An enamel sign at the Mornington Crescent station, the game's namesake.

Mornington Crescent is a parody game that features in the BBC Radio 4 comedy panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. The game, whose rules are never explained, satirises complicated strategy games, particularly the abstruse jargon involved in such games as contract bridge or chess. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Mornington Crescent is a station in Camden Town in north London, named after the road it is on. ... old Radio 4 logo BBC Radio 4 is a UK domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. ... Im Sorry I Havent a Clue, sometimes abbreviated to ISIHAC or simply Clue, is a BBC radio comedy which has run since 1972-04-11. ... Strategy games are typically board games, video or computer games with the players decision-making skills having a high significance in determining the outcome. ... For the glossary of hacker slang, see Jargon File. ... Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game of skill and chance (the relative proportions depend on the variant played). ... This article is about the Western board game. ...

A game consists of each player in turn announcing the name of a landmark or street, most often a station on the London Underground system; the winner is the first player to announce "Mornington Crescent", a tube station on the Northern Line. The London Underground is a rapid transit system that serves a large part of Greater London and some neighbouring areas of Essex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. ... Mornington Crescent is a station in Camden Town in north London, named after the road it is on. ... Slight modifications to the famous London Underground roundel indicate the name of each station on platform and outdoor signs. ... For other uses, see Northern Line (disambiguation). ...

The game's central joke is that while its rules are invoked and argued at length on the radio show, they are never explained.

Origins

Mornington Crescent first appeared in the opening episode of the sixth season of ISIHAC, broadcast on the 22nd August 1978. Although five episodes originally transmitted in 1974-75 are still lost, Mornington Crescent makes no appearance before 1978 but is played in every surviving episode of the sixth season. Im Sorry I Havent a Clue, sometimes abbreviated to ISIHAC or simply Clue, is a BBC radio comedy which has run since 1972-04-11. ... Im Sorry I Havent a Clue, sometimes abbreviated to ISIHAC or simply Clue, is a BBC radio comedy which has run since 1972-04-11. ... Year 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1978 Gregorian calendar). ...

The originator of the game is not clear. One claim is that the game was invented by Geoffrey Perkins,^[1] and he has stated in an interview that Mornington Crescent was created as a non-game.^[2] According to chairman Humphrey Lyttelton, the game was invented by the ISIHAC team to vex the series producer, who was unpopular with the panellists at the time. One day the team were drinking in a back room when they heard him coming. "Quick," one of them said, "Let's invent a game with rules he'll never understand."^[3]. Geoffrey Perkins has been a central figure in British comedy broadcasting. ... Humphrey Lyttelton at the Landmark Arts Centre, 22 April 2006. ...

Gameplay

The objective of the game is to give the appearance of a game of great skill and strategy, with absurdly complex and long-winded rules and strategies, in parody of games and sports in which similarly circuitous systems have evolved. This is an open secret, and few if any of the radio show's audience are under any illusion otherwise, but it is possible for people to become involved in the game without realising this, and thus to attempt to play the game seriously. Played amongst friends, it bears some resemblance to party games such as Take a plane, Scissors, and Mao, in which certain players know "secret" rules. For the 1970s Canadian TV game show, see Party Game (game show). ... Take a plane is a party game that resembles Scissors in that some players know the secret of how the game actually works and the objective is for those who do not know this to work it out. ... Scissors is a party game. ... Mao (also sometimes called Mü, Maw, Mile, 5-Card Mao, Chairman, Dictator, Bjorn, Maul, Maui, Politics, or King Mao) is a card game. ...

In general, when Humphrey Lyttelton (Humph) announced a game of Mornington Crescent during an ISIHAC broadcast, he would usually describe a set of special rules deemed to apply to that session of the game. For example, 'Trumpington's Variations', or 'Tudor Court Rules'. This meant that almost every episode of ISIHAC in which Mornington Crescent was played introduced a new variant. Humphrey Lyttelton at the Landmark Arts Centre, 22 April 2006. ...

