Mornington Crescent - could there be fireworks?

[MaudAndOtherPoems]

After the very impressive conclusion to the last game, I have taken some time to reflect on how best to open a new game in a way that both challenges the old hands yet encourages the newbies. I think I have it - a reverse Elkington to

Westminster

Over to you ...

Oh, Derek, might we have met before in one of Loughborough Junction’s more outré watering holes? What an intriguing thought. Crystal Palace is a fine place, but from there the obvious next step is a retrograde reverse to

Denmark Hill

I am not aware of the watering holes of Loughborough Junction, but am of Clapham. So via Clapham High Street and the walking change, I move to Clapham Common. The incident of 1998 in the first ever outdoor game of games that year I will not mention.

Quite right, Saints. I have a most robust constitution, yet I quake at the memory. Let’s essay a bifold shunt to

Turnham Green

Clever to use the limited stopping rule on the Piccadilly line on a Thursday evening. Especially with a shunt, which rules out a move to Acton Town.

So down towards the Thames we go and Richmond.

So you saw through my little ruse, Saints. I thought you might. Time for some Eastern promise, I think.

Wapping

I've waited until a Sunday, at nearly midnight, to use the St Thomas rule and I go to Stanmore.

Maud it's possible we have? I used to frequent a pub under the arches - which in those days had cubes of cheese out for Sunday lunch time and you could buy cans of Stella 'out of hours' with a nod and a wink.

Was that the pub under the arches where the Rear Admiral used regularly to perform his impromptu cabaret, giving us (and a breathless audience) his Edith Piaf?

But I digress

Tower Hill

Happy Christmas.

The said pub may be open before noon, but I play the walking rule and move to Fenchurch Street

Please may I join?

I'm applying the Christmas Day waiver to leap to Barons Court.

Welcome, BadSanta. It’s most fitting that you should join us today and that is an impressively decisive move. I feel we are long overdue a bifurcated Wadsworth (my favourite move from the Vienna festival in ‘83) and so on we go to

Theydon Bois

It was The Green Man - they'd put out cheese cubes, biscuits and nuts on Sunday. I think it's closed down now.

Barons Court to Theydon Bois means I can apply the double Calais rule and take us to Cutty Sark (if you have time, stop off for pie and mash).

I have been to said Pie and Mash place- very nice mash indeed, not so keen on the chicken gravy. A Jubilee line mishap had forced me onto the bus from the O2 at North Greenwich.

To walk off the calories from said pie and mash I walk to Greenwich, where DLR and main line trains meet.

It may cost us more in 2019, but let us move somewhere. To London Bridge.