Monopoly

I played monopoly this week for the first time in years. Quite why I had the urge to I'm not sure, but now I've remembered that it is in fact a damn good and really quite addictive game.

There are however a few tips that I'd offer anyone who hasn't played for a while either, but suddenly feels inspired to pick up the dice, grab the boot, hat or dog and head on down to Go. The tips are as follows:

1. Always buy at least one of the stations - alright they might only be worth £25 a pop, but it's more the £200 a pop that you get charged if the other person gets all four. At the start of the game, £200 is a deeply hurtful amount of money to have to fork out.

2. Don't rush off on a property binge, Irish style - poor taste joke but it's true, if you try and buy a bit of everything you generally end up with nothing

3. Try to avoid playing with a woman, especially a girlfriend - they're almost impossible to negotiate with, no matter what schemes you try. I thought the blues and reds for oranges and pinks was more than fair but clearly not. So I went bust

4. Do make sure you perform some sort of wishing/ritual dancing thing before a key roll of the dice. This really does seem to work, at least 69.8% of the time

5. And finally, please, please, please make sure it's a quick game. I'm pretty sure my brother and I have a game still officially going on from 1993 following a state of near perfect equilibrium that we'd reached. Monopoly's a great game, but it can also be a bugger to finish