noon GMT - Smmer Tme being not known to MC.

Accordingly: Barchestet