I've always hated Monopoly. Even when I owned Mayfair and Park Lane and had 15 hotels and 41 houses on each, I still detested the tedium of it.

Not only did you have to land on every single property from a set (nigh on impossible) to have any chance at all of staying afloat, there were those pitfalls - Go to Jail, Bank Deposit - pay £100, Income Tax - pay £200.

It dragged on for so long, and to the best of my knowledge I can't remember anyone ever emerging as winner. On the rare occasions I played with my friends, our threshold was about four hours.

Those old feelings of boredom emerged even before we brought out the box when, at the weekend, my daughters, brother and me settled down to play.

I wasn't keen, but as the game was a birthday present for my eldest daughter, I relented.

From the outset, I was horror-struck. It wasn't Monopoly as I knew it, with Old Kent Road, Bond Street and Fenchurch Street Station, but the Yorkshire edition. I hadn't seen it before and was shocked to find place names selected not for their significance within the county, but their links to firms which had, I assume, sponsored the game.

Bowers Row, home to Biffa; Humbrol at Marfleet, Hull; and our own Sunbridge Road, alongside Butterfield signs. And, fictitious names too - Aidensfield and Emmerdale. When will people realise, these are not real places?

I actually found myself pining for the Monopoly of old, for Whitechapel Road, Leicester Square and Northumberland Avenue. At least that game taught us something about the geography of London. We weren't building hotels on a made-up Albert Square, but the real Trafalgar Square.

As a child, it was the nearest I got to London, and even now when I go there, places ring bells. Who can honestly say they travel down the Old Kent Road without thinking of Monopoly?

Only now, despite its historically bad name, you need wads of Monopoly £500 notes to get on the property ladder. And we're not talking house or hotel. If Monopoly is to move with the times they should be talking flat-shares, bedsits and affordable housing.

A new version of the game is shortly being released, based on the number of votes towns and cities get. It might be an improvement on the Yorkshire edition, but you never know, we could end up with the likes of Slough, Basil-don and Peterlee.

So, on with our game. After half-an-hour I was bored. My brother was just the opposite. As he played, with enthusiasm oozing from every pore, he recalled how he used to stash Monopoly notes from his own set into his socks, when a game was in progress at a friend's house. "Our games went on for weeks," he proudly announced. It was comforting to know he had a job to go to the next morning.

We played for an hour. Thankfully, the children had school the next day, which was a good enough reason to call it a day.

However, I was instructed to make a note of everyone's property portfolio, and bank balance - ready to resume when my brother visits again. For once, I'm relieved he doesn't call that often.