Abigail Brady

There should be a game. Probably a computer game. It should be called 'Metropolis'. It should start in 1850. The game board is London, Middlesex and the nearer parts of the Home Counties, as they existed then. It should be a fairly realistic map, not a stylised one. You are the chairman of the Metropolitan Railway Company or one of its contemporaries. (Possibly a fictional contemporary). You have to raise capital, secure Parliamentary approval for routes, build lines, buy trains and run services. You can agree to joint ventures or get running rights over rivals' lines. You can buy land near your lines, build houses on it, and sell that. It is done on a maps-and-timetables level, with real prices for tunnels and trains. Where you build your lines and the service pattern you set up affects how London develops. If you decide that suburban Essex is the right place to expand into with your railway, maybe you don't even get a Metro-land in north-west Middlesex, or maybe someone else comes along and does it instead. Around 1890 you get the option of building tube railways too. I don't know when the game ends. Maybe it always ends in 1933 with the formation of London Transport. Maybe you can carry on.

Does this game exist already?

[Edit: It's not Transport Tycoon. That's far too stylised, I want a simulation].

the internets inform me that Oyster Pay as you Go will be valid from Liverpool Street/Seven Sisters/Walthamstow Central to Hackney Downs from January 2 (and on other in-between stations). so it will now be less hassle to obtain beer. (it has been valid for travel to Hackney Central since November).

i went to the edge of the universe today: yes, to upminster and to epping.

random underground question: why on earth doesn't the victoria line extend very slightly further, to the central line at leytonstone, thus providing a handy link, which would have stopped me from missing the start of doctor who?

the underground was being philosophical today. it said "The next station is." this is rather reassuring: imagine if the next station wasn't!

also: congratulations to americaland for ejecting the wrong lizards.

Back in Leicester now. Very good party :). I hope other people than me were drinking the vodka as otherwise I think I had far more to drink than I thought I had.

The Virgin Voyager rolling stock is also blocking DAB signals, along with the new Midland Mainline trains that I complained about earlier (that are based on the same). I wonder if this is deliberate, or what?

At squirmelia's, recovering from the party. Will write up about it properly when I get home (assuming I can remember anything). Was good to finally meet eldritchreality. National Rail is giving me silly suggestions for train journeys, including changing at Clapham, Vauxhall and St Pancras. There are to be photos of me in my costume apparently.