The Mystery Clue Master writes:

Snowman (answer – Dell Hard Drive)

So: Snowman. A clue to win a beautiful 1.03 carat ‘emerald cut’ diamond ring – one big prize for the day, so the clue trail had to be even more complex than usual if the Treasure Hunters were not to pounce on it too quickly. I sat back, cracked open another Red Bull – the delights of an occasional tipple are long forgotten, because I’ve got to stay sharp as a tack – and set to work…

Hint: Mince Pies

As you all know, I love mince pies (homemade, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, I don’t care) and a misspent youth in the East End of London has left me with a lasting fondness for Cockney rhyming slang. Mince pies = eyes. A Snowman’s eyes, of course, are traditionally made of Coal. Which brought to mind the wonderful Nat ‘King’ Cole and Old King Coal.

A little obvious perhaps, so I hit upon a newer King Coal – Arthur Scargill, leader of the (coal) Miners Union. So far, so good. Hundreds of you were on the case with coal. elven_shadowcat was just one, but deserves a mention for trying to win, in the teeth of weird British culture, even though hailing from Holland, home of all those weird but wonderful Dutchies. But full marks must go to glamour_ville, hamdi5 and haybarn11 for getting Scargill. Now while it was tempting to run off from Scargill to Lord Scarman (who had just died) and even the Scarface movies, I stuck with Arthur. Who is the most famous Arthur to those residing in these fair shores? Why, the Lost King himself, the Winter King…

The easy shortcut (and there isn’t always one this easy) linked Coal and the Diamond in the prize – both forms of carbon – and then it’s a short hop to ‘hard’ (as diamonds are).

Hint:A Misplaced King

King Arthur is a subject attempted by many over the years, but recently, Bernard Cornwell has done it best. The brilliant author of the Sharpe series (which I believe was made into television with that Geordie chap, forget his name but he was in Lord of the Rings too, you know who I mean) has written The Warlord Chronicles which start with The Winter King: A Novel of Arthur. Only a couple of dozen got what seemed a quite obvious hint for Arthur. A kind fish called bilbobaggins2000 was one (good luck with the driving lessons, by the way, and yes, doing the eBay treasure hunt on a laptop while learning to drive is definitely a no no).

But no-one got Bernard Cornwell at all, even though it is painfully obvious that I read far too many books than is strictly necessary, let alone good for health.

Cornwell is a rather strange way to spell “Cornwall”, and there’s one other – very famous – author called Cornwell, name of David Cornwell. Only his nom de plume is John Le Carré. Now Le Carré may have gone off the boil a bit lately, but his masterwork is Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (a mere 9000 pages via Google).

The not-so-easy shortcut would either be Arthur having a hard life (some of those pesky Knights were hardly to be trusted) or Bernard Cornwell’s heroes, who have tough lives too.

Hint: Rich or Poor

unipos_systems kindly provided the full rhyme “Rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief, tinker, tailor, soldier and as thehighlander100 noted, there are lots of references to the brilliant ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ TV series. Also on the trail were splodge42, multiplicity92, cammi040904 – a wise one who proves that inspiration will sometimes come from stepping away from the computer and relaxing in a bath – and ollym1, who was so close and even mentioned Dell!

This utterly great TV starred Sir Alec Guinness as George Smiley, the spy lured out of retirement to hunt down a mole, a double agent in British Intelligence working for the Soviets. (Not unlike a kind deadly treasure hunt, really). I avoided ‘smiley’ routes, and spent a fruitless hour online trying to find someone who would remind me who the mole George finally uncovers is.

Now ‘rich or poor’ (and all the other variants in the song) suggests a multiplicity of roles. And Alec Guinness famously played no less than 8 parts in the quirkily amusing ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’. Having realised that Teamtreasurehunt.co.uk was already recommending this site, and with a naturally bookish bent, I pounced on the author of the book on which the film script was based, Roy Horniman.

The increasingly difficult ‘easy’ short cut – life can be hard, whether you’re rich or poor, it’s a matter of the cards you’re played, as the children’s fortune-telling game around the rhyme suggests.

Hint: Fred & Gus’s Old Things

The top 3 Google results for “Horniman” take you straight to the famously delightful family-friendly museum of the same name (http://www.horniman.ac.uk/). Founded by Frederick (Fred) Horniman, it’s simply brimming with curious and interesting old things, like most museums. In fact, its world-renowned exhibition of World Cultures (ethnography) is a marvel to behold, and second only to the British Museum in London and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, as its own website announces (http://www.horniman.ac.uk/collections/world.cfm).

