The Encyclopaedia Morningtonia

Entries are now being accepted for the compilation of the Encyclopaedia. Submissions should be sent in via e-mail to jim@madeira.physiol.ucl.ac.uk. They will be edited and compiled here for the delight of the world at large. Editors decision will be final, but can be swayed by persuasion, threats, and offers of beer. [Specially the last --jim]

Ah, fame! This very page has been mentioned in the Little Book of Mornington Crescent which you should all go and buy. If you came here from there, you might be interested in the online game itself, where you can play various games and meet other loonies enthusiasts. Enjoy!

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

Aldgate East

Despite Alison 'Crusher' Hall's predeliction to play Aldgate East whenever caught against a mildly difficult shunt, the station may not appear to be very important. Sitting in quadrant 4, sector 3 and zone 2, it does not readily appear to align or diagonalise with other stations. Its colour (grey) and left-handedness may be seen to be disadvantageous when faced with typical level increments across defensive blocks. But there are a number of surprising things about Aldgate East which make it quite a powerful station.

It is the closest station to the zone, quadrant and sector boundaries, by the usual weighted average. Therefore, if faced with boundary problems and forced to use extra faresaver points, it can be very useful to reduce these effects. Likewise, being a neutral colour, it is not affected by line reflection, colour variance or cross-hatching. Being in the upper third of zone 2, its left-handedness gives a neat spin into zone 1 which can be used to double-shunt off most stations inside the Circle line. And, of course, its interchange properties lend it a triple pegging bonus when in Spoon or Knip. [PW]

A popular form of the game, usually played as the final event at the World Championships: as its name suggests, all comers can take part, and there is no set restriction on the order of moving other than that the same player may not make two consecutive moves. This type of game requires an entirely different strategy from the standard one-on-one MC which is considered the most important event of the annual World Championship: often, the winner is the player who can cause the maximum inconvenience to the greatest number of players in the shortest possible space of time. As such, Ruttsborough was recognised as the greatest master of All-In MC, with 18 wins: surprisingly perhaps, Mrs Trellis is next with 12, each of hers coinciding with one of her Grand Slams. [JLE]

Amersham / Aldwych Loop

Not strictly a loop by the standard definition, but its behaviour is so similar to a standard single-station loop that it can be safely treated as one for ruling purposes. Initiated when two separate players enter Amersham and Aldwych within the same turn, a Token Race is immediately established, and all non-blocked players are required to contribute to the loop until it is broken. The curiously freeform nature of this loop (players can play either Amersham or Aldwych during the loop - sequence is irrelevant) gives the phenomena a standard-single behaviour for all rulings. [KD]

Arball Ruleset (2001)

The Arball Ruleset has been eagerly awaited by technical players, with a penchant for complexity. Traditionalists are less likely to be impressed with Arball 2001 as they will be prevented from some of the moves and manoeuvres which have been a part of the game for a long time.

Having said that, many players of the 'new generation' are awaiting a ruleset which will see a break from the traditional line which many believe has made Mornington Crescent stale over recent years, as the general concensus seemed to be that Holland Park 2000 was a disappointment, given all the hype and build up there had been for it.

CAMREC have yet to release official comment on Arball 2001, but no comments they make are liable to be complimentary, given their stand for the traditional styled game. [DF]

Archbold

Archbold never participated in a MC game above club level for two reasons. Firstly there was his seminal legal tome Archbold's Criminal Law; and secondly his ground breaking work Archbold's Alphabetical Station Guide. The latter is, as the title suggests, a guide to the London Underground stations as used in MC. Each entry detailed the location, history lines and other notable features of all the underground stations that were then in existence. This meant a player could find out when British Museum closed or when the Hammersmith & City line arrived at Great Portland Street. As well as those vital facts advice was given on some good moves to follow up say Chesham or Ickenham, along with ideas on which stage of the game to use them. Archbold spent WW2 in a concrete bunker composing the first edition which came out in 1946. Editions followed yearly, often with only slight changes until Archbold died in 1974. The first editions are valuable collectors' items and were eagerly purchased by novice and advanced players alike. It is rumoured, though not proved, that even Ruttsborough himself had a copy. [AB]

Back-pass trump manouver

A tactic employed by Catherine Howard against Henry VIII which won her the game, but.... [NA]

Backs

In the team game, the defensive players. Most four-man teams operate with two backs, whose job is to sabotage the opposing team's attacks with simple tactics such as the huff, or more intricately worked combinations. Defensive backs are also occasionally involved in attacks, often arriving suddenly to win the game. Backs account for about 10% of MC team victories, although the famous Earl's Court MCC and England back of the 50's, Ian Hoile, played the winning move in an incredible 31% of his team's victories, while holding a fearsome defensive record. [JH]

Baker Street

Not to be confused with the appalling Ramsay Street, the game of Baker Street is a simplified version of Mornington Crescent. While aimed primarily at beginners, Baker Street is much appreciated by players of all levels for its speed and playability. The game is played on a simple two-intersection layout incorporating the four magenta stations, West Ham, Hammersmith, Covent Garden and Baker Street. A full diagonal restriction applies to two-level shunts, so these stations are obviously the only legal moves. The winning player is the first to get to Baker Street. This variant of the game can in fact be very challenging, especially with a large number of players, but is also very simple indeed for beginners to understand.

Since the construction of the Jubilee Line Extension and the release of the new Holland Park 2000 ruleset, there is now a fifth magenta station in the game: North Greenwich. Following heated discussions, weighting and Spin coefficients of the other stations were altered to fit this in. [JH]/[JLE]

Bargain Basement

Euphemism for straddling the river with low LV. (Usually in the context "s/he's visiting the Bargain Basement!") [MWP]

Baryshnikov, Boris Antonovich (1960- )

One of the modern masters of MC, but rather underrated in this country. Also a keen chess-player who might have been a Chess Grandmaster had he not chosen MC as his career, and had he not been narrowly beaten by Kasparov twice in the late 70s youth championships. His career has been dogged by the politics of the Cold War until recently, and by a distinct lack of charisma outside of the MC arena.

He first came to public notice in 1978, winning the Russian MC championship and gaining the title of International Master at the age of 18. And then came the World Championship of 1980 - held in Moscow to promote the cause of MC behind the Iron Curtain, and boycotted by most leading Western players in sympathy with the Olympics that year: only Stannard defied the boycott, and the aging Ruttsborough who came out of retirement for the second and final time to "beat the Ruskies in their own back yard", and reached the final with some flashes of his old genius, only to lose heavily to Baryshnikov (who thus gained his Grandmaster title.)

That championship was largely ignored by press and public alike, denuded as it was of the entire top twenty in the rankings, so Baryshnikov was dismissed as a weak winner of a weak tournament. The world had to sit up and take notice, however, when three years later he defeated Mrs Trellis for the first (and so far only) time in an epic battle at Chalk Farm, overcoming a 43-podume deficit with an incredible 26 consecutive Forcing Passes with Mrs Trellis, herself debarred from passing, forced to move into a weaker position each time (the situation in which she found herself having been since nicknamed "Boris" in recognition of that feat, and the nickname has gained official status) to allow an unimpeded straddle to MC to win the '83 World Championship Final.

He defected to the West in order to defend his title the following year, when the USSR ordered a boycott - again in sympathy with the Olympics - but on this occasion he lost in the final as Mrs Trellis had her revenge. He was to be welcomed back to his home country in 1989 (when the Iron Curtain fell) in triumph as he won the third of his three World Championships so far, and was seen sitting on a tank alongside such people as Yeltsin, Kasparov and the cellist Rostropovich to defy the attempted hardline coup against Gorbachev. His form has slumped since then, but there are signs of a revival and he is making his way up the rankings again (currently ranked 19th in the world.) [JLE]

Basingstoke MCC

While most clubs consider BasingMCC to be somewhat parochial, even by the standards of MC, the club has a number of surprising distinctions. In 1967 the players made headlines by barricading themselves into the basinghall, demanding that a proposed ringroad be re-routed to avoid the club grounds. In the event they were able to have their 1825 original Steinclout board listed as a Grade 1 artefact by the IMCS, and the club was saved. Despite its small size, BasingMCC nonetheless contributes over 5% of the national team players, and has dominated the mideast division of the Trellis National League for years. The club mascot, Barney, is a venerable and overweight persian cat, well known for his habit of sleeping on Fenchurch Street. [TUA]

Beck's Coefficient

Invented by the German mathematician Ernst Beck in 1956, Beck's Coefficient is a calculated reference number which gives a rough indication of the probability of there being a possible route to Endgame within a set number of moves. The constant can only be used as a guideline, since the coefficient works on the assumption that line velocities are constant (Chalfont's Hypothesis suggests a coefficient that accounts for line velocities, but is incalculable on standard equipment within any reasonable amount of time), and unless stated otherwise is calculated for a twenty five move limit. Of course, when MC has been played, Beck's reaches 1. The formula for the coefficient is rather too complex and cumbersome to explain here, but is available in any modern book on the game. [JH]

Beck's Rule

Not to be confused with Beck's Coefficient, and named in honour of the Underground Map's creator H. C. Beck, this rule allows for the utilisation of old station names, and is only applicable to players holding tokens of each colour.

Rarely is any advantage offered by the playing of Beck's Rule, save in the case of the Embankment - Charing Cross Jump. Briefly, this allows the player to move directly from District/Circle to Jubilee without incurring any token forfeit or going into Knip.

Nevertheless, this rule is normally only practised by extremely experienced MC players due to its impacts on LV, which are unfortunately too complex fully to explain here. For the last recorded instance of Beck's Rule, see Sharma vs. Abrecht - 1979.

Worthy of note are Beck's Rule's implications towards the playing of the North End Rule (q.v.). Since North End was never opened, it is not possible to determine whether North End or Bull & Bush was the station's original name. Thus, if a player fulfilling the Beck's Rule qualifying conditions plays North End then, subject to the conditions of the North End Rule, a vortex will be formed sucking all players to North End, from whence they will be spat out in the order detailed in IMCS rules 15973-15988. [CTRL]

Berlin Wall Game

See Eton Wall Game, Potsdamer Platz Variation. [JD]

Bifurcation

It is possible for the game to bifurcate. When this happens, the game splits into two strands and players must move in both. In this situation, the game can only be won by playing MC in both strands simultaneously. Recombination occurs when more than twelve tokens (of any colour) are in the same quadrant and on the same line. Bifurcation can be triggered in three ways: when the number of red tokens on the District line is at least three more than the number of blue ones on the Central line, if Beck's is multiplied by exactly 2.6, or optionally if the two stations are the same colour. Bifurcation is worth considering if you want to add confusion to the game or destroy an opponent's plans. [TCM]

Blonking

If a move causes more than one token to be shunted around the board, then the two may of course crash into each other. If this is likely to occur, the onomatopaeic declaration of blonk! is made. This warns other players and the referee to check that all tokens end up in their correct place. This convention was instituted after chaos resulting from such a move in the notorious Frobisher v Fisher second round 1979 world championship match. Following a perfectly innocent shunt by Frobisher, several of Fisher's well placed green tokens were dislodged. The game rapidly degenerated into shove ha'penny and was abandoned shortly afterwards when the police had to be called. A blonking manoeuvre can force other players to readjust their tokens as well leading to a round of blonking. [TCM]

Boardman's Combined Stations

A situation in a game of MC, now a popular variant in its own right, in which the names of two or more stations must be combined. To give an idea for the general feel of the game, moves range from the comparatively simple "Tufnell Bec", "Arselico" and "Great Barking Elephant" to the rather more complex "Seven Kings' Tooting Victorias" or, on one extreme occasion, "James's Wapping Great Canary on the Parson's Horn".

