7 Reasons

Tag: traditional

  • 7 Reasons Modern Cluedo Is Murder

    7 Reasons Modern Cluedo Is Murder

    I’m not really paying too much attention as Rob sets up the game. I’m too busy hitting my phone against my knee in an attempt to try and make the Eurosport app work.

    “Who do you want to be?” he asks.

    “Colonel Mustard,” I reply. I’m always Colonel Mustard.

    “You’ll have to be Jack Mustard.”

    “Pardon?”

    “There’s no Colonel Mustard anymore. It’s Jack Mustard.”

    I get up and move to the table. I look at the scene in front of me. Oh crikey! Oh blimey! Oh deary, deary me! Cluedo has changed! I don’t like it. I haven’t even started playing yet, but I instinctively know I don’t like it.

    7 Reasons Modern Cluedo Is Murder

    1.  The Characters. They’ve all changed. They’ve all been… modernised! Colonel Mustard is now Jack Mustard. A former football player come pundit. Think Jamie Redknapp. I don’t want to play Cluedo as Jamie Redknapp. But what are the other options? Kasandra Scarlett, an egotistical ‘actress’. Think Kerry Katona. I don’t want to play as her either. Then we have Diane White, a former child-star still waiting for her moment of fame. Then there’s Jacob Green, the former white reverend turned black cool dude. Eleanor Peacock isn’t much better. She’s the wealthy daughter of a former politician. Presumably one who is in prison following the expenses scandal. Finally we have Victor Plum, a video game designer and self-made millionaire. And they’re all tits.

    2.  The Weapons. Rope? Check. Candlestick? Check. Dagger? Sort of. It’s now a knife. Revolver? Check. Lead Pipe? No check. It’s now a baseball bat. A baseball bat?! If you’re going to update it at least make it a cricket bat! Spanner? No check. It’s now a dumbbell. And we have new weapons too. There’s some poison, an axe and a trophy. Which no doubt belongs to Jack ‘Wholegrain’ Mustard. Probably his ‘Knob Of The Year’ award.

    3.  The Rooms. Can I read a book in the conservatory? No I can’t. That’s because Kasandra has had the builders in and replaced it with a spa. Also out is the ball room, the cellar, the billiard room, the library, the study and the lounge. Replacing them in the Chigwell manor is a patio, a pool, a theatre, a living room, an observatory and a guest house.

    4.  The Cards. Apart from having a make-over, there are new cards. Intrigue cards. The name, sadly, defies their being. The Intrigue cards are formed of two kinds. Keepers and Clocks. Draw a Keeper card and you get to look at another player’s cards. Draw a Clock card and you might be killed off by the murder. If this happens you are out of the game. What’s wrong with that you may ask? Well quite a lot. I got killed off on my second go. Which meant Rob had no option but to make an accusation. He was wrong. Game over in four minutes.

    5.  The Name. It’s not even called Cluedo anymore. It’s called Cluedo: Discover The Secrets. Has there ever been a more unnecessary sub-name in the history of board gaming? Actually, in gaming full-stop? No, scrap that. Has there ever been a more unnecessary sub-name? Ever.

    6.  The Design. I won’t lie to you, it’s gone to tackville. The simplicity, charm and vintage style of the original has been thrown into the bin of class to be replaced by smug looks and bright colours. It’s abhorrent. It’s vulgar. It’s vomit-inducing. It’s enough to make Professor’s Plums shrivel.

    7.  The Result. I lost. I had never lost a game of ‘traditional’ Cluedo in my life. I was family champion year after year after year. I was so good that whenever I asked school mates if they wanted a game at break-time they would immediately say no and call me a ‘freak’. Yes, I was so good that they had to resort to petty name calling and writing false accusations about me on the toilet wall. This modern version killed me. Again and again and again. I will not be playing it again. Again.

  • 7 Reasons To Wear A Top Hat

    7 Reasons To Wear A Top Hat

     

    Hello 7 Reasons readers.  I’m almost breathless with excitement as I’ve just worked out what we should all be wearing and it’s…a top hat.  Here’s why.

