Mornington Crescent
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
A History
Mornington crescent was invented in 220 BC by Xeno1, and the first recorded charity match took place between the Viking Gods and the Fenland Mountain Rescue later that year. Since then is has remained the favourite pastime of any intellect too vast to bother itself with 19-dimensional billiards. It's current popularity is due in no small part to the valiant2 efforts of the regular team members on BBCRadio 4's excellent antidote to panel games, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
In the early games players had just to use snooker cues to flip playing cards over a pair of goal posts, trying to get them through a hoop and down a hole, whilst avoiding bunkers. By this means, players moved around a pitch marked with the London tube train stations, trying to block each other, and hence be first to land on Mornington Crescent.
However, many found this too simplistic, and in AD 134 the Roman emperor Nero made a decree, and thus came about the First Reformation. Later, the IMCS was set up, and to this day they publish a bi-monthly newsletter.
How to Play
The rules are a byword for simplicity and elegance, but an ancient tradition means that they must not be explained to anyone who plays at anything less than Grandmaster level, and should never even be mentioned to members of the public3.
The game is played on a modified monopoly board, using chess pieces, to rules that are a cross between poker, ice-hocky, and hop-skotch. A system of bidding similar to that in syncronised swimming allows it to be played for money.
All this becomes a lot clearer when you see it being played, and so even as you read this a team of dedicated players is working in the Forum to produce a fine example game. Eventually the colour coded results will be transcribed to the main body of this article with comments so that new players can see what is going on, including such areas of intrest as opening move study, defensive blocking, speed games, and nid attacks.Another definition...
In the novels of Robert Rankin, Mornington Crescent is the location of the top secret headquarters of the Ministry of Serendipity.
And one further definition, whilst we're at it...
Mornington Crescent is the name of a station on the London Underground which was closed for an unbelievable amount of time4 for refurbishment. Now, Robert Rankin5 has his own explanation for this, but you need not worry - we shall not go into it here.