If played within a conventional game of MC, the traditional way of ending a Boardman's round is by playing a station that is valid both under standard MC and Boardman's conditions: for instance, "West Acton", with the West from West Ham and the Acton from East Acton. If the game is being played as a variant in its own right, the most usual winning move is "Mornington-on-the-Hill", though others have been used on occasion. [JLE]

Boardo

Boardo is a board game with its origins a tangled fusion of snakes and ladders, monopoly, trivial pursuit and scrabble. Players take it in turns to roll the dice (although not always) and make a move, in the logical direction, to their destination. Once there, they have to obey the rules that pertain to that location. Play must not go against the grain, nor can anyone farkle three times in a row without immediate suspension from the game. [PW]

Bock

The state of Bock usually affects the whole game, although variants which affect only single quadrants have been seen. Bock is a Coloured state, acting as a filter on same-coloured stations, moves and manouevres; and also affecting Spin through escalator links and Main line stations. Cross-hatched Bock is possible although rarely used as the effects are very slight and the maintenance cost high. [HR]

Boris

In fact, the correct term should be "Baryshnikov" after the Russian master who used it to such great effect in the '83 world championship final, but his first name was easier to spell and pronounce and thus this term was adopted by everybody except CAMREC. The condition is somewhat similar to what in chess is known as "zugzwang", or colloquially as "up sh*t creek without a paddle" - the player, though he may be in a strong position, has no good move and is forbidden from passing or farkling and must thus move and weaken his position. Boris Baryshnikov managed to overcome a 43-podume deficit against Mrs Trellis this way in the aforementioned '83 final and thus, from an apparently lost position, won an improbable victory against her for what was to be the only time he ever beat her in match play. [JLE]

Branson, Richard

A rich power-crazed egotistical entrepreneur who founded the Virgin empire and annoyingly turns up in unexpected places. [TCM]

Unit of helical stress (qv). Origin obscure. [Dx]

British Rail

The name of the Nationalised company that ran the national rail network in England, Scotland and Wales from 1948 to 1996. The privatised companies now running the trains are now described as "National Railways"(qv) on the LU map. The track and signalling are owned by another privatised company called Railtrack(qv). [TCM]

Brooke-Taylor, Tim

Tim Brooke-Taylor, to spare you any form of biographical detail, is the other half of the late great Willie Rushton's team. Although often confused with play above third level, he is still very good at exploiting the other team's weaknesses. [PW]

Buckinghamshire

Three Underground stations are in Buckinghamshire:Chalfont and Latimer, Amersham and Chesham. Because they are not in any of the zones, moves between the three stations are normally unrestricted. Because of this and their distance from central London, they can be used to retreat to while a player reasses the situation and rethinks strategy. The stations are of course in quadrant 1. [TCM]

Bulkheading

An imaginative variant on the basic station block, the act of bulkheading a station renders it unenterable from any direction and impossible to pass through as part of a move. Obviously a powerful maneouvre, bulkheading is typically limited to a predetermined set of stations. It is not possible to bulkhead an occupied or home station. [KD]

See North End Rule, The. [CTRL]

Button's Opening

Without passing water, the most direct route between Hollaway Road and Mornington Crescent under Curfew Conditions is : Holloway Road, Mile End Road, Tower of London, Mornington Crescent. [NA]

Byplay

The monumental Byplays is the most well-known work of E.A. Favisham. (Favisham's own title for the work was the idiosyncratically vague Some characteristics of sequences.) Favisham's play was characterised by long-range tactical sequences of twenty moves or more which appeared to disregard his opponent's moves and yet somehow prevented the opponent from ever reaching the winning station. Favisham left it to other masters of the game to explain the underlying principles of this method (which took at least thirty years to become well understood.)

Byplays assumes familiarity with this style, and concentrates on "byplays": plays made during such a sequence which initiate a new threat while maintaining the coherence of the current sequence. Like most of Favisham's tactical innovations, the concept is somewhat abstract and difficult to grasp. The standard expository example -- too well-known now to surprise modern players -- is the use of Croxley during a second-level encirclement of Zone 3 as soon as the torsion coefficient has been raised above 1, which initiates a co-rotating knid field in Zone 6.

Favisham exhausts simple byplays in the first three chapters (often published separately as a self-contained work, and there is a whole cottage industry of commentaries), and then proceeds to simultaneous sequences, where each move plays a role in two or more entirely independent strategic plans simultaneously, braided sequences, knotted sequences, and tangles. The diagrams therein are remarkably similar to those used by Richard Feynman (himself a distinguished amateur player) for analysing the interactions of fundamental physical particles. It is likely that more connections with modern physics remain to be discovered. [Rk]

Cairo Arena

The mid eighties saw a rapid rise in the international standing of several African and Middle Eastern nations. Egypt was a particular example, especially in the team games, winning the 1988 8-player event in Maine, USA, and achieving numerous top-5 placings in every 4-player tournament since 1984. Aware of the potential of its teams, the Egyptian Mornington Crescent Federation (FCE) successfully lobbied the government for funding to produce the definitive Mornington Crescent arena. The result was stunning. In 1988 work started on the Cairo Arena, and it was finally completed late in 1989. The all-seater arena holds up to 16,000 people, and features the largest playing board in the world. It was the deserving venue for the last world championships, won (as usual) by England. However, it is more commonly occupied by the devoted supporters of the Egyptian champions Cairo Storm MCC, ranked no. 11 in the world by the IMCS. [JH]

Cake

The use of Balham to produce LV magnetism on any station with a bakery within a 100m radius of any entrance. [MWP]

Call

When not in Charm, call represents the strength of a station's pull on a player. Call is affected by Beck's, Spin, Token Loading and LV amongst other, smaller considerations. Once a stations enters charm, Call is not negated but stops mattering. [TUA]

Camden MCC

Since the start of team-based Mornington Crescent in England in 1854, Camden MCC, one of the four original teams (along with Bristol, Preston and Canterbury) has almost dominated the game. Originally named simply London MCC (the name changed in 1957 as more clubs formed), the team has always played within half a mile of the hallowed crescent. Now playing in its brand new 900 seater arena, the club has won the English league 99 times, and is expected to make that figure 100 this year. A remarkable club, the English team is regularly more than one third comprised of its members. [JH]

Campaign for Real Crescent (CAMREC)

The increasingly liberal policies of the IMCS have, in recent decades, given rise to a number of alternative, "modern" versions of Mornington Crescent, with little basis in tradition or, for that matter, the actual rules of the game. While some players see this as a good thing,attracting more people into the game, the majority of serious players do not. As the popularity of these versions grows, so does the campaign against them. CAMREC was officially formed in 1976, and despite recent falls in its membership, is still going strong. At first, they favoured peaceful, non-interfering protest, taking the form of demonstrations and leaflet campaigns at offending venues and tournaments. Towards the end of the eighties, however, things became more serious. In Peckham, London, in December 1987, a MC official who had spoken frequently in favour of radical reform of rules was severely beaten by a group of masked men. Occasional attacks have continued to this day, and while CAMREC publicly and repeatedly denies their involvement, Police have linked many of the attacks to a few groups of CAMREC members, often supporters of small league clubs. Recently, the IMCS has announced a meeting to consider banning its members from associating with CAMREC. Their decision may take some time. [JH]

Canterbury

A version of the game popular in the 12th-14th Centuries. Chaucer wrote of it in his "Canterbury Tales", the object being to reach Canterbury. The game was played in this form as there was no underground station at Mornington Crescent in the 14th Century, Blackfriars being the closest. Of course, London was much smaller then so Blackfriars was much closer to Mornington Crescent than it is today. [AxS]

Cardigan

Item of clothing invented, as the legend would have it, when the Earl of Cardigan found himself playing Mornington Crescent against an untrustworthy frenchman in a chilly arena. Refusing for a second to take his eyes off the dastardly garlic muncher, he had his butler cut the front of a sweater open and hastily attach buttons, allowing him to don the vestment without giving the malodorous gallic drunkard a chance to swindle a win. [TUA]

Cascade (Station cascade)

Playing certain stations can initiate a cascade of various sorts. The commonest by far of these cascades is the Parks & Greens (P & G) whereby a station with either "Park" or "Green" in its name initiates the cascade. Note however that such play will not always cause a cascade - it is usually obvious from the L.V. and Becks as to whether a P & G will ensue, but if there is any doubt then the player should declare the P & G rather than leaving it as an implicit result. Some cascades simply run their course - others are terminated by certain specific moves. Garden stations (Island or Kew) will terminate a P & G for example, as will Framilode's bung. Another form of termination is deflection to a different cascade (see those listed below). In a P & G cascade, Green Park naturally counts double.

Some other cascades, with a few example stations for each are listed below :

Regal : King's Cross; Victoria; Royal Victoria; Prince Regent etc.
Holy : St. John's Wood; All Saints; Blackfriars; Temple etc.
Tree : Burnt Oak; Elm Park; Limehouse; Royal Oak etc. (a variant is the Tree & Wood where Woods, Bois etc. are available)
Colourful : Redbridge; Blackfriars; White City & all the Greens etc.
Town : Acton; Canning; Kentish etc.
Aquatic : Crossharbour; Waterloo; Canary Wharf; Surrey Quays etc.

There are of course various others. [B]

Chalk Farm '84

(The last "official" ruleset, although another is expected soon.)

In its day, the set of rules drawn up by the IMCS and Mrs Trellis in a meeting at Chalk Farm, in 1984, was regarded as the greatest of its type. It was intended to be the standard ruleset for all MC everywhere, and was very nearly totally successful in this aim. Indeed, even now there are many who hold to these as being the most consistent, straightforward and fair rules ever written down, and many MC tournaments and clubs still regard this as standard. It is also the only ruleset of recent vintage to have been accepted by both CAMREC and the IMCS.

However, in recent years there has been a tendency away from Chalk Farm '84 on the grounds that it no longer reflects the reality on the Underground, as several changes have happened to the network since then. The creation of the Hammersmith & City line as a separate line (it was formerly part of the Metropolitan) did not unduly affect things, nor did the changes to the various peak-hour schedules (Metropolitan between Baker Street and Aldgate, H&C up to Barking now being all-hours times). The closure of several stations has affected things a little more - in particular there are far fewer Amersham-Aldwych loops now Aldwych is a ghost, and the Ongar Denial is no longer as easy a way out of a Dollis Hill loop for the same reason: but, with ghost station rules applied, these did not require a rewrite.

