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

Returning to London and using the since renamed stations rule I play Trafalgar Square in honour of one of his poems. Given this involved the ferry to Fishguard as the other route from Dun Laighoire has been played before, the journey may have been via Slough, perhaps the most well known and appropriate of his ouevre.

Dear old Fishguard. It is run down and has known better days but somehow a great comfort after a journey - which is why it always reminds me of the Countess.

I play a Sunday Half Change to Russell Square

I think we ought to move after three days or we will become an exhibit in the nearby British Museum. After her passing there may be some of Maud's trinkets to exhibit there, or memories of her husbands, but not yet.

Using the closed stations rule we can alight at York Road and visit the canal and art school nearby.

A closed station near a canal can only mean Godmanchester which is a quiet and dignified spot. How different from us!

Is it true that the Rear-Admiral has been sectioned again? Usual behaviour? Why must people give her spaghetti bolognaise when they know what will happen?

The cleaning bill was extortionate, so I hear in Strasbourg. Fortunately for her, the paperwork will not make it across to Brussels (friends in administrative places) and so the entire matter will be cleaned

Upon returning the 1887 tome (reproduction) to the West Library, the butler dropped the damned thing. A page fell out. I cannot decipher what the blasted thing says. Hence as a stay Richmond but watch this space, the document is promising to reveal all and we may need to rethink Dallas...

I think we have already been east towards Waterloo, so that is not a move that cannot be played without invoking the rail replacement bus rule which cannot be invoked at this time of year. It would indeed be a black Saturday if we did, and if the Rear Admiral had not already been detained, it would be the final straw.

So I can seek out a festive ale from the local brewery, a move to Chiswick Park is in order.

Oh come on. That’s just putting temptation in the way of the weaker among us, and anyway think of what the poor otters have already had to endure, eh, Pingu?

Let’s take it easy at Maidenhead - twinned, as some joker once remarked, with Con!

In view of today's royal announcement, I think we should go to Windsor and Eton Riverside.

No, no, no: Inverness. Ms M will need to get used to the joys of Scotland, such as they are.

The Brigadier sends his regards. He is prepared to forgive and forget the matter of the Manx cat and the tin of peas from Tesco.

I thank the Brigadier for his message.

Tha August visit of the House of Windsor to Scotland is usually via Aberdeen so let us go there.

I expect you are right; as far as I am concerned once you get North of the Border it's all much of a MacMuchness. Not a place to linger: civilisation and Wooler.

Apologies for the short absence. I missed my connecting flight back from the Novosibirsk qualifiers and then, as it happens, had to go straight to the Courtauld Institute for a meeting about the terms of the Maud Bequest. The Picasso, Renoir and the Manet will be going there but Saints was right, a few trinkets will be going to the British Museum.

As December is now upon us

Turkey Street

There is apparently a pantomime near Edmonton Green with mummy Pingu in it and so I move there to see if this is true or not.

I'm surprised that MummyPingu wants to go out publicly, let alone tread the boards, as I heard that the extradition warrant was still in force and it's cold in Ulan Bator at this time of year. But I guess the thick makeup - she makes an excellent Widow Twanky - and recent reassignment surgery will help her avoid detection.

Beddington Lane

MummyPingu can go where she likes and do what she likes as long as those photos of the Minister and the dachshund are in the safe in the office of her lawyers in Geneva.

I fancy a trip to somewhere exotic but I will settle for Marlow.

I thought we had been to Marlow in this game, or was it the previous one? I saw a dachshund in Antwerp last week but doubt it had escaped from Geneva.

Apparently there are grand plans for the GWR to try to justify the great expense travel on it will be from January. So making use of the closed but possibly soon to be re-opened lines rule I travel via High Wycombe and a circuitous route to Rickmansworth.

As you well know Saints repeats are permissible in December after nine hundred moves; Rule 713(a)(iii) (as amended in Bogota in 1965) put that previously debatable question beyond doubt.

Incidentally, was that you I saw yesterday in Civita Vecchia with an exceptionally well-polished left-handed curlicue-boiler? If so please don't do what you were planning or if you must at least use a good brand of mayonnaise.

Scunthorpe.

Before the snow is used as an excuse to cancel trains tomorrow I begin the move back to London via Goole

A double vowel station with a Republican President - that is bold, as dear Julian would have said.

I play Dawkins’s deflection to Leamington Spa.

MummyPingu is still fretting about her left-handed fluorescent spondulator. I know she’s a menace with it but she’s a worse menace without it. If you find it send it back to her but take out the third cog wheel from the left and it won’t be too bad.

I am sure that as it is the first week of a new train operator serving Leamington Spa, there will be rail replacement buses today, so I can play this rule. I have not found Mummy Pingu's lost left handed thing.

Off we go down the Chiltern route and end up at Wembley Stadium station.

i refuse on principle to be hurried through the Chiltern Hills and as for Wembley Stadium . . . I believe that a game popular with proletarians is played there, and it is much to be feared that some of the more intelligent of those who take part in that absurd pastime might have played good MC.

We will therefore return to Wallingford.

Ah the repeats rule being played again. I will have to use it to get to Bourne End.

Has Maud had difficulties with the Courtauld Institute, given her absence. I understand that Mummy Pingu cannot take part at present because of her stay in Ulan Bator, and indeed that some Crescenters may have had to cope with work Christmas 'dos', but the absence of others does concern me. Some film at the cinema seems to have had a lot of attention this weekend, which is concerning as the game of games is surely more important?

No, no problems at the Courtauld Institute.

I've had rather an amusing sojourn with dear Julian and his amanuensis, Sandy and rather lost track of time. They invited me to troll along with them to a very bona bar for cocktails (the Guinness, peach schnapps and Windolene was a revelation) and then we did indeed go to the cinema to see that film that the young people are enthusing about. Have you seen it? Do you agree that those ancient and well-thumbed volumes that dear Luke keeps in his stone hovel look less like the annals of Jedi knowledge and more like the annotated volumes of the Rules of MC (1786 edition) that went missing from the chained library in '78? Someone in the props department has a lot of explaining to do.

Bethnal Green

No, no, no, those volumes are the 23rd edition, printed just before the days of poor dear Gutenberg, of the Swahili translation of the Uxbridge English Dictionary; I forgive you the error, there is indeed a vague similarity. I know where the volumes from the chained library are my lips are sealed, at least unless that nice May lady from somewhere in SW1 releases me from my promise not to upset the applecart again.

Glad to hear Julian and Sandy are well; were Binkie and Dame Celia with them or have they had their suspended sentences activated?

Bethnal Green on the Saturday before the Saturnalia is a merry suggestion but of course it cannot be taken seriously, and we are all no off to Merthyr Tydfil and that settles that.

Oh, you are a tease. Julian and Sandy insist that our next stop is

Cardiff Queen Street