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

Remember that film - Last Waltz in Worthing - what a riot it was!

I think it's time to bury the memory of Aldershot '77 - even it was fun.

Hauptbahnhof Wien and don't skimp on the platform tickets!

Oh dear. The Austrians have foregone the pleasure of platform tickets in favour of having a shopping centre at Wien Hauptbahnhof, which is a 21st century station. No such strange goings on at those built in the 20th century.

Wien Belvedere has a pleasant garden next door so i will go there for an evening stroll.

Thank you for the welcome Maud. It was my Great Aunt Mavis who did such sterling work in the Aldershot '77 semi-finals. Modestly I have to confess that it was I who used the Bennett Higginbotham rule combined with the unused sidings manoeuvre to devastating effect in the finals at Lytham St Annes in '83.
I'm not keen on all this continental gallivanting so as it is the last day of the month I'm going to play the Yorkshire Joker and take us all to Mytholmroyd.

Ah yes. I see the family likeness now. How is dear Mavis? Last time I saw her, she was heading for the conference suite with the Olympic gold medal winner, the newsreader, a potato masher and a crate of very good brandy.

I'm pining for the fjords, so let's go to

Rotherhithe

I thought Mavis was Martin now, or is that only on Tuesdays?

The brandy was indeed good of its kind, but it's regrettable that someone thought fit to let the Parliamentary Under-Secretary in on the secret. Especially when she had the chimpanzee with her. That poor head-waiter.

The continent still calls and will not be denied and Bunnies can and will go to France. Calais-Maritime.

Mavis has been on a journey, and has been exploring alternative lifestyles ever since the MC Council took the bold and innovative step of holding the '92 heats on one of the livelier Thai beaches. Mavis went there to find herself and it was a life-changing experience, as that sequence of Polaroids of her and the trade attaché show in all too graphic detail. For me, I get all the excitement I need in

Balham (an elongated Pemberton there - did you notice?)

I think that we cannot tarry too long in south London, and so with the aid of the Victoria and Bakerloo lines, go to "Kensal Green*

Im so fucking confused someone plz explain

UnicornTears Training to novice standard takes about seven years. Then we can explain the basics to you.

An elongated Pemberton - it reminds me of Cincinnati '87 when some fool let MummyPingu get at the Lucozade. They still talk about her and the rabbi and the cocoa powder and in no friendly spirit either.

Dorchester-on-Thames

Unicorn Tears - Don't let Andrew put you off. The best way to learn how to play this great game is simply to try. There's a lot of guesswork at first, of course, and trial and error, but we all like a trier. Why not try something straightforward like an inverse lateral to

King's Cross?

saints, I confess to not really understanding your aversion to South London. Thankfully a simple ovoidal traverse shunt will take us back to Tooting where I understand there is an excellent museum devoted entirely to the sewing machine. A great day out in anyone's book!

Anecdotally, I was introduced to the sewing machine museum by Great Aunt Mavis who made her entire costume for the Nymphs and Shepherds Mornington Crescent festival on an ancient treadle Singer. She got a terrible cough from camping in that forest glade but she had been warned that her costume was a tad on the skimpy side for Scotland in May. Not that Mavis ever allowed discomfort to get in the way of authenticity.

Oh dear, educatingarti. As you've posted without actually making a move, we really should send you to nidd to think things over. But it's late on Friday night and I'm in a mellow mood, so I shall let you off with a warning.

Tooting is very nearly the centre of the universe, but not as close to the centre as

Woolwich Arsenal

A festival for the game of games? What a wonderful idea, and I hope there is another one. There is a vacant weekend in the social calendar next year with the absence of the Glastonbury festival, and several venues in MC itself that could host such an event. So no-one could claim standing in a muddy field to watch someone like Katy Perry as an excuse for not attending (and to watch someone who is evidently not an MC afficionado).

This idea that I dislike south of the river- I cannot think why anyone would come to that conclusion. The game of games is not called Tooting Broadway, is it? And the centre of the universe I understood to be Neasden, in any case.

I shall play the DLR rule and move to Canning Town

Neasden? The home of Mr and Mrs Sidney Bonkers? I suppose it has a certain raffish charm but the centre of the universe it is not.

I'm feeling adventurous this morning, so I'm going to essay a move that I saw mentioned in the Championship Players Only column of The MC Players Weekly Gazette (annual subscription £970 but you get a 10% discount for life at some very distinguished businesses in and around the Tooting area, which is now officially one of the 10 hippest places on earth):

A bifurcated upward lunge to

Colindale

You can't bifurcate on a Saturday, Maud; that has been the better construction of the third proviso to the fourth appendix to Rule 187(xi) since Brasilia '64 - and I know you missed the crucial vote, and I know what you were doing, and it serves you right, although you probably had more fun that those of us who stayed in the meeting. Did the Admiral make a good recovery?

The centre of the universe, is it?

Righty-ho, then.

Old Fletton.

Andrew, you are naughty. None of what you say about the third proviso is true. You're simply spouting nonsense in order to throw the newbies off the scent, but you're wasting your time as we see right through your little ploy.

We have to get back to the metropolis; we've spent so much time recently outside that we risk triggering a Stebbington and we don't want to do that again after what happened in Buenia Aires, do we?

Great Portland Street

I like to think I am naughty but nice. But the last Crescenter who claimed to have seen through my little ploy spent six moves in nidd and a week in Holloway - before doing rather longer in the Scrubs but that was just a mistake.

Newbies are welcome but it's no good pretending there are no rules to be followed, is it? That way madness lies.

St Paul's.

Good Lord - I take a brief leave of absence and on my return the entire trajectory of the game has changed! Fortunately Andrew's threats don't scare me; last time he tried it on the Grand Vizier rescued me just before the thumbscrews really started to bite.

We need some fresher air, so let's swivel to

Epping

Brasilia 64- did the construction workers play the game of games? Well I never.

Playing the closed lines rule allows for more fresh air- a move to Ongar

Saints - why do you think it took so long to build? They played the best MC since Leopoldville '37 and I put my case high.

I have been nervous about the Eastern reaches of the Central Line ever since the Archdeacon ran amok at Hainault - I know some people thought it was funny but the poodle, the Manx cat, and the lorry driver never really got over the shock.

So I seek sanctuary at Bat and Ball.

So it's conjunctions you're after?

Elephant and Castle

Gotcha!

*Chalfont and Latimer^

I've been waiting years to do that - in fact ever since Montevideo in '67 when that cheating bloody Daughter of Mary blindsided me while the other one mooned at the referee to distract her.

Good, I grudgingly admit, but not as good as

Totteridge and Whetstone

Kerching!

Elegant, certainly elegant, but not quite out of the top drawer, as Great Aunt Michael would have said.

But an excess of conjunctions can cause collywobbles - and derailments - and I therefore take us to the safety of Upminster Bridge.