Of greater concern was the long extension to the Jubilee Line, and the admission of the Docklands Light Railway to full Underground status. This seriously unbalanced Quadrant 4, and the ruleset proved too inflexible to cope. The general answer from the IMCS has been to consider the Docklands an honorary, rather than actual part of the Underground, somewhat like the North London line (under Chalk Farm rules anyway), and bring the Jubilee extension under foetal station rules. However, many have not accepted this and have proposed amendments to bring both the Docklands and North London lines into the fold, some of which have been accepted by the IMCS (but none by CAMREC). But none of the amendments has been completely bug-free - the latest 1997 set had a notorious Leicester Square loop. Perhaps the most successful amendment was the Finsbury Option amendment, which brought in the theory of Quadrant 5 to hold the Jubilee extension and Docklands (and is used on the York MC server.) [JLE]

Charm

A little-used strategy involving the attraction and direction of a station. Its use was developed by Maurice Berners-Lee who first used it to counter-act knip. When a station is played and Charmdeclared, that station is rendered attractive to all token-holding players, within the same quadrant, who are forced to move towards it in the most direct route possible until Charm is negated. The secondary effect is to reverse rotational influences currently affecting all stations in the same zone. When played in conjunction with a bi-lateral straddle, Charm can have devastating effects on interzonal movements (see Berners-Lee vs. Rubia - 1989). Care must be taken to avoid leaving oneself exposed to Charm for more than three moves subsequent to initiating it. [PJ]

Chateau d'Eau

Mornington Crescent played on the Paris Metro. Chateau d'Eau is the goal: Miromesnil is the equivalent station for Dollis Hill Loops. [JLE]

Chaucer, Geoffery

In his Canterbury Tales, Dr. Graeme Garden sees Chaucer's pilgrims use the identical route which would be taken under modern rules on a journey from Oxford Circus to Mornington Crescent from the prologue. [NA]

Circle Line Inversions

Originally an unforeseen consequence of the complexities of the Crescent '31 ruleset, but later adopted as a standard (if rare) play, a Circle Line Inversion occurs when a player successfully completes a circuit of the Circle Line, stoppping at each station, without being shunted, placed in knip or spoon or making a pass (forced or otherwise).

When this happens, a mass pickering sets in as an automatic consequence (though, as mentioned, no one realised this when Crescent '31 was drawn up). All stations inside the Circle Line are mapped to locations outside it, and vice versa. This has a very destabilising effect on the game, since farflung token stacks in the outer zones are brought close together, with unpredictable results, and Beck's coefficient tends asymptotically to infinity. In the 1970's Trellis National League Long Game, a Circle Line Inversion lasted so long that real versions of foetal ghost stations quantum tunnelled in from parallel universes, and there was no play for the whole of 1976 while an extremely hazardous exorcism was carried out by a special team from the Vatican.

The first player to recognise that such an event could occur was the great Hugo, who famously used it to win victory in the final of the World Championships in 1935. Ruttsborough, in the audience for that amazing game, immediately began using this tactic in games against opponents who had not yet heard of it and its provenance was, for a time, falsely attributed to him; a mistake he made no attempt to rectify in his 1937 classic "Invert This, You Piccadilly Piccanilly!"

Debates raged for many years over whether the Circle Line Inversion was a dazzlingly bold manouevre that should be celebrated or a hideous anomaly that the rules should be altered to avoid. These went unresolved throughout the '40s, with the various rulesets drawn up at that time alternating between one and the other (Praed Street '41 in particular is notable for its drastic policy of putting all termini in permanent spoon to prevent such an occurrence). After various incidents of chair throwing at meetings by Ruttsborough supporters, Circle Line Inversions eventually became a permanent feature of the game starting with Marble Arch '54.

The only safe place to be during a Circle Line Inversion is at a non-interchange Circle Line station. The effect can be reversed by a circuit of the Circle Line in the opposite sense to that which caused the inversion in the first place. In general, all players cooperate in such an effort, though the more aggressive may welcome the chaos unleashed. [BtTS]

Codices

Comprehensive rulesets have not been around for ever. In the earlier years of IMCS, no one meeting was used to decide on the rules, as at Chalk Farm in 1984. Indeed, with the Underground system developing at the speed it was, this would have been wholly impractical. Instead, IMCS would publish regular updates and amendments in codices. There could be many of these codices current at one particular time, each giving information on a particular area of the rules and values. In 1910 there were 13 codices in concurrent use, the largest number ever. IMCS would have probably continued with this method had it not been for the 1930 crisis which spawned the first comprehensive ruleset: The IMCS/CAMREC Treaty at Mornington Crescent, 1931 (or Crescent '31).

The Comprehensive Ruleset has now become the way things are done, but the use of the Codex is not obsolete, indeed the longevity of modern rulesets depend on them, as they are used to provide values, variables and constants used in conjunction with the rulset. For example, a Chalk Farm 1984 game played on the Podume and Cascade Values Codex 1981 will be a lot different from one played on the later 1988 Codex. The Codex is read avidly by the technical player keen on causing all sorts of mischief to their opponent, but it is important that any player knows his values. In International Competitions, a codex is prohibited from being taken into the play arena.

The Codices in current use are as follows:

• Diagonals/Becks and Associate Values Codex 1994 (CLVIII)
• Podume and Cascade Values Codex 1988 (CCI)
• Coefficients and Supplementary Values Codex and Calculations Guide 2001 (LIX)
• Electrical Values (SV and LV) Codex 1999 (CII)
• Network Values Codex 1972 (IX)

All games are played with these values unless they are declared otherwise (which requires permission of IMCS if it a rankings competition)

Addendum:

The most colourful codex ever to be pulished is the Network Values Codex of 1555 as amended 1956. It has been nicknamed the "Snood Codex", as it brought Snood Play for it's short-lived life (4 years) to the cutting edge of Mornington Crescent play. Some of its values and recommendations are still residual today, but it is a far cry from the 1957 final of the World Championships where Trellis twisted the Snoods by 265 degrees and used the centrifugal gravity caused to suck her opponent from his winning position on the District Line and forced him to pre-empt an Ongar denial, thus allowing Trellis a cross-diagonal under-strile, drawing up to Mornington Crescent with a magnificently tidy +1.0 LV. [Si]

Corner & Side

In business since 1927, Corner and Side are the best known manufacturers of IMCS approved tokens. While the bulk of their business is dealt with in the creation of plastic tokens for general use, which are brought into being at their factory in Basingstoke, they still keep a special outlet in Hatton Garden which deals with the design and construction of bespoke tokens for the discerning player. The business is currently under the control of Matthew Side, grandson of the original Cuthbert Side, co-founder of the shop. The Corner family no longer have a stake in the business after a mutually agreed buyout by the Sides in 1972.

It is possible to know exactly how many tokens of different designs have been created by the company since its inception, as the masters of every single design are kept in a climate controlled vault at the factory. A study of the ledgers shows that tokens have been created for such eminent players as Ruttsborough (who ordered them armoured and with spikes), Xavier (who favoured a fluted design with a small tail so that he could move stacks more easily) and of course several hundred sets for Mrs Trellis.

Corner & Side are probably the leading bespoke token manufacturers in the world. While rivalled for size by the MC division of Tiffany's in New York and Murgatroyd's of South Africa, no other token manufacturer can claim the double whammy of being both in the heart of London and the choice of 90% of the world class players. Without wishing to sound like an advert, they have an on-line shop at Corner & Side OnLine. [Don't seem to be having much luck with that address. Ed] [TUA]

Coventry Block

An artificial restriction on valid moves. Examples include: Northern line only, two words only, interchanges barred, Central Line excluded, etc. [TCM]

Crabbit's Rule

Under this, King's Cross must be followed by Baker St. because of the diagonals. [NA]

Crescent '31 (aka Mornington Crescent 1931, IMCS/CAMREC Crescent Treaty 1931)

The first 'classic' ruleset endorsed by both CAMREC and IMCS at the great MC negotiations. The rulest came into being on June 4th 1931 and is the basis for most modern rulesets (Chalk Farm 83, 84, Finsbury Option and Holland Park 2000 included).

It was innovative in recognising moves which had previously been only defined in terms of their exponents: the Chudley-Smith progression was recognised as the first "cross-hatch", and the word 'pickering' was used for the first time in a ruleset.

Crescent '31 was also the first ruleset to be used uniformly across the grand-slam tournaments, and was finally recognised as the World-Standard in 1934, when the "All-England Mornington Crescent Club" was amalgamated from the central London clubs. Edward Cholmondley-Davis won the World Championship that year, the first chamption under Crescent '31.

Despite many new rulesets that came in the late-30s-40s (Crescent '38, Praed Street '41, Mark Lane '46) Crescent '31 continued as the ruleset of choice for many tournaments, including the World Championship (although Praed Street '41 was used for the 42-43 tournament) until it was superseded by Marble Arch '54. Aficionados still like to resurrect Crescent '31, although in recent years it has fallen into increasing obscurity. [Si]

Cress

Cress is a challenging and often controversial that involves its players in the mechanics of the game far more than is usual, customary or, at times, safe. All moves are in the form <B>[action]</B> <I>declaration</I> and replace action and declaration respectively. For instance, [Salt shaker diagonally over soup bowl, inverted] Curlew doubled and billed would be a useful move if, for instance, your opponent was threatening with a nasty pincer movement from the coffee-cups.

Play usually starts out sedately, often in the manner that the players actually started their day. Gradually, the involvement and intensity builds until the players either resign, die or are forced to win. Winning is often not a particularly attractive option, especially as it may require some sort of bodily sacrifice. However, this does not deter the more dedicated players remaining; nor should this be taken as a sign that Cress necessarily has to resolve into physical violence. [PW]

Cripplehead, Arthur

Arthur Cripplehead was Britain's foremost MC theoretician, working for the IMCS from the 1960's until his death in 1982. However, for all his prowess and his undeniable skill, he only played once in the world championships, and that unwillingly, to become world champion in 1957. He did not defend his title in 1958. His most notable game was against Mrs Trellis in 1964, which he won by the narrowest of narrow margins. Cripplehead's biography has recently been completed, and an edited version is available here. [TUA]

Crossmead Spiral

Crossmead Spirals come in two major forms; the 'regular' or 'spinwards' Crossmead Spiral and the 'outward' or 'widdershins' Crossmead. The regular Crossmead is a bit dated - it has even been described as 'cumbersome' - and nowadays several tactics that successfully stall such a manoeuvre are known. On the other hand, successfully getting a Widdershins Crossmead above the third spin in a stable formation gives access to full cross-planar tunneling. If well-executed, this may even occur at quantum level. It grants many more tactical options than the Pettengale Sweep and is almost impossible to block.

A particularly devastating use of a Crossmeads Spiral was when Graeme Garden got from South London to North Africa in a single move. That was a near-perfect example of a Whiddershins Crossmead - made all the more interesting because it was disguised as a series of shunts right up until the final leap.

Safety note: Some readers may recall the horrendous 'Crossmead' disaster of 1987 where four MC players were seriously injured as their (Outward) Crossmead Spiral got dangerously out of control, spinning wildly and bringing everything to a premature end. This tactic is not recommended for use below club level unless all participants have been properly trained and have taken suitable safety precautions. Note that a Spiral must be executed with military precision, but once it builds up some momentum, trying to stop it is like throwing a baked bean at a charging rhinoceros. (Which also explains why it can be dangerous when attempted by inexperienced players.) By comparison a Pettengale Sweep is an ephemeral creature, trivial to deflect. [SM]

Cryer, Barry

Barry Cryer, to spare you any form of biographical detail, is the other half of Graeme Garden's team. Well known for playing Quex Road, for good or ill, and is very dangerous when straddling the District. [PW]

Czukay Manipulation

This is a very complicated move pioneered by the great but enigmatic Czukay. At the 1965 World Championship he unveiled his masterpiece, the Czukay Manipulation. The details are too involved to go into here. Basically, all sorts of things are done to a chosen and specified line, including recolouring, reflecting, changing all sorts of coefficients, but in such a way that the line emerges from the move unchanged. The result is a move to an otherwise unreachable station. [TCM]

Davies' Block

The Davies' Block is a sequential interchange block on Bow Road, played with a black token. This blocks all movements West through Bow Road, but not all movements East. The token cannot be shunted or switched until an equivalent number of black tokens have been removed from anywhere on the board excluding Bow Road. This often causes an uncomfortable situation, as the usual way to do this is to sacrifice valuable tokens they have built up for a rebound on the Northern line.