Over time the set of permitted destinations has expanded well beyond the stations of the London Underground. ISIHAC is recorded in many locations around the United Kingdom, and the game is occasionally modified to fit a local map; such cases have included a version in Slough, as well as one in Scotland played during the Edinburgh Fringe arts festival. In one game, recorded in Luton, moves ranged as far afield as the Place de l'Étoile in Paris, Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg, and Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. However, a move to Luton High Street was ruled invalid for being too geographically remote. Slough (pronounced ) is a town and unitary authority (Borough of Slough) in England. ... This article is about the country. ... A street performer on the Royal Mile, with volunteer (2004). ... For other uses, see Luton (disambiguation). ... The Place de lÉtoile is a large Place in Paris, France, the meeting point of twelve avenues (hence the name Star Square) including the Champs-Élysées which continues to the east. ... This article is about the capital of France. ... Nevsky Prospekt (Russian: ) is a station on the Moskovsko-Petrogradskaya Line of the Saint Petersburg Metro. ... Saint Petersburg (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, English transliteration: Sankt-Peterburg), colloquially known as Питер (transliterated Piter), formerly known as Leningrad (Ленингра́д, 1924–1991) and Petrograd (Петрогра́д, 1914–1924), is a city located in Northwestern Russia on the delta of the river Neva at the east end of the Gulf of Finland... Pennsylvania Avenue street sign, 2004. ... Aerial photo (looking NW) of the Washington Monument and the White House in Washington, DC. Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia (also known as D.C.; Washington; the Nations Capital; the District; and, historically, the Federal City) is the capital city and administrative district of the United...

Lyttelton has sometimes joked that the game predates the London Underground system. For example, the 'Tudor Court Rules' are described as "A version of the game formally adopted by Henry VIII and played by Shakespeare. At this time, the underground was far smaller than at present and so the playing area also was more restricted, primarily due to plague." The London Underground is a rapid transit system that serves a large part of Greater London and some neighbouring areas of Essex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. ...

Those who write in to the show asking for the rules are usually referred to "NF Stovold’s Mornington Crescent: Rules and Origins" and told it is out of print. They are also advised that "your local bookshop might have a copy of The Little Book of Mornington Crescent by Tim, Graeme, Barry and Humph."

The game is played by fans on Usenet and in web forums, and this has increased the mythology surrounding the rules. A Facebook application has also been produced.^[4] Facebook is a social networking website that was launched on February 4, 2004. ...

Publications

In the 1990s, Radio 4 broadcast a Christmas special: Mornington Crescent Explained, a "two-part documentary" on Mornington Crescent, with part one being a history of the game through the ages and part two being the rules. At the end of the broadcast of part one it was announced that part two had been postponed due to "scheduling difficulties".

Part two was eventually written, and broadcast on Christmas Eve 2005. It was named "In Search of Mornington Crescent" and narrated by Andrew Marr.^[5] Nativity of the Lord redirects here. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Andrew Marr (born 31 July 1959, Glasgow, Scotland) is a Scottish journalist and political commentator. ...

Two books of rules and history have been published, The Little Book of Mornington Crescent (2001; ISBN 0-7528-1864-3) by Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Cryer and Humphrey Lyttelton, and Stovold's Mornington Crescent Almanac (2001; ISBN 0-7528-4815-1) by Graeme Garden. Graeme Garden, as a Beefeater in The Goodies (TV series) episode The Tower of London David Graeme Garden (born February 18, 1943) is a British comedy writer and performer. ... Tim Brooke-Taylor (April 2000) Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor, (born 17 July 1940 in Buxton, Derbyshire, England) is a British comic actor most well known in Britain as a member of The Goodies comedy trio and in the comedy radio shows Im Sorry I Havent a Clue, and... Barry Cryer (born March 23, 1935 in Leeds, Yorkshire, UK) is a writer and comedian. ... Humphrey Lyttelton at the Landmark Arts Centre, 22 April 2006. ...

