CAT MONOPOLY (ARTICLE)

News was released this week that an online vote in 185 countries, conducted by games manufacturer Hasbro, has led to a  reshuffle of the playing pieces in the classic Monopoly board game. Later this year, the old iron token will be dropped, having run out of steam, and a new token – that of a cat – will be  introduced.

And, with the cat leading the poll with 31% of the vote, I wondered if it wasn’t perhaps time to refresh the game completely. After all, why should humans have the Monopoly? Surely cats and cat-lovers the world over might like to sharpen their claws on a new London-based version of the game which could be called Moggyopoly.

This would be a great fun game, fully revised to take all feline tastes into account. Starting off at the Old Cat Road, you could move through the cat flap and across the board, by way of Mewston Road,  Paw-l Mall,  Tra-fur-lgar Square and Moggy-le-Bone Station before finally winning, by a whisker, at Miaow-Fair. En route, you could land on suitably customised squares such as Get Your Tail Out of the Way Free and Free Paw-king while picking up appropriate Chance cards such as You have Won First Prize in the Cat Show, collect £10.

Of course, board games and cat-fancying are not limited to one country. So, no doubt, this new feline version of Monopoly could well prove to be a great international success from all places from Catalonia to Katmandu.

And why stop the feline connections there? After all, many of London’s tube and rail  stations are currently undergoing renovation so perhaps now would be a good time to give them a change of name too. It certainly gives us paws for thought. So how about travelling on the tube to Al-purr-ton, Fur-lop or Great Paw-tland Street or on the overground trains from Claw-pham Junction to the station which already has the purr-fect name in place: Catford?

And, while we’re on the subject, perhaps news of the new cat piece could actually act as a cat-alyst to revive and reinvigorate other classic games. Cluedo, for instance, could become Claw-do, with players hot on the trail of a missing Persian. It could really cat-ch on!

And, of course, why restrict this innovation just to cats? After all, the Scottie Dog was voted the most popular Monopoly token of all time. Dogs could also take  a lead role in specially-themed, canine, trivia board games with questions on popular composers such as Bark and Offenbark or on more modern music by Bone-o? And how about new canine versions of favourite TV programmes? After all, Coronation Street already has the Rover’s Return …

So folks, we really should thank Hasbro, the makers of Monopoly. After all, it’s great to stay inside playing games when outside it’s raining cats and dogs. And as for Moggyopoly, I do think it’s a winner. I certainly have good felines about about it.  So why not join me? After all, I’m game…