Traditionally, the black token should be as dishevelled as possible, and, if space permits, be placed skew on the Bow Road marker. [PW]

Davies' Reverse

A reverse played from west to east with a black token is known as a Davies' Reverse. This reverse requires the sacrifice of the black token, but removes the token or tokens it is played on, and nullifies any tokens played by the player following the Davies' Reverse. [PW]

DeHaile Notation

A symbol-based game-annotation system developed in 1983, relying on an easy-to-read sequence of colours and geometric shapes to document the game moves. Most MC players will probably remember it as being the driving force of Treadgold's 1985 campaign to introduce Mornington Crescent to schools. However, despite being IMCS standard for three years (alongside Venbacker Notation, which many still insisted on using), DeHaile Notation is no longer in common usage outside Cardiff. [KD]

Diagonal

Proper understanding of the diagonal is fundamental to proper understanding of the Game. [AxS]

Docklands Light Railway

The DLR technically isn't part of the Underground but is considered to be for all practical purposes. [TCM]

Docklands Triangle, The

The Construction of the Docklands Light Railway and the East London Line Extension caused a number of weighting problems in Quadrant 3, where they are geographically located. The effects were negated by creating Quadrant 5, however the new quadrant seems plagued by new and inexplicable phenomena. Test games early in 1996 indicated that in Quadrant 5, tokens change colour, value and sex and even disappear when not watched closely. Spin on stations in Quadrant 5 decays, and LV exhibits unusual degrees of curvature. More worrying is that the nature of Nesaden is changed, to such a degree that a player entering it from Quadrant 5 with LV above 6 causes the station to exhibit charm and initiates a loop, causing cataclsymic tactical problems for all players. These and other observed phenomena have led to the entire quadrant becoming known on occasion as the Docklands Triangle. There have even been reports of trains without drivers (!) [TUA]

Dollis Hill Loop

Dollis Hill is unique in that, under standard rules, the station is aligned so that any simple reverse will reflect via the Baker Street interchange, back to Dollis Hill, thus dealigning the routes of any other players' reverses, and will cause a generalised shunt to Dollis Hill. So, in the simple situation that a player forces another to reverse from Dollis Hill (e.g by shunting them to the station and blocking or offsiding straddles), a self-reverse loop ensues. Of course, any player declining to play the reverse must choose a far more attacking course of action to break the loop, and will inevitably cause their own defense to be weakened.

While considered the bane of the modern game by many players, the Dollis Hill loop is actively encouraged by others, particularly those of a more attacking nature who can take full advantage of another player's break of the loop. [JH] [Who else? Ed.]

Driveback

This is usually thought of as a particularly violent sort of shunt, in which the shunting player follows through and drives the shunted player back by several stations (instead of the usual stipulation about moving to the nearest free station.) This manoeuvre was much favoured by Ruttsborough, who gave it its name during a move where he shunted through Green Park on the Piccadilly all the way to Earls Court, and sent his opponent (Arthur Cripplehead) spinning off as far as Osterley. [JLE]

Endgame

The sequence of events carried out after a player has successfully moved to Mornington Crescent. Players with temporal blocks pending are permitted to resolve them, and floating tokens are claimed by the nearest free players. Numerous rule variants (although this excludes Regency and Brighton) permit token bombardment by any players adjacent to MC. If the active player is still at Mornington Crescent after endgame, he or she claims victory.

(Note: Since 99% of endgames do lead to victory, the York Server automatically assumes that the claim will stand, and the game terminates once MC has been played - in the case of endgame events, these should be announced post-termination; if the active player is dislodged, play is then resumed by the server maintainer.) [KD]

Engelbert

Described by Mrs Trellis as "The best of friends and the most cunning of coaches," Engelbert is in fact a large English Blue cat with whom she shares her house. Engelbert often joins her at away matches and has a special carrier constructed in the image of Mornington Crescent in which he travels. Its innards are lined in velvet and he has a set of bowls shaped after the London Underground roundel from which he eats and drinks whatever he chooses. Detractors of Engelbert (usually people whose tactics have gone to hell after astute use of the Engelbert Manoeuvre suggest that such a pampered existence has led him to become somewhat overweight, and it is true that he carries on his frame more than an ounce of lard. However, he cannot be faulted on his lazy and easy-going nature, and anyway it is really rather petty of people to hold grudges against a cat. [TUA]

Engelbert Maneouvre

Increasing evidence of Mrs Trellis' dominance of the game comes in the shape of this move, named after her cat. First recognised in 1995, the move came about after Engelbert leapt upon one of her many boards in use in postal play, this particular one between herself and Shaw (Camden). Engelbert caused one of her tokens to roll down the Northern line until it hit the small machined elevators at Bank. Immediately Mrs Trellis realised that this could be a way to initiate a secondary token ring intesecting the Circle. The implications of this are wide ranging and have been discussed in great detail in recent editions of MC Player. [TUA]

Escalator Rule

Although Monument/Bank is now considered one station for gameplay purposes and should properly be played as "Monument/Bank", on boards up to at least 1987 it was shown as two stations, Monument and Bank (not going too fast for you am I?). The two were shown with an escalator link between them, usually represented as a zig-zag line. Consequently, under Chalk Farm '84 rules a move from Monument to Bank is legal, provided the player is not in spoon, and increases spin and token loadings accordingly, but leaves LV unaltered. The fusion into one station means that, under later rulesets, if one player plays "Monument" or "Bank" rather than the combined name, his opponent may declare "Escalator" and then move as if at the other part of the combined station, eg to Green Park, with consequent advantages.

Similar maneouvres are, of course, possible at Tower Hill/Tower Gateway and Bow Road/Bow Church but these are more recent innovations, Monument/Bank is considered traditional.

This sort of frivolous anomaly is part of what makes the Game what it is. [AxS]

Essex

Eight underground stations are in Essex: Roding Valley, Chigwell, Grange Hill, Buckhurst Hill, Loughton, Debden, Theydon Bois and Epping. Despite this, Roding Valley, Chigwell, Grange Hill and Buckhurst Hill are in zone 5 and Loughton is in zone 6. They are therefore treated as if they were in Greater London except for their lower token limits and the LV restriction of 6.2 on moves starting from them. Debden, Theydon Bois and Epping are outside the zonal area so moves between them are normally unrestricted. The presence of the three ghost stations beyond them however prevents them being as useful for retreating to rethink strategy as Buckinghamshire stations due to the danger of being impeded by coefficient tweaking around the ghosts. The stations are of couse in quadrant 3. [TCM]

Eton Wall Game

It is widely believed that the basic idea for the game of Mornington Crescent first occurred to a player of the Eton Wall Game, while his head was being repeatedly banged against the wall by an opponent. Certainly the spirit of the Eton game, which for the last 113 years has always ended in a goalless draw, has much in common with that of MC. (See also Berlin Wall Game. [JD]

Farkling

A player choosing to sacrifice their turn (usually in afrivolous manner) instead of playing a valid and beneficial move is said to be "farkling". The derivation of this word is unknown, and the word itself is rarely heard these days. [KD]

However, in recent years the term 'farkle' has come to mean a specialised kind of pass, where the player does not move, but performs actions which affect the state of the game. [JLE]

Farkle Paradox

Sometimes, a player is placed in a situation where he has no legal move for one or more turns, and must thus pass or, more usually, farkle. This situation is commonly known as a Farkle Paradox.

In some rare cases, it is possible for every single player in the game to have no legal move (the situation is usually the result of a combined Spoon and Knid, with a demand that the next move be to a station which happens to be on the other side of the river and a prohibition on non-linear moves.) This is known as a General Farkle Paradox. If this is combined with the condition of Boris, which debars players from passing, there is no choice but to resign from the game (as the player can neither play nor pass) and rejoin at a later stage, at a consequent severe disadvantage. One of the few defences against this is to ensure access to the up escalators, as there are fewer restrictions on movement above ground and use of the ferry is permitted. [JLE]

Favisham, Earnest Arthur

Earnest Arthur Favisham (1920-1957) has been the subject of conflicting assessments ever since he came to attention with a string of astounding games in the international tournaments in his twenties, shortly followed by the work with which his name is permanently associated, Favisham's Byplays. He single- handedly established the method of playing extremely long tactical sequences of moves, which contrasted markedly with what he derisively called "ping-pong", where the players merely respond to the position of the moment. His great weakness was over-extending himself with elaborations which taxed even his ability to analyse. He saw it differently, saying, "Winning tells me nothing. Losing is the only way to learn from my opponent." Understanding the game was always more important to him than pot-hunting.

After Byplays, he recorded his increasingly complex explorations in irregularly appearing monographs and articles in the IJMC, with simple yet obscure titles such as Hop-striles and Pegging out of place. Even the most senior masters of the tactical game admit to being beyond their depth reading them. Strozza commented that if he had understood Favisham earlier, he would have mastered the game in half the time, but until he became a master, he could not have understood Favisham. The last few years have seen several of his earlier articles yielding their secrets to a more sophisticated generation, and Favisham studies have become an established field. In this writer's opinion, Favisham was a genius before his time, perpetually frustrated by the absence of the analytical tools to develop his theories on a sound basis, an Einstein in the age of Ptolemy. Despite the difficulty of his major work, every player who has ever thought more than six moves ahead owes him an indirect debt.

Born in Britain, in his teens his family moved to Germany, where he first came in contact with the game. Within a few months he had, in his view, exhausted the possibilities of club play, and thereafter played only on the international scene. He ignored the English MC community entirely, regarding them (with some justice, at that time) as hidebound traditionalists more concerned with polite breeding than serious play. He played his last game in the final of the Monte Carlo tournament of 1957, losing to the brilliant Gabriela Scarlatti. He died the following morning of an aneurysm while analysing the game, at the age of 37. He is variously remembered: "Playing against Favisham was like having my brains sucked out through a drinking straw. It was wonderful." (Gabriela Scarlatti) "Not really one of us." (Mrs. Trellis) "The finest genius never to have won a major tournament." (Rutherford) "A delusional monomaniac whose scribblings would better adorn the walls of Bedlam." (Ruttsborough) [Rk]

fF Notation, The

In 1843, Ernest Gower had spent nine years as captain of the London MC Club's A team. He was a very respected player and had already developed the Lateral Gower Straddle, but his sense of fun sought an outlet. Unfortunately, as he well realised, he could not very well produce any work that would be branded as frivolous without himself being scorned as someone who "didn't take the game seriously". This had already happened to two players in the London MC Club, and Gower was definitely not wanting to be a third.