But the real treasure-hunters’ delight is surely the Pitt Rivers Museum (http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/), because Lt. Gen. Augustus (Gus) Pitt Rivers insisted that his collection be shoved in as it came, higgledy piggledy. It’s quite amazing, and well worth a visit. Pitt Rivers (and I was tempted to play around with Brad Pitt and River Phoenix, but thought I’d stick with old things for a while) was a remarkable figure. He also had a collection – this time of buildings – at his beautiful Larmer Tree Gardens in Tollyard Royal, Dorset in the stunningly beautiful Cranbourne Chase. There is a very enjoyable annual Larmer Tree music festival of a size and style to suit the Professor and F’s travelling abode (an easily erected tent).

The hardly-easy-at-all-anymore shortcut from here was that this was, to be quite honest, the hardest hint of the Treasure Hunt yet. So hard, in fact, that I thought someone might try “hard” out of sheer head-scratching frustration. Oh well…

Hint: The Other Man

For a certain type of obsessive – “And aren’t we all obsessive, one way or another?” I often muse to F. “Yes, dear”, she says, meaning nothing of the sort – there is only one towering genius to spin on the record deck in time of need. Hailed as the greatest white blues singer of all time by everyone from Eric Clapton and Tracey Chapman to Mark Knopfler and Andy Kershaw, in times of trouble or joy, you simply can’t been Van ‘The Man’ Morrison at his best. A quick search of Van and snow will yield his delicately beautiful and achingly melancholic song, ‘Snow in San Anselmo’. The song comes from the underrated album ‘Hardnose the Highway’. The title may be slang (another hour lost trying to find out), or simply Van’s inspiration, but it’s meaning is clear enough – in hard times, put your nose to the grindstone and drive on…

The somewhat easier shortcut? To know someone else – the other man – is hard, but worthwhile. Or as the ethnographic type has said, “Man cannot know man except in mutuality: in respect, trust, and equality, if not ultimately love.” ‘Ethnography?’ I hear some say. ‘What’s that then?’ Well, apart from a charming little corner of eBay’s Collectables category, as far as I can make out, if you were to ask it what its job was, it would say “it’s know man”.

P.S. On the vexed subject of why a naughty clue elf (who I suspect may have been supping Santa’s mulled wine, vodka, whiskey or Baileys behind his back) gave out an extra clue about how ‘difficult’ it was: as far as I’m aware she has been sent off to clean the reindeer’s stables, and it won’t happen again.



Day 5: Friday’s clue was MINCE PIE

There were 24 Mini iPods up for grabs, here are the solutions.

First Hint: The secret is in the ingredients

Midnight:

One ingredient is apple, of course, who make these lovely iPods. You’ll have seen their ads featuring U2, whose new single is called Vertigo.
Listing title was: Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo - DVD - Unopened!

1am:

You’d probably also want to use apple pulp, which might make you think of Pulp and Jarvis Cocker.
Listing title was: Jarvis Cocker Unauthorised Biography HB

2am

What would a mince pie be without mixed spices? My least favourite was always Posh Spice, who married that nice lad David Beckham.
Listing title was: W@W David Beckham Signed Ball W@W

3am

As with every other meal at Christmas, there’s a bit of lard involved. Mark & Lard are of course presenters on the nation’s flagship radio station, Radio 1.
Listing title was: On The Air - Brief History of Radio 1 – New

4am

Oh, a spoonful of sugar… which makes me think of the Sugababes – didn’t they all sing on BandAid 20?
Listing title was: BandAid 20 - Do They Know It's Christmas?

5am

As a child I could never stomach raisins – though I did like that silly themed band the California Raisins. They recorded a cover of Heard It Through the Grapevine, you know. Geddit?
Listing title was: Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine

Breakfast Hint: The secret ingredients include music

6am

Some exotic mince pies contain mixed peel. Which makes me think (sadly) of John Peel, whose favourite song was Teenage Kicks.
Listing title was: Undertones - Teenage Kicks CD Single Used

7am

As well as raisins, you’d surely want sultanas. Which made us think of those ‘Sultans of Swing’, Dire Straits.
Listing title was: Dire Straits - Money For Nothing - Literally!

8am

Let’s have a bit more apple. (Yes, sorry, we used one ingredient twice, but the best chefs never fuss over exact quantities…) That was the name of the Beatles’ record company, and without doubt the lynch-pin of that pop combo was Ringo Starr. ‘Ringo’ is also the Japanese for ‘apple’, fact-fans.
Listing title was: Ringo Starr - A Drummer's Life For Me - P/B

9am

These days you have to use margarine instead of butter – mmm, marge. Might make you think of the Simpsons.
Listing title was: Simpsons - Season 5 DVD - Pre-Order!!