Cultural references

• Item #101 of the 2005 University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt was for one player on each team to "participate in an email adaptation of the classic game Mornington Crescent", using the CTA rail system. Participants were warned, "We shall follow the standard Thurgood-Hamilton conversion algorithm, but banning semi-lateral shunts."^[6]
• After the death of Willie Rushton, one of ISIHAC's long-time participants, in 1996, his life was commemorated by a blue plaque in the ticket office of Mornington Crescent Tube Station in 2002. ("Willie Rushton: Satirist")
• In the alternate reality game Perplex City, card #140 in the blue hex set is entitled "Mornington Crescent". The puzzle is to determine the proper play based on stations in Perplex City. The card does not explain the rules, claiming that it would insult the player's intelligence. In fact, naming any station on the Perplex City tube map was acceptable.
• "The Steep Approach to Garbadale" by Iain Banks mentions the game as a creation of fictional company Wopuld Ltd., described as "a game based on the map of the London underground with a complicated double-level board".
• Douglas Hofstadter, in his book Metamagical Themas, references a game called Finchley Central, as described by Anatole Beck and David Fowler. The game is identical to Mornington Crescent except for the named underground station. It is unclear as to which version was the original, but Hofstadter tellingly phrases his reference "… the game they call Finchley Central", perhaps indicating he already had heard of the Mornington Crescent version.
• In the novel Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction by Sue Townsend, the protagonist writes to Radio 4 demanding a copy of the rules as he has trouble following the game.

Qwazy Quad Rally, Scav Hunt 2005, item #38. ... The L[1], variously, if perhaps incorrectly, styled L, El, EL, or L, is the rapid transit system that serves Chicago, Illinois in the United States. ... William George Rushton, commonly known as Willie Rushton (August 18, 1937–December 11, 1996) was a British cartoonist, satirist, comedian, actor and performer. ... A blue plaque showing information about The Spanish Barn at Torre Abbey in Torquay. ... Alternate Reality, see Alternate Reality (computer game). ... Perplex City is a long-term alternate reality game (ARG) presented by Mind Candy, a London-based development team. ... The Steep Approach to Garbadale is a novel by the Scottish writer Iain Banks, published in 2007. ... Iain Menzies Banks (officially Iain Banks, born on 16 February 1954 in Dunfermline, Fife) is a Scottish writer. ... The London Underground is a rapid transit system that serves a large part of Greater London and some neighbouring areas of Essex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. ... Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born February 15, 1945 in New York, New York) is an American academic. ... Metamagical Themas is an eclectic collection of articles written for Scientific American during the early 1980s by Douglas Hofstadter, and published together as a book in 1985 by Basic Books (ISBN 0465045669) . The subject matter of the articles is loosely woven about themes in philosophy, creativity, artificial intelligence and important... Finchley Central is a popular name for the area called Church End Finchley ... David Fowler (1937 – 2004) was a historian of Greek mathematics who published work on pre-Eudoxian ratio theory (using the process he called anthyphaeresis). ... Published in 2004 by Penguin Books, Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction is the sixth and most recent Adrian Mole novel by Sue Townsend. ... Susan Lillian Sue Townsend (born April 2, 1946) is the author of the Adrian Mole series of books. ...

See also

• List of games with concealed rules

These are games where the rules are intentionally concealed from new players, either because their discovery is part of the game itself, or because the game is a hoax and the rules do not exist. ...

References

Loose Ends can refer to: Carl McIntosh Jane Eugene Steve Nichol In The mid 80s gems like Hanging on a string and Slow Down brought Loose Ends the kind of stateside recognition Britisch soul acts dream of. ... For other uses, see Guardian. ... 2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Anno Domini (or common era), in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 138th day of the year (139th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Anno Domini (or common era), in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 18th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 316th day of the year (317th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Play Mornington Crescent at Moorcock's Miscellany
• The BBC Radio 4 Mornington Crescent message board
• H2G2 Mornington Crescent Appreciation Society
• A list of variations mentioned in ISIHAC games
• Automated version of the game, against the server, following the short rules and rule 7b.