Jack’s Monopoly Guide to London
Posted September 24, 2009 , trackbackNow, I’ve played plenny of board games – scrabble, draughts (or chequers if you will), a spot of chess as a young’un, and word has it maybe even a spot of Trouble, though not that I’d own up to that with less than a sixpack on the table.
London town had come a-calling, so seemed it was time for the ultimate bored game, why not a round of Monopoly? But mind you, given some of the prices you’d find in the ‘spensive parts of Ol’ Blighty, you’d have to be Rich Uncle Pennybags himself to afford a beer or five if you was to play the Monopoly drinking game. And given I’m not one to do as I’m told, drinking on queue could be added to that list, ‘specially if the mood and lighting ain’t quite right.
Have monopolies, will travel
So, I’m told that “The game is named after the economic concept of monopoly, the domination of a market by a single entity.” Happy to be that single entotty, and without ample warning to the ports of England, I planned to take the place by storm and force whatever mon-archy there may be to their knees until they cry Oligarchy, which I have on good word is An-archy’s half-brother in-law, twice removed.
Jack goes on a monopoly lookabout in London
Yessiree, the plan to put as many hotels on top of as many train stations, free houses and half-owned streets was the plan, and the means, well cough up for an Oyster and you are more than half-way there.
Johnno had taken more than his fair share of time getting down to the Off Licence (Bottle-o as the folks back home would have it known), so in a hurry to get the game started and rolling dicewards, my hesitation at ripping the oversized fuzzy dice off the rear view mirror of his panel van was a little more short lived that it would have been, if he was standing in the lounge room holding a couple of those super strength London’s finest “Golden Pride” proudly aloft in his hairy little mittens.
But Johnno’s finer points aside, I was ready for the ultimate bard game, that’s right I was gonna own London itself! Even if it was only bounded by the unsurveyed fences of my under-utiliitised mind, where a man can run all the Power Companies himself, regardless of how many trips to the Water Works are required, or how many times you’ve won $10 in an urban beautification contest. Thought I could start off small and local and make a visit to the Community Chest, y’know, take a bit of a Chance – but when I asked her, she wasn’t interested and was lucky to get off without a slap in the face.
Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. To town it is then.
London Monopoly: To the circus!
Stop One was Oxford Circus – no, not one for the kiddies with fairground attractions and rides and fun for all the family. This stop managed to get me my first Hotel as well as landing on the corner of two streets – Oxford and Regent. Skipping off down Regent a stone’s throw away had me at Langham Place, opposite the mightily venerated BBC, home of er, BBC1, 2 and 3, but I think 4 is somewhere else.
Across the road was the Langham Hotel – told ‘em who I was and rather than show me the door they showed me around. A bar that said BAR, made from the finest quality marble and old money itself, a Tea Room that (now let me show you my tea prowess) with the right cup of hand-cut Uji Japanese Sencha green tea will have you seeing through time with all the right accoutrements and knobs on (amazing stuff hanging from the tea room ceiling). And not to forget a Grand Ballroom that is grand and could easily accommodate a ball in its roominess. Tick, tick, tick – boxes checked, rent paid, Hotel placed on Regent Street.
Round the back of the Palladium and via Great Marlborough Street (was the Monopoly board missing the Great there?) I headed back up to the Circus and made for Victoria Street just in time to catch that naughty little number 11 double-decker bus (upstairs front row Seat of Death anyone?) about to sneak off to Liverpool Street. So I jumped the bugger when he weren’t looking and rode that bus like a broken buck mule on its merry way round the whistle-stop Monopoly lookabout tour.
London lookabout tour
Wending up past Westminster Abbey and Parliament in time to catch the changing of the guard and the household Calvalry, I spied a massive stone erection in the approaching square. “Alas poor Horatio, I knew him well, Yorrick”, Yoda once mumbled to me after a night on the whiskey of Scotch, and indeed it was. Nelson with a pillar up his clacker high up in the air, declaring something in geological time and marking the spot where Trafalgar Square had been won in the bloody battle of Passing Jail (I think).
But in fact I believe, never to let a gaming opportunity go by, he was pointing to a free house! “London Moon of the Mall” (of course), so I notched that up then: four properties, one hotel and one house. I was putting the winner back into weiner faster than you could say, “Um, yeah, sure, right.”
Bond Street: Jack’s looking for Rich Uncle Pennybags himself to afford it
Another roll of the invisible fuzzy dice had the bus rolling up the Strand, past the Adelphi Theatre, another quick Hotel was stacked on, courtesy of the Waldorf Hilton (a healthy high class, tossed salad establishment). Next the Belgravia Hotel obliged as Fleet Street came by and though I heard not the clackety-clack of the journalist ridden typewriters of the newspapers that, well at least in cheap paperback novels, made the Fleet Street name famous, it was more apt I reckoned, given the ways of the English papers, that the Old Bailey was easily seen across the way – rough justice served daily, condiments extra.
Liverpool Street was little more than a station, a great sprawling train interchange replete with info-confusion and the continental-cum-English confusion of whether to walk on the left or the right side of any given path. No Hotels here so out the door I went, jumping a train round to Kings Cross, sharing its quarters with the patron saint of heavy drinkers, St Pancreas, and on out of town I went. Given Monopoly is a little bit older than the contemporary London situation, there were no airports on the board (though I think Fenchurch Station never existed, it was always just a t-shirt brand, if my keen fashion eye is to be believed). Stand-instead Airport had me intrigued and as I was headed out I crawled my way past Whitechapel, and its overflowing street markets sitting right by the Royal Hospital (managed to dodge that hospital bill that jumped out at me by Chance). Bow Road, not street, wiggled past, full of car yards but not a hotel to be seen, so I cut my losses and headed for the king of the board: Mayfair.
A district not a place, Mayfair would be the one to stack those hotels high, get me some rent set up and some cocktails knocked back. I made my way round past the culinary delights and bars lurking round the Angel Islington, said no to Smoking and avoided Pall Mall, had a touch of Free Parking while I dropped the kids off at Picadilly Circus, and some fine shopping without the Super Tax as I rounded Bond Street. With the Park Lane under my feet and Hyde Park in my sights (the starlight hotel doesn’t count I don’t think, spotting some real estate barons-to-be sleeping under newspaper blankets on the Park’s perimeter) I came up upon the Blue patch of Monopoly gold – round from Soho, Mayfair stood like the shimmering diamond of the day’s hard fought riches!
Verily, the hours whirl past
Verily, the hours whirled past like a minute hand whirring round a Looney Tunes clock - Yoda dropped by for a double, the Margaritas became Martinis which left me shaken but not stirred. New friends were made and lost as the line between Monopoly money and real money blurred.
Seemed the next morning I’d made the front page. A fresh copy of the newspaper across my crumpled suit, a rock for a pillow and the hot London summer sun ablaze on my newsprint-stained face – the hangover that stumbled within the long Kubrick-esque Hotels of my mind, grasping only fantasms of the day-before’s unofficial auctions – seems I’d won the lot and spent it, now down on my luck – the only property (or was it a card?) I’d retained had me advanced to the next Utility where I was assessed for Street Repairs. Without it, my life, my insurance, and perhaps I, had matured, and learnt that only a Squatter could truly own the world and not lose it in one day.
-Jack Brown
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