    1.  You Can Cause A Stir.  The sight of the top hat was initially shocking; according to an officer of the Crown the wearer of the first one, James Hetherington “…appeared on the public highway wearing upon his head what he called a silk hat (which was shiny luster and calculated to frighten timid people)”, he also stated that “…several women fainted at the unusual sight, while children screamed, dogs yelped and a younger son of Cordwainer Thomas was thrown down by the crowd which collected and had his right arm broken”.  Now, top hats are less shocking these days than they were in the eighteenth century, but you’ll still cut a dash.

    2.  It Will Make Us Better At Sport.  Now it might not be immediately obvious why this is so and you’re probably thinking that surely a top hat would be a little cumbersome to wear during sport, and you’d be right too.  But let’s look at what happened the last time top hats were popular; one of the most popular pastimes for urchins (after picking pockets, bursting into song, pilfering roasted chestnuts and suffering from rickets) was knocking the top hats off gentlemen by hurling things at them.  Surely this would be just as much fun for modern children (and me, come to think of it).  In fact, knocking people’s top hats off would be all the motivation that our young people would need to spend their time diligently honing their throwing actions, and pursuing them after they’d done so would improve their running skills too.  If we wore top hats, we’d surely see an improvement in cricketing standards some way down the line.

    3.  It’s An Act Of Benevolence.  When was the last time that you saw someone with a tall cylindrical head?  That’s right, you probably haven’t, and do you know why?  That’s because unfortunates with heads shaped like the funnels of steamships probably feel too self-conscious to leave the house.  So what better way of restoring to them a normal, dignified life would there be than for us all to wear top hats?  Then having a tall cylindrical head would cease to be a stigma for sufferers who could disguise it with a top hat themselves.

    4.  It’s An Egalitarian Act.  At the moment, the foremost wearers of top hats in the UK are Eton schoolboys, but should Etonians get all the fun?  After all, they get to spend years wearing a top hat and, eventually, they get to run the country too.  If we want a more equitable society then we need to reclaim the top hat from the privileged few and wear it ourselves.  We may not get to be in charge, but we’ll look bloody marvellous while we’re going about our business of not running things while in a really good hat.  We’ll be recovering a grand traditional item of apparel that is as quintessentially British as cheese and chutney sandwiches or being attacked by a wasp in a beer garden. What’s more, we’ll be reclaiming it for the masses.  That’s us!

    5.  It’s A Practical Hat.  Nowadays almost everyone has at least one digital camera with them when they go out, but people rarely carry tripods.  A top hat though, with its horizontal surface is an ideal camera platform.  You can also keep your camera in your top hat as there’s a fair bit of storage space there.  You can use it to store other things too; biscuits, a small owl, a good book, a book by Dan Brown, a series of smaller top hats ever diminishing in size:  The list of things you can carry in there is boundless.  In fact, ironically, the list of things you can store in your top hat is so large that it’s one of the few things that you won’t be able to store in your top hat.  You’d need a cavernous hat to store the list in; a veritable behemoth of a hat; a hat the size of a house; a hat that you could get lost in.  Where was I?

    6.  It Aids Peer Recognition.  Most social groups have shared readily identifiable features that their members can use to spot one another.  Hipsters can tell other hipsters by their shirts and glasses; MCC members can recognise other MCC members by their egg and bacon ties; gits can spot gits by looking into a mirror and seeing Piers Morgan, and 7 Reasons readers can distinguish other 7 Reasons readers because they are carrying their laundry basket around with them.  If you wear a top hat, you’ll be able to spot your peers – other top hat wearers – in a crowd, from the other side of moderately high walls and in cars with sunroofs.  You can’t put a price on the camaraderie of the hat.

    7.  It Helps Others.  Want to help a humourist who’s just decided to spend his birthday money on a top hat?  Of course you do.  You can do that just by wearing a top hat, thus making him feel slightly less self-conscious about wearing one himself.  Because I’d like to don a top hat and amble around the streets of my city without people pointing and mocking; without being shrieked at by hideous hen parties and being taunted by even more hideous groups of stags; without children guffawing at my distinctive and wondrous headpiece while shouting, “hat!”.   I’d consider it a personal favour if everyone that has read this were to go out and buy a top hat today.  We could start a revolution, or at least make me look a little less ridiculous, which would be no mean feat.  Go now.  Go buy a hat!