Game

Constancy in an ever changing world has its merits. I am not in any way advocating that we retreat into and hide behind what we consider to be safe and comfortable because progress and change are the very driving force of the development of the human race. I mean that in life there are some things that must be reliable enough to depend upon without question. The best analogy I can come up with early on this morning is the brakes on a car. We get in ,start up and drive off without actually checking if the brakes are still physically fitted and operational. We take it as a given that they were ok the day before when they came in very useful to arrest forward movement so must be the same today. We may make allowances, mentally and in the pressure applied to the brake pedal for wear and tear or if we have a lower degree of confidence on a slippery or loose road surface. We do take things for granted in the western world. The tap will always gush forth clean and refreshing water, gas is effortlessly piped to our appliances for cooking, heating and hot water, one flush and it is no longer our problem, the supermarket shelves are always well stocked. This cosseted lifestyle is only appreciated when it is disrupted or interrupted and then everything seems to tumble and fall. There is no greater feeling of abandonment and panic in our modern lives than a dry tap, a feeling of being cold and dirty or an empty food cupboard. In the big freeze of winter 2010/11 our external water supply pipe froze up solid for a couple of days. We felt like we had returned to the ice age. There was a panic buying of bottled water. The great unwashed were in a bad mood. It took a few sessions on the driveway with a hairdryer to persuade the water to flow. The same feelings of helplessness and loss of constancy hit home just last night. The TV schedule between Christmas and New Year was rubbish. I do not know who proposed a game of Monopoly. If a motion in Parliament it would have been rejected but there was some lobbying, bribery and just plain bullying by way of persuasion. Three of us took to the floor in varying stages of discomfort, aches and pains and awkwardness. The box lid was a further reincarnation of the original Waddingtons brand but now firmly in the hands of Hasbro- the Skynet of boardgames. I seem to remember that the gift of a Monopoly game in my childhood represented one of the largest boxed presents and was coveted as such. It would appear about as big as a surfboard, reassuringly rectangular, long, broad and thin. The handling of such vast amounts of play money was a thrill. The classic London game was magical and atmospheric, especially for us Northerners, with the posh blue banded streets of Mayfair and Park Lane somehow sitting easily next to the rough Old Kent Road with no barbed wire, CCTV or private security patrols. The most evocative elements were the silver coloured playing pieces. In my memory, the dog was large enough to sit on, the top hat to wear on a social event, the battleship capable of intimidating any country with a coastline, the iron actually functional, the wheelbarrow could easily be used in the garden all summer long, the thimble was well just a thimble, the boot a residence for an old woman and a horde of children. I have intentionally missed out the 8th classic piece because on opening up the newly gifted version it was nowhere to be found. I was outraged, as were my fellow Monopolists. I felt a letter in preparation to the Hasbro Board of Management berating them over the withdrawal of the race car piece. What had possessed them to do this?. Perhaps it was a misguided comment that they did not condone gas guzzling vehicles and that all subsequent releases of the game would feature a hybrid or wholly electric car. Maybe Hasbro had fallen out with the franchisees of Formula One over merchandising rights and we, the common gaming people were being punished. I shudder to think that Hasbro are about to launch a combined silver race car and Transformer character. That would be both patronising and inappropriate for a classic family board game of such pedigree. I was fuming and just on the verge of boycotting the game when The Boy pointed out that there was in fact, a full compliment of game pieces. What use, I ask you with all sincerity, is a pair of boots? Quality Control in the Hasbro factory, wherever in the universe that may be, had gone mad. Somewhere a software programme decided that a single boot was not a computable item. The vast production line stemmed the conveyor belt for race car pieces heading for the automated packing section thus creating a huge traffic pile up in favour of a 100% increase in the supply and delivery to the pre-moulded inner lining of the Monopoly box of hob nailed boots. I am not sure if this was an isolated incident in the factory. A disgruntled employee, downsized, may have decided that the sweetest revenge would be literally to put the boot in to the Corporation. Be assured, I will be writing to Hasbro on their distant planet pointing out that the whole Monopoly experience had been irreparably tainted for our family. I emphasised the ridiculous nature of two boots by insisting on using them as my game pieces in my stunning rise to power as a landlord before a spectacular fall from grace and inevitable bankruptcy. Ironically, I was grateful to have a stout pair of footwear with which to tramp the streets in search of employment and a hot meal.