The story so far...

[RobbieM]

Good to see this has been finished - almost single-handedly! Hopefully I'll get to read the ending when I've got time.

In the meantime, GuyBarry - please feel free to take this and have a play around; the plot can be tidied up a bit, I guess. And I'm sure all the best novels are joint-authorship !!

Must dash - got a rehearsal starting in 11 minutes...

[The Orange One]

Tracking who the characters belong to:

Colin Dale, Don/Ray Nerslane, Patrick White the chapel caretaker, Roy Aloak, Wes Tacton: scrxisi
Alper Tonsun, Charles Colquhoun, Constables Chalfont, Finchley and Latimer, Dr Foster, Dudley and Tony delivery men, Ed G. Ware, Ian the prisoner, Richard Bromley, various Eurovision staff, the friar: GuyBarry
Cannabis Alliance dealer, North Greenwichitas, Pike the prisoner, T. Ham (Johnny Depp's grandfather): hopeful traveller
Gerry McCann the butcher, Mr Armstrong of Rentokil, Wayne the taxi driver, unnamed cannibal: RobbieM
Parson S. Green of the first page: snudge27
Beth and Al Green the enterprising couple, Sergeant Lloyd Park, Sister Mary Magdalena, Stan More, DI Warren Street, unnamed Witch Doctor: Soup Dragon
Andi Slington (dead), Dennis of Technical Solutions, Hil the German at Eurovision, Ken Sington: The Orange One
Sam the dude: tractakid
Ava Sudbury, Charles Denton the mugger, Orville McScrumple-Smythe the inventor, Ian, Philip and other unnamed boy scouts: Urzzz1871
Johnny Depp, Ledley King, Paul Miller, Phil Tufnell, Ricky Hatton, Stuart Broad, Tangy, the Great King Rat, Walt Disney Miller: Real
Colonel Mustard, Mrs White, Reverend Green: Cluedo
Woody Allen/John Collier: RobbieM and GuyBarry (collaboration - GuyBarry actually revealed him as John, but RobbieM first mentioned him)
Sal Green/Hamilton: hopeful traveller and GuyBarry

Note: It was never clarified whether the Parson S. Green mentioned by snudge27 was Cluedo's Reverend Green who turned up later in the story.

An interesting list! It seems scrxisi invented the most important characters, GuyBarry and Soup Dragon invented the most, and although it was RobbieM's story, he only invented four minor characters. I was very surprised to find I had invented Ken Sington - that detail had completely slipped my mind!

EDIT: Phil Tufnell and Paul Miller are real - as pointed out by GuyBarry. If you have a correction to make, please make it - it's good for copyright issues...this is if we get this published (in perhaps both a nice version and the original version!)

[GuyBarry]

I didn't invent Phil Tufnell! He's probably more famous after his appearances on I'm A Celebrity and Strictly Come Dancing than he was as a cricketer.

Paul Miller of BBC Radio Kent is also a real person.

I thought Ian and Philip were delivery men rather than Boy Scouts, but I think the whole plot needs sorting out

[The Orange One]

I didn't invent Phil Tufnell! He's probably more famous after his appearances on I'm A Celebrity and Strictly Come Dancing than he was as a cricketer.

Sorry! I must have been starting to skim by the time I hit page 13, especially with attempting to track down T. Ham (hopeful traveller mentioned him as if he was already existing so I thought he was scrxisi's, but at the same time couldn't remember prior reference)! Editing...

[GuyBarry]

I think that's it - let me know if I've missed any!

Thanks for that. You've got all the ones I mentioned, and others besides, so it looks as though that's the complete set. Adding your list of 14 to the current 189 makes 203, which I'm pretty sure was the number of posts in the original version (not 202 as I said - I remember noting that my first long instalment was post number 200, and there are three after that).

Does anyone have contact details for scrxisi? It would probably be advisable to ask him for permission to use his material now that he's withdrawn it from the forum. If there are difficulties we can always rewrite it.

I'll check through once more to make sure all the stations have been covered, and then I'll try to edit it so that the story at least vaguely makes sense - could be difficult while keeping all the references intact, but I've had plenty of practice! Still don't know how I'm going to explain an ITV talent contest in Wick suddenly becoming the Eurovision Song Contest in Manchester though

Thanks also to The Orange One for his useful list of characters - I had no idea we'd created so many! I think there are probably one or two we can dispense with in the final version (such as the Cannabis Alliance leader), but I'll try to keep as faithful to the original as possible.

[GuyBarry]

Here's a list of credits - please let me know if I've left anyone out:

RobbieM, tractakid, snudge27, palkanetoijala31, tubeguru, Soup Dragon, kateyay, greatkingrat, Steeevooo, scrxisi, The Raven, Starkey7, krollo, Going Underground, Urzzz1871, hopeful traveller, Rhys1995, DrainBrain, GuyBarry, The Orange One

(Interesting to see how few of the contributors from last year took part in this year's instalment - apart from RobbieM himself, I think only Urzzz1871 and hopeful traveller bridge the gap.)

Are we going to credit people under their screen names or their actual names? (It makes no difference in my case, apart from the space.)

[tractakid]

Message from scrxisi: it's fine to use his stuff.

