THIS week, I am deeply distressed by the untimely and unnecessary demise of an old friend I assumed would always be around and who would always be game for a laugh.
I have nothing in common with the old colonel in question – quite the opposite, in fact. He was an archetypal Englishman, a former military man of the old-colonial school and a bit of a dashing blade, while I am an archetypal Scot, a former milk monitor of the old-comprehensive school and my blade is now pretty blunt.
I am referring to the magnificently mustachioed Colonel Mustard, from the splendid board game Cluedo. I am less enthused, however, by the not so splendid scheme from its producers, Hasbro, to give it a radical revamp.
The classic game features a gathering at a stately home during which the host is murdered. One exotic guest is guilty and the object is to discover the weapon used, the scene of the crime and the murderer’s identity. Only Cluedo anoraks or pub-quiz freaks usually know the victim’s name or that of his stately home, so award yourself a gold medal if you remember both. Read on if you can’t.
Cluedo first appeared in 1949 with a list of characters that have become household names, not only in the stately homes of England, but also across the world.
Things are changing, however. Colonel Mustard has been dumbed-down by Hasbro into Jack Mustard, a former footballer turned sports pundit. The absent-minded academic Professor Plum is now video-game billionaire Victor Plum, and the pious Reverend Green becomes Jack Green, a fixer with a finger in every pie.
Even the delectable but dangerous Miss Scarlett has had a celebrity makeover that has seen her transformed from a lusciously lecherous creature into movie star Kasandra Scarlet. She’s been stripped of the second “t” in her surname, too.
The new Mrs Peacock and Mrs White are also barely recognisable from before, while new murder weapons of a dumb-bell, axe and baseball bat have joined the familiar candlestick, revolver, lead piping and rope.
The stately home is now a modern mansion with a boardroom instead of a ballroom and a spa instead of a library. It’s more Beckingham Palace than Buckingham Palace, sadly. It’s all pointless PC puffery, I reckon.
My main gripe, though, is that Hasbro has missed a marvellous marketing opportunity to boost its Scottish sales. I am sure it wouldn’t mind me moving the game’s setting to Aberdeen and replacing the opulent stately home with the Granite City’s grandest building, the former Marischal College, now set to be the pricey new home of Aberdeen City Council. The bulldozers moved in last week.
Instead of Cluedo, my new game is to be called Clueless. The object is not to unmask a murderer, but to discover who is guilty of killing off the city’s finances.
To win, players must dodge a deluge of denials and a cornucopia of cover-ups designed to ensure that those intimately involved avoid even the tiniest crumb of culpability for the city’s current collapse of credibility.
My six Clueless characters are based loosely on those in the traditional Cluedo game.
That’s not to say that any of them are solely responsible for the mess in which the city is wallowing. Individually, they are all whiter than white, we are told. Just like an unwashed miner’s Marmite sandwich, I suppose.
Cluedo’s Mrs White, the chief cook and servant of long standing, is replaced in Clueless by Lib Dem council leader Kate Dean. As the leader’s day job is an administrator with her family’s plumbing business, her weapon of choice might well be the lead piping.
Deputy leader Kevin Stewart, SNP, is convener of the resources management committee and has a keen interest in European affairs and regeneration. As he is one of the few who do, I see him as a substitute for Professor Plum. For trying to shed light on these murky areas, the candlestick is his likely weapon.
Tory leader Alan Milne, a retired GP, is the new Colonel Mustard, although it’s unfair to allocate him a likely murder implement given his life-saving profession.
Labour leader Len Ironside replaces Reverend Green with his weapon as the rope. As a former champion wrestler he must have been on the ropes before, surely?
Two characters remain. Incoming interim chief executive Robert Coomber is a shoo-in for wealthy Mrs Peacock, especially at a reported salary of £1,000 a day.
That leaves outgoing chief executive Douglas Paterson to be Miss Scarlett, even although their only common feature is that, after months of council chaos, his face is probably the same colour as her dress. If it isn’t, it should be.
As for the scene of the crime, options range from the council chamber to myriad meeting rooms and offices. You choose.
So who wins in Clueless? Anyone elected as an Aberdeen councillor, it seems.
And the losers? If your name is on an Aberdeen City council-tax bill, it’s you.
Finally to my heroes of the week and congratulations to clued-up Peterhead folk who turned out in force to support the town’s long-established Scottish Week gala. The event’s future was threatened by a combination of apathy and red tape, but it now seems secure after dozens packed a meeting at the Waterside Inn to keep it alive.
It would have been easy for the people of Peterhead to let disinterest dominate, so it is heartening to see enthusiasm for the popular public event remain. Well done.
Scottish Weeks were established in many towns, 50-odd years ago, to showcase local produce, but Peterhead’s is one of the few remaining now. It would have been a crime had it been allowed to die. The town’s future would have been black.
Oh yes, and for those who couldn’t remember, it was a Dr Black who was the Cluedo murder victim. He owned the stately home involved, Tudor Hall. What happened to his fortune afterwards, though? Just as in Aberdeen, no one has a clue.