The government’s guidelines for coping with the current crisis have been criticised for being more than a little vague of late, but the source of those guidelines has now been identified. A keen-eyed observer has pointed out that the guidelines bear a remarkable resemblance to the rules of a modern game.
The game in question is Mornington Crescent.
According to Professor Humphrey Rushton, the world’s leading authority on the rules, every single rule has parallels in the current crisis:
“It’s uncanny,” he told LCD Views via a Zoom chat. “It’s as if he’s taken each and every rule and applied it to the COVID-19 crisis. According to Stovold’s Second Ruling, players can only move an even number of stations along from mainline termini unless they absolutely have to travel by an odd number. That’s like stay in unless you need to go out.”
And that’s far from the only similarity.
“According to the original version of the rules, transverse laterals can only be blocked from the south unless you’re approaching from the north,” the Professor went on, “the parallels here are self-explanatory and only an idiot would need that one explaining.”
Indeed they are. The other obvious parallel is the Brooke-Taylor Gambit, which states huffing is expressly forbidden unless you really really want to put the other player at an unfair disadvantage.
“That’s basic government policy most of the time anyway,” Professor Rushton went on. “And there’s more parallels even than that. I haven’t even started on Montague’s Amendment where the entire Circle Line is wild.”
There have also been reports of parallels to other bizarre games, most notably the card game Fizzbin, whose best known champion was none other than Captain James T. Kirk, who famously triumphed on planet Sigma Iotia II by scoring a Royal Fizzbin – the odds of which are so astronomical they have never been calculated.
At this rate, we can expect the end of the crisis to be announced by the prime minister shouting out “Mornington Crescent!” at the top of his lungs. Assuming he manages to find his way out of the fridge.