[GuyBarry]

Here's the consolidated version of the story with just minor edits for grammar, punctuation and spelling. It actually reads better than I expected - I may not need to make as many changes as I thought.

One thing I noticed was that there was relatively little dialogue in last year's section, whereas in this year's section dialogue seems to dominate. I think I prefer dialogue because it's a lot easier to get awkward names in (e.g. across the end of one person's remark and the beginning of another's). Any other observations?

[GuyBarry]

The edited version of the story is now here. A few things to note:

(1) It looks as though we missed three stations: Mansion House, Marylebone and Newbury Park. The first and last were relatively easy to fit in, and I've changed Sister Mary's name for the second. Hope that's OK.
(2) There were a few sections that didn't add much to the plot and only contained station names that were used elsewhere, or non-station names. Since I was mainly concentrating on getting all 270 stations in I decided to make a few cuts. Please don't take it personally if one of your sections has been cut - some of it was really clever material!
(3) I've tidied up the plot in a few places. When Wes, Colin and Stan decide to "ring Don" it's to see if Colin can borrow any money, and it's Colin who recounts the story so far rather than Don. Later, I've removed the bit where Ava phones Wes, Colin and Stan as there's no evidence anywhere else that she knows them, or that they've returned to London. The murder of the Cannabis Alliance leader has been dropped as it bears little relation to the rest of the story. I also decided it would make more sense if Don and Ken weren't arrested on arrival in Islip, but simply travelled on to Wick. To deal with the confusion over the purpose and location of the contest, I've rewritten it so that Ken and John are selected for Eurovision after taking part in the contest in Wick. Finally, I've rewritten the quiz show scene so that John receives a "grovelling apology" from the producer rather than being asked to grovel himself (which seems rather nicer!).

I've left the old version here in case anyone wants to make comparisons. Please let me know if there are any changes you're unhappy with.

[RobbieM]

Wow! Thanks! I've just read the whole thing, and it's quite gripping! As you say, a "270-Station" version could be extracted, with some bits removed if they were (1) incorrect, (2) duplicated, (3) were there to put in something that wasn't a Tube station. Unless, of course, they're central to the main plot.

Also, where the main characters are repeated, we don't always need to repeat their surnames (Tacton etc.); the first name often suffices. Then it would read even better.

Then if the capitals are reduced to lowercase letters (where relevant), we could circulate it freely around the internet as a puzzle - 'Find all 270 Tube stations".

Oh, and another thing. When I started this whole thing off; I did so in a hurry. And needed to think of a title. And all I could think of was 'A Story from the Tube' before submitting the first post. Maybe we can think of a cleverer title? Open to suggestions! For example:

"Tubular Knells"
"Tubular Hell"
"Tubular Cells"
"Hidden Underground" (my best idea so far).

[The Orange One]

You removed "The resulting fire from the spark KILBURNed everyone to death"! That was my favourite line. It was inspired.

I only mentioned Wes, Colin and Stan because we'd just gone off on an enormous tangent and I thought it might serve as a reminder that yes, there was half a thrilling story lying abandoned. It worked, didn't it?

[GuyBarry]

You removed "The resulting fire from the spark KILBURNed everyone to death"! That was my favourite line. It was inspired.

Well yes, because firstly it's not grammatical English, secondly Kilburn is mentioned elsewhere, and thirdly (and most importantly) it would have finished the entire story after the second sentence! It was quite funny in the context of the game but I don't think it really belongs in the final version.

I only mentioned Wes, Colin and Stan because we'd just gone off on an enormous tangent and I thought it might serve as a reminder that yes, there was half a thrilling story lying abandoned. It worked, didn't it?

It certainly did. It was only as a result of your post that I thought I ought to read the earlier part of the story to find out what had happened!

[GuyBarry]

"Hidden Underground" (my best idea so far).

I quite like that one - I can't think of anything better.

I might try another version with all the duplicates removed[*]. The sections with duplicate names can always be rewritten so that the plot doesn't alter. Some names are far more popular than others - even after editing there are four "Epping"s, for instance.

[*]Except Edgware Road, Hammersmith and Paddington of course!

[GuyBarry]

Here's another version of the story, with all duplicate references and non-tube-station references removed. Naturally I've had to be even more ruthless in my editing this time so once again apologies to those whose material has been cut. A few further plot changes were necessary; the episodes with Stuart Broad and Johnny Depp have gone, and the trio no longer travel to Sheffield (so the scenes in the convent are relocated to Oxford). Do you think this might work as an actual puzzle once the capitals are removed?

[RobbieM]

Looking good! I haven't checked that all 270 have been included (or that they only appear once!), but I think it will indeed work well. We'll probably need to rewrite an early sentence about the Gunners - as this mentions 'Arsenal' as a word, which may confuse its hidden version. Perhaps "They focused on the relative qualities of North London football teams, and how the GUNNERS BURY their opponents with such style" would do this?

Then we'll need to make sure the rules are explained clearly. For example, people looking for 'Upminster' must know that it has to be found separate from 'Upminster Bridge'. I could also remove (or change) the references to Harrogate and Uruguay; I was preparing myself for possible ways of getting 'Temple' and 'Tubeguru' into the mix; I didn't need to use them in the end. (Then again, perhaps they're bizzare enough to stay...!)

Great work, GuyBarry!