And so he published a small volume of humourous game transcripts under a pseudonym, fFredrick fFrobisher. In a diary note, Gower explains that the preceding small 'f' indicates that this was a frivolous work, and that Frobisher seemed to be a relatively silly moniker (compared to the names of some of the learned players at the time). He ends the note with a hope that this defacto standard would be used by other players to continue the work of keep the game of MC as something that was, above all, a game.

It is not known whether he actually talked of his thoughts to anyone in the LMCC or elsewhere. However, fFrobisher's book sold quite well and Gower's standard seems to have been quickly adopted by other members of the LMCC and other clubs for naming manoeuvres that did strange, unexpected and quirky things in the game. Other people, perhaps capitalising on the success but certainly adding to the accepted standard, published under other pseudonyms such as fFeatherstonehaugh and fFrazier.

Of particular note is the fFrobisher fFlourish. This basically pools everyone's tokens and distributes (flourishes) them back at random. The 'Share the Wealth' principle has a complete novelty and, used skilfully, has resulted in several wins. [PW]

Fifth Quadranters, The

One of the more extremist factions within CAMREC, formed after the release of the Finsbury Amendments of 1988, and with the explicitmanifesto of rejecting these amendments. Their name stems from the creation, postulated as part of Finsbury, of Quadrant 5 as a symbol for all that CAMREC despised about the ruleset. When the Holland Park 2000 ruleset was released, the 5th Quadranters were officially disbanded on the grounds that the said feature had been removed from the game (along with about a third of the rest of the Finsbury Amendments: though the actual Finsbury Option itself, which gave the Amendments their name but formed only a minor part of them, was kept.)

Rumours that a few of the former Quadranters have banded together and infiltrated the IMCS to sabotage the discussions of revisions and updates to HP2000, and thus the credibility of the IMCS (widely perceived as the victors in the disputes), by introducing errors into the final typesetting have been explicitly denied. Nor can any credence be attached to the claim that these people are now known as the "Nosey Parkers" for their tactic of infiltration rather than confrontation, and the name of the ruleset they're explicitly NOT trying to sabotage... [JLE]

Finsbury Option '88

The most succesful and widely accepted of the amendments to the Chalk Farm '84 ruleset, bringing in (among other things) the existence of Quadrant 5 to hold the Jubilee extension and Docklands lines. There has been talk of making this amendment part of the official rules, (the IMCS are still debating) and the main argument against it is the semantic problem of having 5 Quadrants (of course we all know what "quadrant" means.) For that reason alone, it is likely to be superseded eventually when a new ruleset comes out as the Jubilee extension opens properly (current speculation is that the Quadrant boundaries will move, and there will be only 4 as there should be.) [JLE]

Foetal Stations

Stations that are planned or under construction. They are treated in a similar way to ghost stations except that coefficients are 1.4 times the values they would be on a ghost station. At present the new stations on the Jubilee Line extension are in this category. [TCM]

Foetal Ghosts

A phenomenon that affects play very rarely. As a result, they are not discussed in elementary textbooks and even highly advanced discourses usually mention them only briefly. They are stations that were planned but never actually built, for example the Northern Line extension from Edgware to Bushey Heath, or the originally intended continuation of the Jubilee Line from Charing Cross to Docklands via Aldwych. The tunnels for this were actually built as far as Aldwych. [TCM]

The most celebrated Foetal Ghost station is North End, otherwise known as Bull & Bush; this station was actually partly built at track level but never opened to the public - nor linked to the surface. Had it been fully built it would have been the deepest station on the entire network. This remarkable non-station has had many interesting uses over the years however. [B]

Forced Pass

Numerous game conditions are said to effect a Forced Pass on a player or players - this pass is usually effected at the start of a player's turn, or midway through it if self-initiated. In a midway pass, any imminent game events for that player are delayed until the next round. [KD]

Forcing Pass

A non-forced pass, made in circumstances where the opponent is debarred from passing and forced to make a move. Often used in conjunction with the condition of Boris, where every legal move is disadvantageous. [JLE]

Amos Fosdyke was born in the Yorkshire mining village of Paithwaite (pronounced pow-it, but that's Yorkshire) in 1863. The mine owner (Lord Potheridge) was an enlightened individual and insisted that his workers' children should attend school until the age of eleven before starting work underground, and so it was with Amos - a significant part of the curriculum consisted of learning how to play Mornington Crescent.

Amos did not shine at the Game.

In a village where the MC team was noted throughout the West Riding for its aggressiveness, Amos was too cerebral a player, his reactions too considered to be a part of the team. So, when he reached the age of eleven, he went down the mine.

The long periods of darkness underground gave him time to think, and think he did - about Mornington Crescent. He visualised the map, developed theories of movement, plans of attack, and strategies to cripple his opponents.

No one would ever have known about this, had Amos Fosdyke not taken advantage of the Paithwaite Mining Company Sudden Weight Loss Programme and lost a leg in the doors of the pit head lift in April 1880 (19th century lift doors not being big on safety).

While he was convalescing, he had an opportunity to play MC against Lord Potheridge (a remarkable coincedence indeed that the infirmary was hosting an MC exhibition tournament that month). Rather to the astonishment of the onlookers, Fosdyke won. Very, very quickly.

In recognition of this, Amos was given a scholarship to the MC team and a terrifying Crescent competitor was born.

After a time captaining the Paithwaite team (incidentally learning to read in the process), Amos became a noted theorist. His writing on proximity theory were the framework upon which later theorists (including both Grossman and the redoubtable Mrs Trellis) constructed boundary analyses and quantum token dynamic processes. Without Fosdyke's pioneering work on proximity and the formalism of behavioural permissivity these theorems would have been merely wordy discussions.

Sadly, Amos did not live to see the flowering of his contribution to MC theory. He died in a back street podume fight in Shoreditch in January 1907. Never able to resist a challenge, he'd been goaded into a wager by a gang of street players. When he handily beat them, they turned upon him and forced him to eat the pdumes he had won. Colonic irrigation having failed to revive him, he quickly slipped into a coma and died. [Dx]

Fosdyke Notation is used to define the proximity between two game objects, in particular between the subject and object of an action or effect. A Fosdyke Code describes the relative location of subject and object at a particular point in time; a Fosdyke Requirement specifies the proximity necessary for a particular action or effect to occur.

Invented by Amos Fosdyke in the late 19th century, this notation brought a rigour to the measurement of interactions between game entities which enabled Grossman and Trellis to formulate their zone boundary interaction diagrams. Extension of the Fosdyke principals to more abstract concepts such as Becks, and even to Fosdyke Codes themselves, permitted the advanced quantum token dynamic theories to be constructed. The impact of these breakthroughs still has to be fully assessed, but they would have been impossible without Fosdyke's contribution. [Dx]

Framilode, Hector

Hector Framilode was born in 1899 in Newent, Glos. the son of an itinerant preacher and knife-grinder, whereas his father was an unemployed music-hall singer.

Little is known about Hector's early career - but he burst upon the scene in 1922 with a dramatic win in the "Three Choirs MC Festival" held that year in Hereford. A great theoretician, he was also the perfect gentleman. This latter trait was probably the reason that he did not achieve the recognition or success that his undoubted genius should have generated. Being such a gentlemanly player he often sacrificed a winning position in order to help his opponent out of a tricky spot. His was a game full of charm and delicacy. It was at the Worcester Intercounty Championships in 1931 that he first created his famed bung. Realising that any form of cascade (the most famous of which is undoubtedly the Parks & Greens) created at its inception a Travis Field of 3.2 +/- 0.6 Onds this field could be polarized and cancelled by a transverse shunt of at least 1.8 strats, and he further realised that any ghost station within a lateral radius of 8.4 glimes of the initiating cascade station would supply a sufficient shunt potential provided it was played within two (or in certain cicumstances 3) moves of the cascader.

This meant that any form of cascade could be halted in its tracks so to speak very rapidly. The reason, perhaps, that the bung is not more widely used, is (as Framilode himself pointed out) that P&G cascades are not normally injurious in any way, and therefore there is little need for them to be aborted. However other cascades such as "The Regal" (i.e. Kings Cross, Park Royal etc.) can be a little more difficault to maintain and thus the bung can be very useful.

Framilode invented (or discovered) several other more-or-less famous moves including the cubic side straddle, the inverse mined glide (3rd order) and the glorious Diametric parallellogramatic glib which earned him the Prix d'Involution at Reims in 1935.

Everything seemed rosy in the world of Hector Framilode; However, sadly, Tragedy (with a capital T) was about to strike. The source of this tragedy (with a little t) was the deamon known as Ruttsborough.

Somehow the two men had never met in competition until the fateful day in 1936 when they were drawn against each other in the semi-finals of the Eastbourne Challenge Cup. Framilode's gentlemanly play so unnerved Ruttsborough that he crucially lost his concentration at Victoria having straddled from Ongar. Framilode was just one move from victory, when from his armoury of offensive play Ruttsborough produced a dreadful combination of acid-striles that rendered Framilode unconscious and he was rushed to hospital with two broken legs. Ruttsborough was awarded the match by default.

Framilode recovered quite quickly, but he was a changed man. He was determined to have his revenge upon the dreaded Ruttsborough. So he researched the dark side of the game - those moves that Ruttsborough himself was so brilliant at, in his evil way, but that few other players dared to even contemplate. The application of Framilode's genius in this way had dramatic results. Two years later - Framilode having played very few matches in the mean time - the two men met again. Ruttsborough was heard to sneer something to Framilode about needing crutches, but Framilode just smiled. The game went along convention lines at first, and Ruttsborough built a steady bulwark of highly effective and unpleasant craters and traps. It was as the game was moving towards what looked like a foregone conclusion of a Ruttsborough victory, that Framilode ventured upon the move which has become legendary ... Framilode's Self-replicating Spike. The move exploded upon the board. The audience gasped. Young ladies screamed. Old ladies fainted. War-bitten generals were seen to tremble - and what of Ruttsborough himself? He emitted an ear-piercing screech, and fell to the floor with second degree burns to his arms and buttocks. Vengeance was sweet for Framilode - but it had taken its toll. Within a day or two of the victory, Framilode had a nervous breakdown, his dallying with the dark side having affected his brain's beta waves. Fortunately a short spell convalescing in a rest home in Cinderford led to a full recovery - but soon afterwards he announced his retirement from challenge matches, saying that he wanted to spend more time with his wife and children.

And so Hector Framilode slipped back into the obscurity from whence he had come. He was last seen, just a few years ago, pottering around The Forest of Dean, where he had decided to settle. It is quite possible that he is still alive, though now over a hundred years old.

Of course Framilode's Self-replicating Spike was immediately banned by every authority, and is proscribed to this very day. [B]

Frobisher, Frederick (1891-1948)

In another era, Frederick Frobisher would perhaps have been recognised as one of the all-time greats. However, he was unfortunate enough to begin his career only shortly before Tibor Hugo and Sidney Hall reached their prime, and inevitably suffered in comparison: and then, barely a few years later, the (then) young Mrs Trellis arrived on the scene, which she has mostly dominated ever since.

