Mornington Crescent rides again

[Andrewofgg]

Maida Vale. Just to make it difficult.

I am not sure about gloss paint on a weekend. This has been partly responsible for the downfall of what was the British Empire.

I think we should move slightly northwards to Kidderminster

Six days without a move and we all know why.

Too many people neglecting the game of games for less important tasks.

Only on Friday I pulled the Secretary-General out of some alleged meeting or other and I told him straight: it’s all very well running your talking shop in New York, but the MC Under-Nine Association (Berkshire, Caithness and Tipperary East Branch) needs its Assistant Treasurer!

Hawick

Leaving the borders with the aid of the bus replacement service to Newcastle, we end up in Thirsk.

I have been in the Netherlands and so far have not met anyone playing their version of the game of games, called Laan van de NOI.

Selhurst

You know it’s been worth the wait.

Oh, Maud, who else would dare?

All MC remembers Selhurst - but do they still remember us? Do they still talk of the signed photo of Kenneth Horne, the bottle of Advokaat, and the stuffed aardvark? And more to the point how do they talk of them? Has hushed terror given way to strident outrage - we could not blame them if it has, could we? We know it was a misunderstanding but I don't expect them to see it that way until their Town Hall has been fumigated.

Let's hurry to the comparative safety of Bolton.

Dear, dear Kenneth and Julian and Sandy. Such scamps.

Warrington

Do you know Maud - there are people who think Kenneth and the others are fictional!

Poor unenlightened things.

Shaftesbury.

Yes, Andrew, and I dare say those are the same deluded people who doubt there is a fully annotated and codified handbook of rules for the game of games, dating back at least to the Treaty of Utrecht. The worst afflicted even accuse us of making it all up!

Upminster

I think a short distance along the District line on this warm day will take us to Hornchurch. I agree it is terrible that people doubt the existence of rules for the game of games.

I take the view that if we all pulled together we could produce a definitive version of the Rules in little more than fifteen years. Of course, the odd types who still accept the purported resolutions of the so-called Conference at Trier in '57 would have to acknowledge the error of their ways first.

Saints that's an obvious typo in this weather for

Horncastle.

Now the weather has changed we should move inland, and so to Sleaford. As for Trier in 57, the fact it was called a conference and not a meeting of the Council says it all.

Sleaford would not be a bad little town, if only the Archdeacon's wives would learn to behave, especially the one with the kink for Yorkshire terriers.

Let's see how things are at Kettering these days.

Andrewofgg I thought you might have objected to the musical output of the Sleaford Mods, who apparently do not come from that town. I cannot imagine them having the small dogs so favoured by the wives of the Archdeacon.

Kettering is of course on the so-called Midland Main line, which misses out whole parts of the Midlands. I think we should move for some exercise to the place with the most athletic students, Loughborough. Not that I ever met any who played the game of games.

I assume all those invited to the wedding next week in Windsor have been vetted to ensure there are no non-Crescenters amongst them?

Certainly - and that includes the bride. I am given to understand that she has had to undertake a quick conversion course - poor dear, she was brought up on the American rules - but HM is adamant: no non-Crescenters in the Firm. When the secret history of the Fifties is written it will be disclosed that the real objection to Peter Townsend was not his divorce but that he had once spoken slightingly of the Game of Games.

Okehampton

Okehampton reminds me of Dartmoor and the scandal that is about to be dramatised with Hugh Grant playing the part of a former Liberal Party leader.

It is of course a diversion route into Cornwall to avoid the treacherous Dawlish Warren, scene of the 1979 disastrous truncated meeting of the Grand Council. So I take advantage of the route to move to Tavistock.

As for the Group Captain, as a non-Crescenter I had airbrushed him out of history, thinking Peter Townsend was Pete Townsend, of that popular 60s beat combo The Who.

Hey ho

Plymouth

Finally I have internet access again and can participate in the Game of Games. I know there has been some unkind speculation about my whereabouts, but the fact is simply that getting TalkTalk to wire up my new retreat on Fair Isle has been a bloody nightmare.

Talk on Dartmoor reminds me of a fun weekend I once spent there, tracing the sites of human sacrifice (there's a reason the MoD has taken over so much of the land). So:

Ivybridge

Oh, Irene, welcome back. I did not believe any of the rumours (except the one about the yak which was true, and I hope the poor beast is recovering well from the shock.

But during your absence the Ivybridge area has been subjected to Rule 345(c)(xii) until 31 June. Of course you could not know that so we will say no more about it and hie us to Lyme Regis.

In which case, I sense an inexorable logic in our progressing to

Bognor Regis

In the week before the Royal Wedding we should not tarry too long in Bognor given the last words of King George V (Harry's great-great grandfather I think) about the said coastal town. Given that there was a Queen Katherine from the Howard family, I think the journey to Arundel would be better.

I can’t get too excited about the nuptials of these Kraut royals. As Auberon Waugh said about the family photo they issued for the Silver Wedding in 1972: It just shows what happens when you let a few of these people into the country on a work permit.

In memory of Mr Waugh’s famous cross-diagonal at Stockholm ‘53:

Devizes

Dear old Bron. He was quite the player in his time, but so choleric! Do you remember the scene he made in Benghazi in '65, after someone who shall remain nameless played a longitudinal half-shunt to Rayners Lane?

Swindon

In view of Mr Waugh standing for the Dog Lover's Party in 1979, I move to Battersea Park. I'm a bit concerned that the Royal Family will now have a new member with antecedents from Yorkshire, but I am sure we will get over this, and the events of the 15th century will not repeat themselves.

Saints - there are some among us who will recognise neither the spawn of John of Gaunt nor their Welsh progeny, the Earl of Richmond. The true line is that of Lionel of Clarence and the Mortimers, as Richmond wisely recognised by his marriage to Elizabeth.

Bear in mind that there is no record of the Tudor usurper, before or after he started calling himself Henry VII, showing any aptitude for the game of games.

For obvious reasons Wakefield

Ah, Wakefield. Didn't several members of the Grand Council spend some time there at His Majesty's pleasure after that unfortunate incident with the gnu, the hammock and the Berlin Philharmonic in '23? And the parole rules were less generous then. Anyway, it puts me in mind of the famous ballad penned in

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