Name: Tunbridge Wells.
Prefix: Royal.
Age: 411.
Appearance: Flat, 40 spaces, community chest.
Population: Small silver dog, thimble, a battlesh–
That sounds more like a popular board game franchise than a Kentish spa town. Correct. Pass Go! Collect £200!
Hand it over, then. I’ve only got purple £50 notes.
Get on with it. Sorry. A company planning to flog a Monopoly: Tunbridge Wells edition can’t find a street grubby enough to be its equivalent for Old Kent Road.
Is that because the spa town is too posh? That’s what the locals seem to think. From 2,000 suggestions for Monopoly street names, there were none for the joint-cheapest on the board.
Tricky. What do other editions have in the Old Kent Road spot? Cardiff’s is once-notorious takeaway destination Chippy Alley – AKA Caroline Street. The Manchester United version has superstar goalkeeper David de Gea, oddly.
So, are the Wellsian locals revolting? I think you mean “disgusted”. But, no, one imagines they are quite pleased for once. Think of what it will do for house prices.
What’s going in the space, then? The local paper suggested the household waste recycling centre, AKA the dump. Winning Moves, which is licensing the game from Hasbro, is seeking more suggestions.
At the same time, cleverly getting the story that it is making a Tunbridge Wells edition of Monopoly into the papers. We would never fall for that.
I’ll choose one for them. What about ... Denny Bottom? You can’t just look for funny names on Google Maps.
Is that not how they did it for the real Monopoly. Real people don’t live in London. And no, it was a bit more scientific than that. A bloke from Waddington’s Games and his secretary got the train down from Leeds and pottered about a bit.
Can’t we just do that, then? Send someone who doesn’t know the town to find the most Old Kent Road-worthy street? Do you really need a spa day?
I want to win second prize in a beauty contest. I’d stick to the crossword competitions, if I were you.
Do say: “Why didn’t they just use one of the spare suggestions for the Tunbridge Wells equivalent of Whitechapel Road?”
Don’t say: “Actually, the cheapest three-bed flat for sale on Old Kent Road costs £100,000 more than the cheapest in Tunbridge Wells.”
