Sunday 21 September 2014

Неналюблю

 





When you read the title of this weeks blog you were a little confused. No, you're eyes aren't failing you and no, I'm not blogging under the influence. That's a word in Russian and it's pronounced as “nenalyublyu”; when translated into English it means "I love you but I hate you in this moment."

At least, I think that's what it means. I'm not 100% sure; I found out about it from watching Reginald D Hunters stand-up DVD and I later Googled it. And since I don't have a Russian speaking friend I can't really verify its accuracy. For all I know it might be a very rude word that I would use to describe Vladimir Putin.

Anyway, I digress; what I really wanted to say is that the phrase "I love you but I hate you in this moment" best describes my relationship with the board game Monopoly. As a guy who enjoys his fair share of computer games I still have a soft spot for it. A friend once described how they would play board games with their University roommates and I was more than a little jealous.

My love for Monopoly stems from the fact that I was an only child. That's not strictly true, I have a older sister but as fate would have it I was to be born 10 years after her. Which meant that when I was old enough to appreciate board games my sister was too cool to hang out with her little brother.

I grew up never really playing board games with..(cue Akon's “Mr. Lonely”)..anyone. I did play with my cousins but they weren't really interested; back then they just wanted to play with the Playstation. I would play draughts/checkers with my Dad, usually this took place when he was half-asleep on the couch. I won a lot of matches. Because I'm that good...(it has nothing too do with the fact that my Dad let me win so he could get back to napping)..

Last year I bought myself a Monopoly board game determined to play and I did; with my sister, her husband and my nephew. This was the point when the “I hate you in this moment” part set in. As much as I love Monopoly, it took a really long time to finish a game. Roughly 5 hours.

By the end we were a little bit cross with one another; usually down to the fact that we refused to sell or trade a crucial piece of real estate to one another, giving one player an advantage. Which only made the game last a lot longer. My poor nephew was caught in the crossfire when he had to choose between who he would sell his property to. When the game did finally end we were all pretty glad.

Right now, my Monopoly board game is in my closet. I still look forward to another game. Just not any time soon.





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1 comment:

  1. Fiaz please, I've played Monopoly with my brother and sometimes we take 2-3 days. We just leave the whole game on the floor and continue every 3-4 hours depending on how we feel.

    Also the key thing is to buy up all the utilities, and expensive places like Mayfair, Park Lane (IF YOU'RE PLAYING THE BRITISH VERSION), and build hotels on top of those. You'd be surprised how scared others get, and anxiety creates unfortunate fate which makes them land on your plots.

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