Cuttin up rough in Newtownstewart

SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE

A family’s annual ritual of Monopoly over the festive period came close to escalating into violence last night.

Brothers Dominic, Gary, and Tommy Boyce, had gathered at their parent’s house in Newtonstewart to play the Monopoly board game, an activity undertaken every Christmas as a tradition dating back to 1987 when they were given the game as a present by their aunt.

Trouble began just seconds into the game after eldest brother Dominic, 39, landed on ‘Income Tax Pay £200’ when he was promptly ridiculed by both Gary, 36, and Tommy, 34, as being the first time Dominic would ever have bothered paying money to the tax man. He got his own back shortly afterwards when Tommy received a Community Chance ‘Speeding Fine Pay £15’, which was the cause of much hilarity as he had been banned for a year for dangerous driving only two weeks ago in Omagh.

Tommy immediately responded by buying Pentonville for £120 and building a blockade across it with a pile of yellow Connect 4 counters, and refusing to let the other two past until they had apologised for their remarks.

Minutes later Dominic landed on Go To Jail, and under new house rules introduced by Gary on the spur of the moment, was told that he would be interned indefinitely until both he and Tommy allowed him out for good behaviour. Dominic responded by threatening to hold a protest rally near the corner of the board unless he was allowed to continue, whilst Tommy was also sent to jail by his two brothers for what he defended as ‘an unexplained accounting error’ after £5,000 disappeared from the bank.

Gary, who adopted a high risk strategy throughout the game of investing in 16 houses and 4 hotels and placing them all on Whitechapel went bankrupt after just 50 minutes, and asked Tommy as the banker to re-mortgage all of them for £800. Tommy responded by saying that since the game commenced ‘the arse had fallen out of the housing market’ and offered a derisory £5 for the lot.

The game then escalated into a series of tit-for-tat reprisals, with Gary and Dominic refusing to award Tommy £10 for ‘Winning Second Prize In A Beauty Contest’ on the basis that he had a ‘face like a squashed trout’, whilst Tommy and Dominic rejected Gary’s financial demands for ‘It’s Your Birthday Collect £10 From Each Player’, on the grounds that it wasn’t his birthday at all, and besides, what the feck had he ever given them for their birthdays.

The altercation looks set to continue later this evening as they gather to play Trivial Pursuit