Mister X

 I blogged before about Scotland Yard,one ofmy favourite if not y favourite board game. When I was a child, it solidified my love of England and developedy love ofcrime fiction.In it, you play either a detective from, well Scotland Yard (aka the London Metropolitan Police, or the Met, but Scotland Yard sounds way cooler) orthe mysterious and elusive criminal Mister X. He is described as a criminal mastermind, but we don't know the nature of his crimes,or indeed his background. In the games' images, he's depicted as a man in a trenchcoat, wearing a hat and shades. Well, of course. I always quite liked this aspect of the character: we could imagine anything about him. Both the game and Mr. X made a strong impression on my imaginative mind as a child: my brothers and I invented a make belief game based on the board game (it often happened during my childhood) and Mr. X was one of the first villains we hunted down. I think I even invented some specific crimes for him to commit, some involved blackmail, some other industrial espionage, there might have been weapon trafficking and luxury goods too. Because he was at the start a blank slate, he developed into a memorable villain.