Frobisher suffered, too, from his unfortunate name: since Ernest Gower had invented the pseudonym of "fFrederick fFrobisher" for his more frivolous articles in MC journals, he was unfortunately seldom taken seriously as a theorist himself (especially as he himself steadfastly refused to publish under a different name). Ironically, it was he who first realised that the "fFrobisher fFlourish" actually had a practical application in championship MC play, and from then on the confFusion was inevitable. His first and only World Championship win came in 1938, the year after Hugo's retirement, and the fact that people still refused to take him seriously can only have shortened his life as he turned to drink, perhaps as a way of escaping the ever-present mockery. He died in 1948, a penniless alcoholic. [JLE]

Fronsky Diagram

Developed by Californian Carl Fronksy, the Fronksy Diagram is an attempt to represent the state of a game of MC at any time in graphical form. Previous attempts at doing so had relied very heavily on the use of slide rules, drawing pins, and pieces of string and had not caught on due to the enormous length of time and paper required to draw them. Fronsky's genius was to develop a method which used only a sheet of graph paper and, optionally, a ruler. Fronsky's work was heavily influenced by the mathematical treatments of Silas Vern, and the Vern Angle is the basis of every Fronsky Diagram.

Without going into too much detail, a Fronsky diagram can be used to either evaluate the current state of play, or to predict the most likely course of events over the next few moves. Fronsky himself proved the worth of his work when he used it famously to beat Ruttsborough in the face of a massive Token Cascade and a quadruple knid. [FG]

Garden, Dr. Graeme

Graeme Garden, to spare you any form of biographical detail, is the other half of Barry Cryer's team. He is actually a Doctor, although of what is not known, and plays a very cutting and refined game, particularly within the Circle Line. [PW]

Ghost Stations

Stations that have closed. They can be used in play quite freely and are difficult to block although you would rarely want to do so anyway. Their coefficients are much lower than they would be if they were still in use and tokens placed on them may not always have the usual (or indeed any) effect. The most common ones are Aldwych (on a Piccadilly Line peak hours shuttle from Holborn, closed 1994), Ongar and North Weald which were served by a Central Line peak hours only shuttle from Epping until 1994, Blake Hall (between North Weald and Ongar, closed 1983), British Museum (Central Line) and Brompton Road (beteen Knightsbridge and South Kensington on the Piccadilly Line). [TCM]

Addendum

Brompton Road (Piccadilly line) was closed in 1934. British Museum (Central Line) between Tottenham Court Road and Holborn, closed 1933. White City (Metropolitan line) between Latimer Road and Shepherd's Bush (MP), closed 1959. Uxbridge Road, on a Metropolitan line spur connecting Latimer Road and Kensington Olympia; both the station and spur closed in 1947. Two stations existed between Baker Street and Finchley Road on the Metropolitan line: Lords and Marlborough Road. Both closed in 1939. St Mary's (Whitechapel Road) on the Metropolitan Line between Whitechapel and Aldgate East, closed 1938. South Kentish Town (Northern Line) between Kentish Town and Camden Town, closed 1924. City Road (Northern line) between Angel and Old Street (NT), closed 1922. York Road (Piccadilly line) between Kings Cross (PD) and Caledonian Road, closed 1932. Down Street (Piccadilly line) between Green Park (PD) and Hyde Park Corner, closed 1932. South Acton, on a District line spur from Acton Town (the spur was closed in 1959 but the station still serves the North London line). Not included here are re-sited stations, or stations on abandoned routes (such as the Metropolitan line extension beyond Amersham and the District line extensions from Acton Town to Hounslow West, and Ealing Broadway to Windsor).

(This information gleaned from Douglas Rose's "The London Underground - A Diagrammatic History", a superb historical map but now sadly out of print. This is a vital research tool - especially for information on abandoned routes, station re-sites and name-changes). [TK]

Further addendum

My circa-1970 Tube map shows the now-closed Strand Station on the Northern Line, between Leicester Square and Charing Cross, which can, in fact, be seen from Northern Line Trains as they pass through, just as can The Gazeteer - a ghost located under/near Monument/Bank, still dimly visible from Northern Line trains if sufficient sparks are generated in passing, which never, as far as I know, resulted in a passenger entrance or appeared on any Tube Map. The Gazeteer's deserted platform is used as a storage facility for pallets of the slightly concave (top to bottom) white tiles once used to line stations. Nowadays, they just don't bother, and use conventional flat tiles for station linings. [GW]

Further Further Addendum

I am happy to report that Douglas Rose's "The London Underground - A Diagrammatic History" is back in print in a seventh edition, priced very reasonably at £7.95, ISBN 1-8541-42194.

Incidentally, perusal of the 1933 tube map versus the 1938 tube map shows a station Post Office between Chancery Lane and Bank on the Central London Line in 1933. This appears to have been renamed St Paul's by the next map. It retains this name today. Under Original Name Rules this is a useful technicality. Also, the version of the 1933 Beck map on the LU museum website shows British Museum in place as an interchange station (with Holborn?) despite assertions elsewhere that it never appeared on any modern tube maps. In interchange only rules this is another useful technicality.

(It is true that both of these stations are also shown on pre-Beck maps but most players tend only to use Beck-design boards. For those interested in such things there is an excellent webpage with a collection of maps from 1908 (interesting but unusable) to 1999 (twice), including a 1933 map, though without British Musem, a gorgeous 1921 map and the 1970-era map referred to above showing Strand and also Trafalgar Square, both of which were later amalgamated into Charing Cross. There is also another, slightly more bizarre webpage that has plans of several stations from various times, most taken from times when the stations in question were being remodelled. My favourite is the photo of a model of the King's Cross deep tubes.) [AxS]

Gower, Ernest George 1809-1897

Ernest Gower was born in Cambridge and moved to London with his parents in 1817. He found the London MC Club almost by accident, confusing their offices with a bar he was looking for. However, and to the game's eternal fortune, he found the game highly entertaining and noted in his diary that it appealed to his logical mind. He became captain of the B grade team in 1831 and captained the A team to victory against the Oxford MC Society in 1834.

Gower retired from competition in 1867 and devoted his remaining years in the club to research on forms of Straddle and Shuffle, developing important theories of optimal usage patterns based on token colour sequence. He was a gentlemanly player who was noted for his occasional humourous play (see the fF Notation) and quick wit. He died at the age of 88. [PW]

Grange Hill Loop

A confusing name, since the Grange Hill Loop is actually a circle, rather than a loop (in the sense of the Dollis Hill or Hainault loops). And then only during peak hours.

The Grange Hill "loop" is the circle of line at the east end of the Central Line, doubles back on itself east of Leytonstone. Even simple moves such as shunts and straddles will have different effects to the same moves on a standard line. In fact, it is possible here to straddle to the same line. Successful players almost always require a good knowledge of Grange Hill loop workings. [JH]

Green Line Bus Interchange Check (GLBIC)

A rather strange coefficient introduced in 1976 and considered by some to be out of date. It is an indicator of the availability of Green Line Buses to the players and if it gets above a threshold value (24 in standard games), the next player must catch a Green Line Bus to Victoria Coach Station to reduce it to a sensible level. GLBIC does also have some strategic value in laying down blue tokens and opening diagonals but these are not used very much. The 1993 ICMS AGM considered abolishing it but instead set up a GLBIC Working Committee which is due to produce its report in November 1997. [TCM]

Greens and Parks rules

Using a station with 'Green' or 'Park' in its name can be used as an invocation of the Greens and Parks rules. Playing similar stations without going into Knip or Spoon and without breaking a line diagonal scores twice the number of token collections for each station. Interchanges and pegged stations do not count in this increase. Colour and Direction should be watched closely during invoking the Greens and Parks rules, as hasty usage can leave the player open to attack from non-aligned or left-handed stations. [PW]

Groenback's Adjustment Variant

An entertaing form of MC in which players have the alternative of replacing the previous move. Obviously a winning move of MC cannot be replaced. Frowned upon at grandmaster level because obviously outstanding moves will be replaced. Such encouragement of mediocrity and subtelty is detested by some aficonados and in 1989 caused IMCS to flirt briefly with the idea of banning it. [TCM]

Groenback, Otto (1949-1977)

A German MC player, born in Saarbrucken in 1949. He rose rapidly thorugh the Junior ranks, first in Germany and then on the World Stage, winning the German Junior Championship from 1960-1966 and becoming World Junior Champion in 1965. However, he was unable to make the transition to Senior MC. He arrived at the 1967 World Championship full of hope and arrogance. Unfortunately he was defeated 10-0 in the first round. He never recovered from this severe blow to his pride and ego and never got beyond the second round until his retirement in 1972 in a blaze of sour grapes directed towards the MC glory his arrogance led him to believe would automatically be his. The five years betwen then and his tragic suicide are a sad tale of a man destroyed by over-optimism and unrealistic expectation. In 1976 in a final insult to the MC authorities, he invented Groenback's Adjustment Variant to show the game as the absurd scam he had convinced himself it was. In a final blow, it rapidly beame a popular and widely accepted variant. [TCM]

Grossman, Philippe (1938-)

It has been said of Grossman (he rarely uses his first name, having been mercilessly teased as a child) that if he could play Mornington Crescent as well as he could argue, then he would have been World Champion several times. But as it is he is a middling player at best, a fact which he tacitly acknowledged when he retired from competition in the late 60's.

However, Grossman is an outstanding theoretician. He has a profound and instinctive understanding of the kind of fluid multi-dimensional topologies in which token generators and zone passes operate, and which other workers in this field such as Kielder have barely an inkling of.

Despite this insight, Grossman's work went largely ignored until he was approached by another noted worker in the field named Mrs Trellis. She had intuited that many of the entities within the Game could be described in terms of more fundamental elements, and that the interactions between these entities could thus be analysed and predicted with considerably more accuracy if these fundamental elements were defined. However, she lacked the mathematical and, above all, topological background to work through these ideas in detail.

After a frenzied summer of bouncing ideas back and forth across a hotel lobby in Bognor Regis, occasionally at high volume, the theoretical basis for quantum token dynamics was established. These ideas were first published in MC Player in the Winter 1982 edition, and have gone on to raise as many problems as they solved disputes. But then that's progress.

Grossman himself continues to work in the theoretical arena, although he has left the intricacies of QTD to younger and more nimble minds than his own.

[Dx]

Hainault Loop

A forced loop of the Hainault station, usually induced by high token levels at Fairlop and Grange Hill. A fairly common occurrence in token-switched Derby Rules, but less common in standard variants since the introduction of the Loop Amendments in 1973. [KD]

Half-Strile

Although similar to a standard strile, the half-strile is notably different in two regards. (1) It can only be used to cross one zone boundary per turn. (2) Tokens and modifiers remain unchanged, irrespective of destination. See also quarter-strile. [KD]

Hall, Sydney Ernest (b. 18 July, 1870)

By reputation alone the finest English player to have lived, Sydney Hall was born in Norfolk into an upper-class family already full of excellent Mornington Crescent Players, such as his cousin James, the 1905 British Champion, and his father, the team game specialist Alistair Hall, who played 18 seasons with Camden MCC. However, of all the Halls, it was only Sydney who made a real impact on the international circuit.

Having coasted to victory in the English Schoolboy Leagues for four consecutive years, Hall was picked for the England Junior squad, and won his first open Masters tournament in 1897 in London. From here he went from strength to strength, finally going on to win the World Championship 7 times, including five consecutive victories between 1920 and 1924. However, in 1925 the emerging Hungarian prodigy, Tibor Hugo shocked the world by destroying him in that year's championships, a defeat from which his confidence never really recovered. He said of Hugo at the time, "He is unbeatable", and for the next twelve years, he was proved right.

