Further intrigue and debate surrounds the location of the "Go" square on London's Monopoly board. The manufacturers of the famous game commissioned Ordnance Survey cartographers to pinpoint the precise location of the start square, and concluded that 'Go' is to be found "on the South Bank at Queen's Walk promenade by the London Eye". It did seem a little odd that 'Go' should be in such a conveniently world-famous location, and now it seems these suspicions are well justified. Because Ordnance Survey have had their say, and it turns out they located Monopoly's 'Go' square somewhere completely different...
So, 'Go' is apparently about half a mile away from where Hasbro said it was, outside a very ordinary Bakerloo line station on Westminster Bridge Road. There was no mention of this in Wednesday's PR fluff, presumably because Lambeth North isn't a very a good place to hold a media event. It seems that Hasbro commissioned Ordnance Survey to carry out some "accurate" research, and then promptly approximated the results to suit their own ends. Which is lunacy, but I guess only to be expected. Ordnance Survey have since published a press release which tries to make everything clear...
Ordnance Survey have even published a map so we can see how they worked it out. They shaded in Mayfair and identified its geographical centre, just to the west of Berkeley Square, which looks fair. They also coloured in the Old Kent Road and marked a point halfway between the Bricklayers Arms roundabout and the edge of the map, But that's not correct. The Old Kent Road runs a lot further than this, off the edge of the map, so the true halfway point is half a mile further down. Ordnance Survey appear to have used a subjective non-halfway location to represent the Old Kent Road, so their 'Go' location must surely be equally suspect. Here's what their blog has to say...
The map is a lovely idea. Unfortunately it's also wrong, with two major geographical errors in the orange set of properties. Monopoly's Vine Street isn't in the City, it should be a runty little backstreet to the west of Piccadilly Circus. Likewise Marlborough Street doesn't refer to a short Chelsea crescent, it's meant to be Great Marlborough Street in the heart of Soho. Please, drinkers of London, don't reorganise your Monopoly pub crawls to match Ordnance Survey's flawed map. And please, boardgamers of Britain, don't believe that the 'Go' square is at the London Eye, or even at Lambeth North tube station. Let's just stick with 'Go' being a blank square with an arrow on it, shall we?
