A Sign of the times

The Bournemouth & Poole edition of Monopoly is, the manufacturers hope, going to redress the balance between north and south when it comes to sales of the town specific editions that are sweeping the country. Apparently these localised versions of the famous board game have been well received in the north but the Brighton version less so.

Well the first thing that strikes you when you look at it, and I've only looked at it - mainly because I don't live in either borough and secondly £24.99 is a lot to pay for something I might play just once - is the absence of any street names. Where the iconic London version had Old Kent Road, Park Lane etc this one has 'landmarks'. What a cop out. People who live in the area or are familiar with the area know exactly which subuarbs, if not streets, are comparable with the Old Kent Road and Whitechapel Road, but they've been left off the new version because in the words of the director of the company that makes the game, "once you start naming squares after individual streets you are running into dangerous ground." No, once you start censoring people's intelligence you are running into dangerous ground.

One of the more humorous suggestions, but again this was left off, was that instead of having a 'Go to Jail' square, you would be sent to the Isle of Wight or Southampton. Personally I would have thought a little humour would have added to the charm of the game.