In his career, Sydney Hall played an astonishing 2,155 internationals, winning 1,821. He died in 1950, never having received the knighthood that most felt he deserved. [JH]

Handicapping

The principle of "Handicapping" is accepted in many modern games, including Golf, Croquet and Polo, the object being to even up the contest between teams and/or individuals, so that a reasonably competitive game may ensue. The game of Mornington Crescent has also seen the attempted application of handicapping systems, although, due to the somewhat factional nature of the governance of the international game, to this day there is no single system that has gained universal acceptance.

The handicapping systems with some degree of recognition may be briefly described as follows:

1. The "Lyttelton Index" - a system recognised by the IMCS, with the exception of the Australasian and South American regions. Under this system, superficially comparable to that of Polo, each player gains a "Lyttelton Rating" of between 0.1 and 25 based on results over the previous 3 yrs and 9 mths (a curiously arbitrary time frame, the reasons for which are unknown). In one-on-one play, the lower-rated play is entitled to a number of free shunts equal to the square root (unrounded) of the difference between their ratings. However, this system has a tendency to break down in multi-player and team games, despite the publication of the comprehensive "Aldwych" tables, designed to calculate the differentials and the applicable advantages in up to 5 dimensions (these were allegedly compiled by Favisham during a long wait for a train at Aldwych - since they were published in 1944 and Aldwych had closed in 1940, not to reopen until after war had ended in 1946, this may well be true).
2. The "Token Weighting Adjustment" method - largely accepted (although not officially) by CAMREC.
   This takes account of age, sex, and medal tournament results (only). Simple in application, players may at any point in the game call for a redistribution of tokens based on their own (or their team's combined) score. This frequently causes complete reversal of the direction of a game, and since there is no restriction on the number of times during a game that this can happen, some games played under this system have lasted several years of swinging fortunes.
3. The "Zonal Block" system - commonly recognised by the UK Universities' MC Federation, and hence the favourite among the academic community. Under this system, players fall into three categories - "Freshmen" (red badge), "Finalists" (puce badge) and "Graduates" (vermillion badge). "Graduates" are prevented from hop-str iling for the first 30 moves of a game, while "Finalists" must restrict their movements to adjacent zones for 40 moves and avoid shunts, although huffing remains legal. "Freshmen" are allowed free play for the first 60 moves, but thereafter are not permitted to farkle.

Repeated attempts to develop a universal system have come to nothing, with each scheduled conference of all the world bodies being postponed on one pretext or another. A further meeting has been pencilled in for May 2005. Whether this will actually happen is open to a great deal of doubt. [HB]

Hardy, Jeremy

Following the sad demise of Willie Rushton, Jeremy Hardy has now become the fourth member of the ISIHAC panel. Whilst his MC style is not perhaps as developed as his older colleagues, he shows a firm grasp of the basics and maintains a good balance between attack and defence. [BtTS]

Harris Three Wild Blocking Shunt

Named after its inventor, Francis Harris (b. 1955). A triple-wild shunt of an unblocked player into a blocked intersection (often Green Park). This is a very difficult, but extremely effective, manouvre. [JH]

Hartramp

Hartramp, author of Vocabularies, a seminal work on the English language, was also an accomplished MC player in the 20s-40s. He is best known for his Variations, on all of which later entries will be forthcoming.

Hartramp had a slightly unorthodox style of play; he often had no qualms about twisting and combining well-known rulesets to his own advantage, leaving his opponents high and dry as he confused them with his superior knowledge. His inspired combination of the Tudor system with the little-known changes made in 1678 totally flummoxed Briggs in the 1941 World final. By forcing the diagonals (Briggs had failed to notice Hartramp's token stack) he walked into MC after only three moves. Briggs protested, but the referee let the victory stand.

Wartime austerity measures meant that his Variations weren't published until 1947, and he went out fashion in the Sixties, when his dry, merciless style of play was rejected as being 'too much like the Man'. He is, however, enjoying somewhat of a renaissance, and rightly so.

Some Hartramp Variations of Note:

Interesting Variations: Hartramp was the first player to contest that if a move was Interesting, it was certainly valid. He created a standard list of Interesting moves that were outside standard rulesets, and when these moves became standard, he immediately started work on a new set of Interesting moves, which he refused to publish, claiming that if he revealed them they would no longer be Interesting. A move he pioneered that has become standard is the exploitation of high LV and good token stacks to go from Embankment to Kentish Town in one move, thus opening up an easy entrance to MC. This move is, of course, not available should you be on the Metropolitan line in the previous move, in which case, of course, you would find yourself in spoon.

Deviations: In the 1930s Hartramp dabbled in S&M [Stratford & Moorgate? The dirty bugger -Ed], and created a special set of moves for those who enjoy deviating from the norm. The most well-known move in this deviation is the unique Dollis Hill escape clause, which is only useable with a leather podume and creates a Zone 4 Vortex. [Z]

Helical Stress

A quantity which describes the degree of curvature of the map manifold, measured in Brians. High levels of helical stress in a Mornington Crescent game indicate that token vortices may form spontaneously, and at critical degrees the entire map manifold may splinter. In other variants with limited movement options (particularly Baker Street) such splintering is often a good option for breaking multi-level block stalemates.

Helical stress has many causes, from complex token gradients to gravitic influence on quadrant boundaries. It is being increasingly recognised with the extension of Fronsky diagrams to include torsional components. [Dx]

Hertfordshire

Four Underground stations are in Hertfordshire: Rickmansworth, Chorleywood, Croxley and Watford. Because they are not in any of the Greater London zones, moves between them are normally unrestricted. The coefficients on them do however make them useful for token shunting. [TCM]

History

According to Barry Cunliffe, Professor of Archeology at Oxford University, there is evidence from Fishbourne that the game was brought to Britain by the Romans, confirmed by a mosaic there with wall painted scenes to assist novice players. The game probably was known as Manadolius Luminatus from the 1st. century ad. A few oblique Domesday references exist, but nothing substantial until the time of Chaucer in the 14th. Century. [NA]

However, it is clear even from those times that there was something of a schism between the "real" game as played by the nobility, and the "popular" game as played by the peasants: evidence from that survives even into some of today's game terminology, such as "croupe", "revanche" and "podume" (French having been the language of choice among the nobility in the 1100-1200s, and much of the French terminology has passed into the game largely unchanged - especially in gambling casinos, where French terminology is also used for gambling at cards and roulette.) Catherine Howard is known to have scored a three-move victory over Henry VIII shortly before her demise (which this may have helped to cause: Henry was a notoriously bad loser.) [JLE]

Holding Station

The London Underground has three Holding Stations - Mornington Crescent, Seven Sisters and Euston. These are the only stations which have no upper token limit (although MC and Euston do have limits on how many tokens can be carried or shunted in per turn). [KD]

Holfstedter Gamble

Named after Darvin Holfstedter, well known revolutionary 20 century artist and part time nihilist. Most people take account of their opponents position when playing Mornington Crescent, and often attempt to use it to their advantage. The difference Holfstedter began was to play a station which would only be beneficial if an opponent played a specific move. In Darvins case, this was normally a station on the British Rail based on the assumption an opponent would be forced to move to West Hampstead. Often the opponent would be forced to move to the desired station or destroy his entire strategy. Nevertheless, it is a risky way to play since an accomplished opponent can often play an alternative move without compromising their own position. See also Tucker Block. [JP]

Holland Park 2000

Originally conceived as a short-term meeting in 1994 to discuss the Quadrant 5 problem, negotiations between the political wing of CAMREC and the conservative faction of the IMCS soon became so protracted - and heated - that eventually nearly all aspects of the rules came up for discussion. The fact that Mrs Trellis's memory is not what it used to be rendered her little more than a figurehead in these discussions, with the result that the two sides were forced to actually talk to each other more than they were used to. The very thought of amending Chalk Farm '84 in any way caused several wildcat strikes by more militant members of CAMREC, leading to seven critical token shortages, four serious derailments, nineteen incidents of leaves on the line and even, in one case, a proposal to move the site of the talks to Dollis Hill. Happily, this terrible prospect came to nothing, and six years later the new ruleset was finally released. Typically, it immediately came under fire from the less contented members on both sides, but so far there has been no actual violence (although a couple of Suspect Packages left by dissidents have been seized and defused, and on one occasion, no less a man than Ould had to be forcibly restrained from ramming his five-pronged fFlanger up the nose of a particularly recalcitrant IMCS backbencher, who prefers to remain anonymous.)

Among the new features in the game are a new concept of how LV and positioning works in the realms of quantum physics, which has led to several important discoveries in the field of stable pickerings. The addition of the Jubilee and Docklands extensions as full parts of the London Underground *without* needing to be placed in a special temporary Quadrant 5 necessitated a major rebalancing and reweighting of stations, although things became much easier once the condition, that none of the new stations be magenta, was dropped - requiring corresponding adjustments in the game of Baker Street (something which both parties were reluctant to do): adjustments which in their turn affected conditions particularly on the Piccadilly and District lines. Aldgate East and Aldgate were swapped in colour (they are now respectively green and puce), the Spin differential between Dollis Hill and Neasden was increased by 3 degrees per second, and bridges are wild if the freem count is high (which, thanks to the snood-freem quasi-equivalence concept, is liable to be more frequent if the LV is also high - but, of course, less relevant for exactly the same reason) and various other adjustments of a generally small nature were made in similar vein.

Bookmakers are currently taking bets on when the first erratum slip will be published - Ladbrokes has August at 3/1, October at 7/1, July at evens and December at 100/1, while William Hill seems to make September the odds-on favourite at 1/2 and the BBC Office Sweepstake has stopped taking bets after their MC analyst was revealed to be, erm, "involved" with Mrs Trellis's cat Engelbert... [JLE]

Hollinshead's Chronicle

The authorative reference work on the game from the time of Henry VIII, in which is recorded a game between Henry, Catherine Howard and Thomas Cramner. [NA]

Home Station

Any player may (and usually does, early in the game) declare a Home Station. This must be a pure station, i.e. one which is not classed as an interchange (stations on two lines lying alongside each other do not count as interchanges unless (1) another line bisects the station, or (2) the station is at the beginning or end of the parallel sequence, or (3) is used as a terminus of only one of the lines. Thus, for instance, Rayners Lane is barred but the rest of the Uxbridge branch is available. Camden Town counts as an interchange. Closed stations are also not allowed (including MC, which in any case is specifically barred even when it is open.)

The benefits of declaring a Home Station are several: a player without a Home can conceivably be forced out of the game completely if he runs out of LV and tokens and has no legal move. This cannot happen to a player with a Home, as a move there is always legal. (For this reason, Homes with restricted service are risky, as when there is no service the player is effectively Homeless.) Players passing or landing on it must pay the owner one silver token or equivalent at the first possible opportunity, and no player except the owner may remove the last route of access to a Home Station and render it out of the game (mere blocking is not counted as doing this, as blocks may be removed). For instance, if a player declares Home at Upton Park and it is not peak hour, then no other player may declare a power failure on the District that extends eastwards of the North London connection at West Ham, or the Docklands connection at Bow Road/Bow Church if the North London is out of action.

