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The Puzzles
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Chris Maslanka's warm-up puzzles
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What's the difference between a bell and
a corrupt politician?
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Sam, Ruth, Ceri and Beryl. Who might be
missing, and why?
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RS, TO, ND, IR, DR, TH. What's next?
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Professor Angela Newing
- Gary's gambling had got him into trouble with the law, and he'd been
in gaol several times, but on this occasion there was the suggestion
of hard labour. Jimmy the gaoler offered him a chance in the form of
two bags of marbles - 16 marbles in all, 8 black ones and 8 white
ones. He told Gary, 'You're a gambling man, so put all the marbles in
the bags you like and I'll shut my eyes and pick one marble from one
of the bags. If it's a white one you can work in the kitchen but if
it's a black one you'll get hard labour'. How should Gary distribute
the marbles between the two bags for his best chance of going to the
kitchen? All the marbles must be used.
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William Hartston
- Imagine you have 26 cards, each one with a different letter of the
alphabet on it. What's the highest number you can SPELL without
repeating any letter? You may not turn the cards upside down or play
other tricks like overlapping the cards!
What's the next smallest number you can spell with the cards?
As well as the twenty six letters you now have a plus (+) sign and an
equals (=) sign. What sum can you spell out?
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Geoffrey Durham
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The word ABRACADABRA has something in common
with the devil's picturebook, something which it shares with at least
three other words: SKIM, TRADED and PEARL. What might that be?
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Write down the word BEAU and add a few Roman
numerals, shuffle them and you'll get the name of a TV-star from the
50s and 60s! Clue - the Roman numerals add up to 351!
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Panel Beater submitted by Maggie Lloyd of Oxford
- How do two ones and one two make one and three in more ways than one
(in fact three)?
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Listeners' Puzzle by Chris Maslanka
- Don Cappuccino has bought a machine which alters your age. You step
inside its box and you emerge a different age. The machine takes your
age in years and turns it upside down. If your age upside down is
still a realistic number that's how old you are when you step out.
However the stress on your body will be such that you can only use the
machine once a year.
Say you're 89 you will emerge a sprightly 68. If you are 96 you come
out the same age. If you are 46 or 67 the machine can do nothing for you
as these numbers are not invertible. Don Cappucino is 65 and he wants to
be a teenager again. What's the soonest he can be a teenager again?
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