10am

And let’s not forget lemon. Continuing today’s musical theme, and to encourage all you harassed hunters to chill out, we were thinking of Lemonjelly and one of their fine albums.
Listing title was: Lost Horizons CD - Rather Scratched


Elevenses Hint: Liquid goes with musical secret ingredients…

11am

To really pile on the pounds, there’s nothing like fresh cream. Like the band Cream, which featured that nice man Eric Clapton.
Listing title was: Eric Clapton Signed Guitar - COA and Photo!

12pm

And now that we’re into the afternoon it was definitely time for some mulled wine. Mull… mull… Mull of Kintyre! Which makes you think of the McCartneys.
Listing title was: Linda McCartney Vegetarian Sauce - Used

1pm

More mulled wine, or Red Red Wine, to put you in mind of UB40. What are UB40s called these days anyway?
Listing title was: UB40 Ticket Stub - Sentimental Value?

2pm

One more glass of mulled wine – getting a little tiddly now, so this took us to Lilac Wine, sung by Katie Melua and written by Mike Batt, who also wrote the Wombles song.
Listing title was: Wombles Wombling Free - Children's LP

3pm

Time for something stronger – like brandy (or brandy butter if you’d prefer). Brandy is also a singer-cum-actress whose most recent film was Osmosis Jones.
Listing title was: Osmosis Jones Farrelly Bros DVD R2


Afternoon Hint: Now forget the mince…

4pm

So that just leaves us with Pie. Pie? Pi!!! One of you speedy creatures got this one in seconds.
Listing title was: 3.141592654 - Hurry!

5pm

Pie… pork pie…gosh, these are very easy – lucky old afternoon hunters!
Listing title was: Man's Green Pork Pie Hat - Shop-Soiled

6pm

Pie… what were those cartoons that used to fill Saturday afternoons? Ah yes, Tweety Pie. And Sylvester. I did, I did!!!
Listing title was: Sylvester Stallone Rambo Film Cell - Signed!

7pm

“Pie, Pie, Miss American Pie...” Madonna covered that, you know. And she’s got a little girl called Lourdes. Which is quite an odd name, when you think about it, but ideal for a word-association game like this one.
Listing title was: Holy Water Gourd from Lourdes


After Eight Hint: Sounds Like…

8pm

Mince Pie is Cockney rhyming-slang for eye. What an edifying game this is.
Listing title was: Eyeshadow - Chanel Bronze

9pm

Mince sounds like quince. I’ve never been mad on quinces, but I do like that Quincy Jones, him wot made all those records in the ‘80s.
Listing title was: Quincy Jones Bio - My Life With Michael

10pm

Mince also sounds like mints (yes, it was getting late…) The most common mint that occurs naturally in the wild is, of course, the peppermint. So let’s look for some pepper-related items:
Listing title was: Pepper Grinder - Shaped Like J-Lo!

11pm

And mince definitely sounds like chintz. We’ve got an entire category for it in our Pottery section, should you care to defy popular opinion and kit your home out with some.
Listing title was: Large Chintz Plate Mug Bowl Set

Day 4: Thursday's Clue

Cracker

And the Published hints:
1: Forget Robbie Coltrane
2: Nothing to do with Jacobs
3: It's Friday

The clue_elf says: It was a three-step lateral word association. Brrrr...

From Cracker you would progess to crackerjack (obviously the "It's Friday" hint there was crucial) and then taking the Jack you'd progress to a suitably wintry Jack Frost (clever so and sos might also see Jack Frost is a detective but not Cracker) and thus by simple word association to Frost Fair. The winning title was for a Frost Fair engraving. As an added hint 1655 (five to five) was in the item title and we sent the listing live at 16:55.

Day 3:

Clue: Partridge
Answer: Has Mittens

The Clue Elf says: We were seriously lateral today. Ha ha. Answer: 'Navy Boy's Jacket - Has Mittens'

You asked us to make our clues more British, so we could obviously only be referring to Alan Partridge, Norfolk's most famous son. And if you're thinking of Norfolk and thinking of treasure, you were surely thinking of Snettisham, a charming little town where a fabulous treasure was discovered in 1948.

And because this was still too easy, we made it into an anagram ‘Has Mittens’ – and hid it in the baby clothing category. It still only took three hours to be found…


Day 2:

Clue: Holly
Answer: Ilex aquifolium

The Clue Elf says: Obviously not hard enough again. It's the Latin name for Holly. The winner found the car in less than a minute. Grrrr.

Day 1:

Clue: Rudolph
Answer: Giuliani

The Clue Elf says: Just too easy, a straight-forward one-jump word association. But I had to make it easy so you could warm up. Tee hee.