Sorry, I haven’t a clue
(Costumed Cluedo playing. Clockwise from top left: Miss Scarlett (revolver), Col. Mustard (dagger), Mrs White (rope), Mrs Peacock (candlestick), The Professors Plum (lead piping) and Reverend Green (spanner): Glasgow, Scotland)
Cluedo is a family game that requires more guile and memory than I possess. However, that doesn’t quell my enjoyment of it. Here we are at a themed dinner party, each of the attendees dressed as one of the six characters from the board game. I was lucky enough to be given Mrs Peacock as my character – a boon since I already had the vaguely faux-Egyptian beaded floor length dress. It looks like it may have belonged to an aging singer – past their prime – often frequenting the likes of Las Vegas in more sequins than their age should allow. It makes me feel uncomfortably like a mature Liza Minelli. Not favourable. The dress itself rarely has an outing (in fact, the first and last time was almost a year ago) owing to its flagrant stylistic overkill, outrageous shoulder pads and its exhausting weight.
There was a fine turn out and everyone adhered to their characters impeccably. I’ve never had such fun playing a detective board game. There was a couple dressed as Professor Plum as there were a shortage of characters, but they made a wonderful show of wearing the name pinned to their jackets, one word each. So with them, we had our academic(s), a femme fatale, the quasi glamourous old bat (me), a preacher, a military man and a cook.
In the end, Reverend Green won the game, but it was my character who bashed Doctor Black with some blunt instrument or other. Mind you, it would have been difficult to beat anyone to death using our botched cardboard cut out weapons – my candlestick would have perhaps caused a paper cut, or maybe the residual gold paint fumes would have given someone a dizzy spell. It all began to get rather less subdued by the end of the night when we were playing the card game ‘Pit’. It involved much shouting, and the instructions read ‘Fast, informal, innocent fun’, or words to that effect. If you’ve never played Cluedo (or Pit), I heartily recommend it – it has the capacity for great fun and a lot of strategic guesswork. It also offers the chance to dress up and be silly. One of my favourite games.
– Today Rosie is tutoring, drawing more calendar months and is going to choir practice in Glasgow, Scotland –
