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

One of the previous Queen Consorts is buried in Peterborough Cathedral so let us pay a call, Peterborough

Let us rather visit the place of her death which was Kimbolton.

A trip using the closed railway lines rule takes us via Kettering and down the line towards London, stopping at Kentish Town, on the main line platforms.

I cannot imagine anyone famous passing nearby since Dick Whittington maybe, assuming he turned right at Archway, which is unlikely. I wonder what he could have achieved had the game of games been around in his day- I am sure the Colonel and Maud and Mr Whittington would have got on famously over a mug of mead.

As for the present Queen's late sister, the 1963 fracas explains a lot, especially her exile to Mustique.

Mr Whittington was a Crescenter, and a good one, but not as good as his great-grandfather who was a school contemporary of mine. And I never believed all that the Colonel told me about him. Especially not the bit about the haggis, although it ought to be true. Maud, dearest, when they vary your parole to allow you to own a pen and paper again, and damn it, they can't keep it going for ever although we can all see why they would want to, why don't you draw a sketch of it?

Kentish Twn is too horrible a place to think of or even spell out in full. Time for some fresh clean country air. Gateshead*.

Parole? That was terminated years ago and I've reenrolled in my life drawing course (as a model in warm weather but otherwise as a student, as I can't abide draughts). So, from there, it's but a short step to

Whitley Bay

My mistake, Maud, the jury could not agree last time, could they?

Easington - and don't anyone dare play the obvious next move unless of course you want your bottom to glow bright green in the dark.

Easington always reminds me of Billy Elliott. No jury there.

The glow in the dark move would surely be northwards or westwards, so I shall move south to the home of the alleged monkey hangers, Hartlepool

Recent research has conclusively established that the money was a French spy.

Time to be daring. Cockermouth

Bazinga!

Falmouth Docks

Ah, wet and windy Cornwall. What a long journey down the west coast that was. We need to play the closed lines rule again to travel back via Tavistock and then as the Great Western main line is out of bounds today go via Dorset and Hampshire to end up at Earlsfield

No line is out of bounds to the Grand Crescenting Council but the place you have mentioned is infra dig and we cannot stay there. We will proceed in an orderly line to Lyme Regis but do not remind the station mustard about the matter of the chest freezer, the Alderman, and the bottle of Jack Daniels; memories are still raw.

Ah, if only household appliances could talk (with the exception, of course, of Andrew's mouli-legumes).

Leicester Square

There is a beautiful mural by Jean Cocteau in a church near Leicester Square. It is not recorded whether he played the game of games or some French variant of it. I think it calls for the Piccadilly line to come back into play and take us to Russell Square.

Courtesy to the Duke of that name requires a visit to Bedford

Before there are weekend works to interrupt our journey I return to St Albans. A place that seems the kind of city that would have many adherents of the game of games.

I raise you St Albans City - but when you are elected to the Grand MC Council you will know the phone number you call to get the weekend works put off to some day when they will not inconvenience us. The Chief Executive (or some such title) once had the impertinence to tell me that commuter travel was "more important" than the Game of Games but he got a bollocking at once and his P45 the next day. I believe he is now cleaning sewers.

Oh dear, a faux pas from me not to clarify which St Albans I meant- I was of course playing with the 1982 rules before the station was renamed. So as we have had the same station twice and merely crossed platforms, I move via the walking between stations rule to St Albans Abbey, which means our time to return to the metropolis will be longer.

Well Saints - you put the cat well and truly among the pigeons, didn't you?

It's not your fault the the meeting of the Council took so long - some fool gave MummyPingu a box of cream doughnuts without the bottle of Scotch which usually neutralises the effects, and the inevitable happened. The Colonel's suit still stinks of eau-de-cologne and a cheap brand at that.

However: a solution was found. Edgbaston - and for heaven's sake be more careful next time.

Cream doughnuts are just not de rigour for the game of games. Scones with jam and cream are much better. The next meeting of the Council should be hosted by someone with more culinary sense.

I think from Edgbaston the line to London can be reached without the need for any rail replacement buses, and so we can arrive at Wembley Central without too many changes of trains. Thankfully there is no Association Football being played nearby today.

Well, well, well.

I never thought it would happen.

But we are where we are: seven days of silence in February and there were two Full Moons last Month and the Prime Minister's surname begins in the first half of the alphabet.

Pursuant to the Third Proviso to Rule 167(b)(xii) - as amended at Guangzhou in '83 - I now play a Collins Conclusion to

[roll of drums]

[wait for it]

MORNINGTON CRESCENT!

Dear me. I turn my back for a few days - the Ambassador was most insistent that I attend the latest negotiations, and I almost won round M Barnier with an inspired double Mitterrand to Montparnasse - and the whole game nearly goes (pardon my pun) off the rails. We need some sanity, so it's off to

Harwich Town

Andrewofgg I congratulate you on victory. I could not play two moves in a row yet knew we were near the end of the game.

I think you should start a new thread and begin our next game. Maud had played an invalid move as you have to commence somewhere in London.

Ah, my apologies. The slowness of my interweb connection meant I had not seen Andrew's uncharacteristically subtle final manoeuvre. Well played, old sport!

I shall look forward to Andrew's opening gambit for the next game (just so long as it's not the one he tried to play at Roehampton in '64; three people fainted, five emigrated and we're still paying hush money to the caterers).