NationStates Jolt Archive

Anyone here know how to play?

I'll start.

Earls Court.

Ah, dear old Willie Rushton. How i miss him on Radio 4.

Anyone here know how to play?


No...sadly the ability to play the game has always passed me by. I think I'm destined to be Mornington Crescent voyeur for the rest of my life :(

Anyone here know how to play?


No...sadly the ability to play the game has always passed me by. I think I'm destined to be Mornington Crescent voyeur for the rest of my life :(

You'll pick it up fairly easily once we get going! Maybe a little history would help?


The game of Mornington Crescent was invented in the late nineteenth century by the drivers of Hackney carriages as a serious attempt to design a one-way system around the increasingly busy area of Euston in London. It is variously credited to Arthur Mowe, a Cockney, and Horstmann Ure, a second generation Silesian immigrant.
A simple, but profitable, variation on the game is still played by London taxi drivers, because their motto is "He was a stranger, and I took him in". Cabbies try to include Mornington Crescent in every journey. This helps to maximise fares for journeys which would not naturally contain a diversion via the Euston district.

An Edinburgh, Scotland, taxi driver holds the current unofficial record. Fraser McFurtive (37) managed to include Mornington Crescent in a journey between Drumsheugh Gardens and Milton Road West (both in Edinburgh), on the excuse that he was avoiding congestion in Princes Street (without mentioning that there is also a Princes Street in London).

Sven (48, 26, 27), a muscular Swedish taxi driver, is currently a contender for the distance title. He is en route between Kongsgatan and Tegelbacken (both in Stockholm), but, like most of us, has so far failed to reach Mornington Crescent, though he has been in London for several years now. It has been contended that, since his passenger returned to Stockholm by air in 1993, his attempt ought to be declared null and void. But not yet... hey, give the guy a chance! Declare it null and void when he's finished.

A totally different game of the same name is played on BBC Radio.. regrettably, mostly for laughs. To their credit, however, the radio-based exponents of the game are very fast on their feet, since they do not have to travel anywhere. They have contributed some of the more recent rule changes, including "Begging and Pleading" (an end-game decoration) and "Gruntfuttock's Posture" (in which the moves of the game are retrospectively altered in order to favour one player or another - also known as "editing the broadcast tape").

Today, the real game is played by grizzled aficionados (though it is not necessary to be foreign) without the aid of the London A-Z or the map of the London Underground. In fact, even the Penguin-keepers' Yearbook is outlawed from the professional game, which attracts hushed groups of onlookers on street corners from Ouagadougou to Ulan Bator, and even Basingstoke.

Oh, and Elephant and Castle by the way...

"Mornington Crescent: it takes a moment to master, a lifetime to learn the rules."

Already a game in progress:

http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=136420

Yeah Ive never understood it but always tried and thats what matters