Miss Curnow is getting Monopoly for Christmas. I think I'm fairly safe to broadcast the fact, since she never reads my column anyway. With a typically female attitude, she once got rather affronted when I told her I was writing about her; and then a few weeks later got even more affronted when I told her that I wasn't. But either way she never gets as far as actually reading it, so I could happily list every present she's getting and she still wouldn't find out.

She's been wanting to get Monopoly for a while now, ever since playing it at a friend's house. My initial instinct, and without wishing to sound like an over-protective father, was that she was far too young for such a 'complicated' game; but thinking rather more sensibly about it, I suppose I was the same age when I first became obsessed with it. I have a vague half-memory of playing it (with Grandpa I think) in my Aunt's dining room, which as well as sketching out some little picture of domestic routine, also pins down when it must have been. When Grandpa and Uncle first built that house (I daresay there were actually more than just the two of them involved, but the photographs showing various stages of construction only ever seem to feature them, with the occasional guest appearance from my brother who, being about eight at the time was probably there in a purely supervisory capacity); anyway, when the house was first built it had a separate kitchen and dining-room, which very shortly afterwards was knocked through into one large kitchen-cum-diner. I'm digressing slightly (not for the first (or last) time) but I suppose that means that I was playing Monopoly when I was six, maybe seven, and therefore almost certainly when I was younger than Little Miss is now.

The subject of Monopoly actually came up at our works Christmas Do last night, along with such other diverse subjects as "how come we all know the catchphrases from Little Britain yet none of us watches it?", "why are fathers so over-protective?" and "you have how many gerbils?" The Christmas Do might have garnered a column in its own right, but since yours truly got a little bit drunk, it's perhaps best to draw a veil over the occasion. I didn't get (he added quickly and defensively) dancing-on-the-tabletops, you're-my-best-mate-you-are, a-repeat-of-the-2002-do, drunk; but I was, I suppose, wobbling, straight-to-bed-when-you-get-home, it'll-be-mentioned-on-Monday-morning drunk. Oddly enough when I sat down at the table, my place setting had two wine glasses, and the bottle was placed right in front of me, so maybe it was a conspiracy - and since I only had two or three glasses of wine, and a half-pint of cider, maybe somebody was actually spiking my drink. With, er, alcohol... Anyway, whether my temporary inebriation was 'Lee Harvey Oswald' or 'Grassy Knoll' in origin, I don't think I could produce a column around the event without mentioning the drunken stupor, hence some vague witterings about Monopoly.

Ah yes, Monopoly! The subject actually came up at our works Christmas Do last night (hmm, deja vu) and my boss's wife revealed that one of her nephews as a child got very upset because his sisters wouldn't let him buy Old Kent Road. He's now 25, but it was clearly one of those anecdotes that is trotted out on every possible occasion. The only other Monopoly anecdote I am aware of (although if you do have any of your own dear reader, please feel free to, er, well to keep them to yourself) is of my Mum's friend from her schooldays. If the game looked like it was about to end due to players becoming bankrupt, he would apparently pick up a Chance card which allegedly read, "Old Uncle Bertie dies, leaving every player five hundred pounds"...

I suppose Christmas is the time when board games get played the most. We invariably end up with at least one most years - Buckaroo (that's the rooting, tooting, bucking game) and Mousetrap have been the two most recent. The trouble with these things is that they are fine once or twice on Christmas Day, and then again on Boxing Day, but by the time you're moving into February the novelty (to an adult at least) tends to have faded.

It's interesting though, although possibly not as interesting as all that, that in an age of computer games and the like, there is still a place left for the humble, non-electronic, played without batteries, board game. Perhaps, like the poor, they are always with us, and it would certainly appear that Monopoly is as popular as ever it was. Quite possibly it's more popular than ever - we eventually opted to get the Simpsons version of Monopoly, rather than the traditional one, and although we ended up buying it at Argos a quick trawl on the Internet revealed a staggering number of variations. Lisa Simpson herself (you know, the Buddhist, just like my little girl) once enumerated the contents of their toy cupboard, including Gallipolopoy and Edna Krabappoly; and the reality is even more unlikely. As well as regional variations (Cornish Monopoly, Essex Monopoly) there are foreign versions, Disney versions, Star Wars, Toy Story, Barbie...

I'm not quite sure what Monopoly's appeal is, over and above other board games, but it clearly has a certain something. We have in our armoury of games a thing called "Go!" which is (or rather, was) also made by Waddingtons, but clearly dates from sometime around the Suez Crisis judging by the state of the box. In some ways it's quite similar to Monopoly (and I suspect that if it had been released by somebody other than Waddingtons there might have been a lawsuit in the offing) but the gist of the game is that you have to visit locations around the world, buying tickets to get there by, to coin a phrase, trains and boats and planes. The winner is the one who returns to London, in the manner of Phileas Fogg (and although it doesn't, the rather turgid gameplay does make it feel like it has gone on for eighty days) with a specified number of souvenirs from the various countries.

Even worse, we also have a game, clearly released in the excitement of Man landing on the Moon, called "Blast Off!" but when I tell you that the model spaceships are the most exciting thing about it, you will probably all hold off from scouring eBay to try and get your hands on it. Like Doctor Who's much maligned "The Space Pirates" this game has realistic looking ships, but its determination to show space travel in real terms (so that you need to have a rocket booster as well as a space ship, and allow time for your journey, and use the moon as a stepping-stone to Mars and so on) results in something so dreadfully dull and boring that to be honest its absence from the BBC Archives/Waddingtons 2004 Catalogue is probably no bad thing.

So what does Monopoly have that the others don't have? I should love to suggest that it has some inately comfortable appeal, something that means it is a warm and cosy game for all the family... but I don't think it does. Where I think Monopoly appeals to us, more so than perhaps any other game, is in the way that you win. In most games the winner is the first player to catch the mouse, or get back to London, or to reach all the planets in the solar system before Jamie and Zoe die on the LIZ 79... but with Monopoly, you win by making all the other players bankrupt. In other words, schadenfreude (a rather pretentious word that I ought to be ashamed to admit I only know by its use in "The Simpsons" - Lisa again!) which is delighting in the misfortune of others - or in Monopoly terms, winning by the misfortune of others.

I think it's this appeal to the nastier, greedier, more ruthless side of all our natures that is the real success story behind Monopoly. It allows us to indulge that part of ourselves in a comparatively safe way - although there may be the occasional casualty ("They won't let me buy Old Kent Road, Auntie Pam!") it's all fairly harmless, and nobody really loses their fancy apartment on Park Lane, or their swanky red hotel on The Angel Islington.

So as you relax in your sitting-rooms on Christmas Day afternoon, letting the turkey settle, deciding whether to watch The Queen's Speech or not, and bemoaning that TV isn't as good as it used to be, spare a thought for us won't you. For here at Curnow Towers, we shall be commemorating the Christmas spirit of love and goodwill to all mankind... by trying to force each other into sleeping on the streets of Springfield, stony broke without a penny to our names!

Merry Christmas!