As against that, token bonuses for creative shunting and straddling are doubled for a Homeless player. Loops have a greater gravitational pull, player LV is more vulnerable to greater swings up and down, and the effects of knip, knid and spoon are also correspondingly greater when happening either (1) to a Homeless player, or (2) when forced on another player by a Homeless player. This has led to a recent fashion of deferring the declaration of Home for the first few moves, coming out fighting, grabbing as many tokens as possible, getting a high LV and trying to throw opponents into trouble while remaining out of it, only then declaring Home when the attack breaks down. [JLE]

hop-strile

A hop-strile is a strile played across two lines that do not intersect in any of the zones which it covers. The daring may consult Favisham's article on the subject. As far as the average player is concerned, a hop-strile is of particular significance when LV is high enough to permit zone-jumping, as the pegging limit then extends one zone further than normal. [Rk]

Huff.

A favourite technique of defensive players, particularly those from Eastern Europe, huffing is simply the tactic of reversing the direction of play of a player. In more detail, the player shunts the victim into an adjacent but blocked station, causing the recipient of the shunt to an adjacent but blocked station, causing the recipient of the shunt to "bounce" back to his previous location, but to be facing in the opposite direction. Whilst sounding very minor, this can completely ruin a well built-up combination of moves, and is as such a very effective form of defense against many attacking tactics. See also: Toff. [JH]

Hughes Difficulty Rating

Invented by great theoretician but mediocre player Ernest Mipplington, this is the standard way of measuring move difficulty. A simple move has HDR 0.2, a typical shunt around 1.2, a Czukay Manipulation in the range 3.7 to 4.9. The hardest move ever played occurred in the semi-final of the 1976 World Championship. It took the Andorran Champion whose name has sadly been lost from Amersham to Chalk Farm with all the diagonals closed, six lines quartered, fifty-two stations bulkheaded and sixteen more blocked. It took him almost two hours to work out. The HDR was later found to be 396.5 [TCM]

Hugo, Tibor (b. 2 November, 1909)

One of the most brilliant Mornington Crescent players ever, particularly at individual grandmaster level, Hungarian Tibor Vladimir Hugo dominated the Mornington Crescent world for much of the first half of the century, winning the world title twelve times in thirteen years, including an unprecedented (and unbeaten) ten in succession (1925-34, 1936-7 - missing 1935 due to poor health.)

Hugo was born in the rural north of Hungary, to a poor family who knew little of the game. It was Tibor's uncle, Pataki, who first realised the youngster's talents in 1916 when he saw him play in a school tournament. Pataki, a local government official, immediately started to contact coaches of Hungarian League sides, insisting that they see the boy play. However, most refused outright, few were interested.

It was a small local town side who finally realised the potential of the boy, signing him for a meager wage to play in their team. However, Tibor's individual skills soon drew the attention of the Ministry of Sport, who took him out of league MC and began to coach him behind closed doors.

In 1925, at the age of just fifteen, Hugo exploded onto the international scene at the Paris Open. Having coasted through his first match 4-0, he was unlucky to draw the then world champion, and world number one, England's Sidney Hall, the man who is even today widely regarded as the best English player of all time. In a shock result, the young Hugo tore Hall to pieces, winning 6-1 and sending the Englishman crashing out of a major tournament at his earliest ever stage. Hugo reached the final without losing another game in any match, before being finally beaten by the German, Joachim Jaeger, by a margin of just one game. Any disappointment was short lived, however, as Hugo went on to become the youngest ever world champion, in Stockholm, four months later.

In 1937 Hugo, just 27 years old, announced his retirement from the international arena, citing a worldwide fall in sporting standards as his main reason. He went out in style, walking away from a 10,000 Brussels crowd having just won his twelfth title. A grand era in the sport was over.

Hugo will probably be best remembered for his impact on Mornington Crescent style. His wonderful, flowing technique has been described by some commentators as the finest ever, and has been emulated by many players ever since. His record of 322 wins from 351 international matches will never be matched.

Hugo died peacefully in 1960, aged 51. [JH]

Huguenot's Gamble

A response move, somewhat dangerous, to the use of Junkin's Progession. [NA]

Illegal moves

Mornington Crescent is still, technically, a gentleman's game. Therefore, it is automatically assumed that all moves are legal unless an opposing player takes the trouble to question the legality of the move, in which case the rules are consulted. No tournament referee can declare any move in any game illegal without a complaint (usually by pressing a buzzer) from one of the players in that game - the only exception being a victory claim.

The result of this is often, especially in the case of some players who habitually play on the very edge of legality, that some moves in a game are later found to have been technically illegal (the current record is 34 by Vic Stannard.) However, no penalty is ever applied to a player who has "got away with it" by playing an illegal move that was not buzzed: if the other players in a game accept the move, it is considered to have been as legal as, for instance, bluffing your opponent into conceding in a game of poker when his hand was better than yours. (This attitude almost certainly springs from the long history of MC in gambling casinos.) [JLE]

I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue

The name of a highly popular and successful radio comedy show hosted by Sir Humphrey Lyttleton and played by Graeme Garden and Barry Cryer in one team, and Tim Brooke-Taylor and the late Willie Rushton in the other. The show is somewhat mistitled, since its participants have razor wits and can reduce the audience to howling baboons with an apt phrase.

Most of the games played on ISIHAC (as it is affectionately known) are played here, and vice versa. The one which everyone concentrates on, and to which this encyclopaedia is dedicated, is Mornington Crescent, known and loved by millions of devoted fans (according to recent Gallop Polls). Other games, like Cheddar Gorge and Limericks, are also well-participated. [PW]

Jespersen Maneouvre

The Jespersen Maneouvre was a legal move for approximately three hours on the 1st of September 1993; without doubt the shortest life of any rule or amendment, in the history of the game. Aleric Jespersen was one of the team responsible for transferring the IMCS Rulebook to computer format in the summer of '93, and somehow managed to sneak in Rule 38743(iii)/f - "Any player named Aleric Jespersen may move from any station to Mornington Crescent, at any time." The Jespersen Maneouvre was declared void shortly after the rulebooks had been printed, but since Jespersen lost his IMCS membership and was immediately banned from all official games, there seemed little danger in waiting until the October update sheets before officially revoking it. [KD]

Junkin's Progression

This opens the game to suburban bidding and permits a lateral shift in two. [NA]

Knerdle

A move which deflects an opponent's attack, rather than blocking it completely, so that the new direction of the attack is advantageous to the knerdler. A way of using the opponent's strength against him. (Thus, most knerdles are "sideways", "diagonal" or "reverse", the latter meaning that the attack bounces back the way it came. A "forwards" knerdle, which is rare, forces the opponent's attack to overshoot.)

The term derives, in fact, not originally from MC but from the game of cricket, where it was coined by the great commentator Brian Johnston to describe the deliberate shot where the ball comes off the edge of the bat and, instead of hitting the stumps (for clean bowled) or going to a fielder (for a catch), goes past both stumps and fielders and down to the boundary for four runs (hence, using the opponent's pace against him.) Johnston was a keen MC player, and it was on his suggestion (in a reader's letter to "MC Monthly") that the term was adopted by the game of MC. [JLE]

Knid

When all of a player's holdings have been trumped by other players and the player has no longer a secure base to play from, he is said to be "knidded". This can have serious effects - it is not possible to play the move of MC, nor to strile across more than two zones or use ghost stations as an escape route. Fortunately, it is usually possible to escape quickly by (1) taking posession of a vacant holding (this is rare except early in the game), or (2) overtrumping by expenditure of tokens, if enough can be found. "Double knid" means that all the holdings are trumped twice and must be similarly overtrumped to escape (and is thus correspondingly more serious later in the game, but not so much [JLE]

Knip

A state caused by non-level incidence onto an interchange, excess line velocity when crossing a zone or quadrant boundary, or an inappropriate use of a parallel or diagonal when holding certain colours of token. When a player is in knip, river crossings are penalised inversely, toffing, beaking, juicing and badgering are not allowed, and all token inversions and redeclarations have to be done before moving. Players can get out of knip by appropriate shunting or renormalising the level interchange vectors on at least two subsequent inter-quadrant or inter-zone shunts. (IMCS Ref: Concepts and Definitions Vol 2 Pg 149 - 155; Rules 1042, 1774, 1968 and 2095.) [PW]

Lea Hall 2000

A Mornington-Crescent style game based on the West Midlands Centro network, culminating in the winning move of Stourbridge Junction. Lea Hall 2000 was released on the 17th June in the Millennial year and is the result of meetings over a seven month period between Dudley and District MCC (that's Si's club) and CresFed Birmingham (The Central Birmingham representative at IMCS). The joint consortium felt that it was high-time that the Second City had its own game, to celebrate the new Millennium and also the opening of the Metro between Wolverhampton and Birmingham.

The Ruleset and Network of the new Lea Hall ruleset are interesting and varied from Mornington Crescent. The situation of the stations, and the slightly larger scale means that it is a perfect network i.e there are no permanent loops and pitfalls. Although this sounds boring at first, play can become more competitive as a rule was added to make the creation of temporary vortices easier. Thus, if you wanted to really drop your opponents in it in an All-in game, a temporary vortex could be created anywhere on the network via the Anderton Vortex Law. It would be difficult to explain the entire ruleset here, but there are many little intricacies that should make the game quite different than the traditional Chalk Farm '84 played on a different network that we see so often these days. I suggest you all take a read, available from IMCS, your local MCC or a good bookshop! [Si]

Line Velocity

This term is applied in several different ways:

1. A player's speed (and direction) on a particular line.
2. The prevailing strength and direction of flow on a line.
3. The "overall" LV, calculated by adding together the total LV on all lines (direction again included: thus westward and eastward cancel out.)

Usually, the direction is not mentioned as it is fairly obvious which direction a player is travelling, and along which line. Technically, when (3) is mentioned, a direction MUST be specified.

The three different definitions of LV all interact. For instance, it is possible for a player to gain LV and reduce that on the line correspondingly, or vice versa, provided that both LVs remain positive and in the same direction. An LV in the wrong direction is considered as negative, and therefore requires a reverse and consequent token expenditure.

LV is also gained in some variants of the game by moving away from "Hill" stations, or toward "Vale" or "Valley" stations (and lost in the converse way.) LV may be gained or lost during loop procedures due to the natural gravitational effect of stations and token stacks (which of course add to the weight of the station.)

If the overall LV (3) is altered, then that alteration is passed on in strict proportion to all the Underground lines. (Thus, if the overall LV is halved, that on all lines is halved.) [JLE]

Liverpool Rules

A more refined variation of the game brought to the area from the south by stokers of the great steam cargo ships of the industrial revolution. Obvious differences from the standard game are when a player is stymied by his immediate opponent this in known as mating, when a player's route is blocked this is docking. If a player is both mated and docked then he is said to be in Heseltine and forced to miss a turn. [NA]

Loading

A process that is caused by three consecutive moves with Hughes Difficulty Rating greater than 2.9 or by four consecutive moves involving the redeployment of more than five tokens or five consecutive moves that have altered GLBIC or six consecutive moves that have increased Beck's or seven consecutive passes. It is basically a redistributive process that opens up the game to more aggressive play. [TCM]

Longest Game

See Shortest Game [AxS]

Loop

1. If the gravitational attraction of a station exactly counterbalances the velocity needed to escape, then the game is said to be placed into a Holding Loop. Escape may not be effected by a standard move or strile unless the player's LV is