ADSR

[Kapitano]

Sean, Adam, Drew and Rick are two couples.

One has invited the other to their place for an evening meal,

and probably later a movie.

Rick tells a joke and Sean laughs even though he doesn't get it, while Adam rolls his eyes and smiles - he's heard Rick tell it a dozen times before. Drew helps Adam carve the beef, while Sean spoons out vegetables onto everyone's plate, himself last. Rick nibbles on a baked carrot and makes a little appreciative "Hmm" noise.

I sometimes wonder what an anthropologist from another planet would make of our little rituals. The way we dress, act, and speak. The things we say and the things we really mean.

I've known these people for years. I was at college with my boyfriend before he became my boyfriend, and we both knew our hosts when they started dating. They were the proverbial odd couple, with an age difference of nine years and contrasting attitudes to punctuality and neatness, but they surprised everyone - including probably themselves - by staying together.

Drew has difficulty opening the bottle of wine. He gives it to Rick to try and eventually the cork comes out. Adam sips his wine first. Sean proposes a toast and all four raise their glasses.

Two of the men are also having a secret relationship.

Sean's boyfriend went to the same school as Drew.

Adam's boyfriend once worked for the same company as Sean.

Yes alright, I'm carrying on with one of them, and it's not my boyfriend, and his boyfriend has no idea, and if one of us slips and it gets out...well I don't know what'll happen. But it'll be bad.

So yes, there is something else going on here. We're both nervous and desperate not to show it. Sometimes when I look across the table and our eyes meet there's a moment of shared fear - so I try not to make eye contact. Someone might see it.

There must be a thousand little clues which would tell our alien anthropologist that our hosts are very much in love - subtleties of body posture, movement, expression. Even the way they manage to co-ordinate their eating and speaking, so one holds up the conversation while the other chews.

But if that's true, there must be a hundred clues that there's discord mixed in the harmony. They argued earlier, before we arrived. They didn't mention it, but I can tell.

They've broken up a few times, once for six months, but they always get back together.

Rick passes the jug of gravy to Drew, who offers it to Adam, but Adam signals that he doesn't need any more. Sean starts talking about a documentary he saw on television last night. When the others show interest, he goes into more detail.

Sean is Rick's boyfriend.

Rick is not having an affair with Drew.

I love my boyfriend. I just can't think of anything to say about him. He's just...nice. When he's with me we can happily spend the whole day in separate rooms, so long as we share a bed at the end of it. But when he's not around I miss him terribly.

This whole...thing started when he was out of town, about a year ago. I was feeling very sorry for myself, trying to think of an excuse to call him. But then someone called me.

I didn't even recognise the voice at first, sniffing and weeping down the phone at me. "He's gone, walked out, says he's never coming back, says he hates me, I don't know what to do, oh god..."

So I went over and...yeah, you can guess can't you. We just needed someone to listen, hold our hands and say it'll be alright.

Of course they did get back together, and we agreed that we should forget what had happened because we both had really great partners of our own. So let's never mention it again, but before that, let's just have one...last...yeah, right.

Adam starts to say something, but is interrupted by Drew choking on a piece of food. Sean asks if he needs help, but Drew says he's okay. Rick looks relieved. The four eat in silence for a minute before Sean takes up the conversation again.

Drew is not having an affair with Sean.

Sean once went on a date with Adam,

but this was their only romantic involvement.

Rick takes the last baked potato, cheerfully munching on the leftovers as Adam pours himself another half glass of wine and Drew leans back in his chair, a little overfull. Sean is still talking, the others occasionally nodding to show they're still listening.

I am Adam.

Who is my boyfriend?

Who are the other couple?

Which one is my lover?

Give your answer in full.

[Bruin Fisher]

Hey, this was fun.

I reckon I've got it worked out and in addition I reckon I know who cooked the meal and who's the oldest person and how the other three met. But shush my mouth, I'm bragging.

Thanks for an entertaining coffee break, Kapitano!

Bruin

[Camy]

Dearest Kapitano! You suck!

This took me right back to those stupid, STUPID 'effing puzzle books that I HATE!

They cost around ?2.20p and come complete with sudoku puzzles, spot the difference pictures, and with questions like:

'The train that is going 15 miles an hour northbound will pass the train southbound from Leeds in 2 hours 17 minutes. On each train are 27 sheep, 14 mules, one cat and a Raven. What colour are the conductor's briefs?

Yep, I'm the STUPID ARSE WHO CAN'T SOLVE THE PUZZLE! or the bloody Sudoku, either ... though 'spot the difference' is a piece of piss! Yay for me.

So, much as I adore you, you suck for reminding me of my brain's cotton picking ineptitude.

However, seeing as how 'they' seem to be so popular, and on behalf of Bruin, may I request *grits teeth* more, pretty please?

GAH!!!!!

Camy

P.S. Seriously, please do write more.

[Bruin Fisher]

Camy, do you mean like this:

Imagine you are the driver of a bus, which leaves the terminus with three passengers. It stops at fifteen points on its journey and at each point two people get off the bus. Also at each point, the same number of people get on the bus as the number of the stop (one person at the first stop, two people at the second stop etc.) until the tenth stop. At the eleventh and subsequent stops, one person gets on the bus if it's an odd-numbered stop, nobody gets on the bus if it's an even numbered stop.

After the fifteenth stop, the bus returns to the terminus. What was the name of the driver?

I'm sure you will enjoy working out this puzzle - I HAVE TOLD YOU THE ANSWER!!

Hugs

Bruin

[Camy]

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

How did you know I drove a bus?

Camy

[Trab]

I can't do any of those stupid puzzles either, Camy, so you're in great company. (No ego issues here. )

[Madrigal]

Camy, do you mean like this:

Imagine you are the driver of a bus, which leaves the terminus with three passengers. It stops at fifteen points on its journey and at each point two people get off the bus. Also at each point, the same number of people get on the bus as the number of the stop (one person at the first stop, two people at the second stop etc.) until the tenth stop. At the eleventh and subsequent stops, one person gets on the bus if it's an odd-numbered stop, nobody gets on the bus if it's an even numbered stop.

After the fifteenth stop, the bus returns to the terminus. What was the name of the driver?

I'm sure you will enjoy working out this puzzle - I HAVE TOLD YOU THE ANSWER!!

Hugs

Bruin

Haha that's not a very puzzling puzzle :P.

Maddy (:

[Camy]

I can't do any of those stupid puzzles either, Camy, so you're in great company. (No ego issues here. )

Thank Gawd for that, Trab! There I was thinking I was all on my own! Phew!!!

Haha that's not a very puzzling puzzle :P.

Maddy (:

It jolly well is if you're an Emu with little brain

[Madrigal]

The train that is going 15 miles an hour northbound will pass the train southbound from Leeds in 2 hours 17 minutes. On each train are 27 sheep, 14 mules, one cat and a Raven. What colour are the conductor's briefs?

BTW

There would be no conductor :P

[Kapitano]

The "bus" and "train" puzzles you give aren't strictly logic puzzles at all. If they test anything, it's how little attention you pay to details that look like they're not relavent, because they look like irrelevant detail in what looks like a logic puzzle. If you see what I mean.

Real logic puzzles, like the one in my little story, test something completely different - whether you had the kind of education that taught you how to solve those kind of puzzles.

IQ tests contain a lot of logic puzzles, plus a lot of supposedly general knowledge, some mathematics, and some parlour games involving anagrams. In other words, IQ tests test whether you've been playing these kind of games long enough to get skilled at them.

Incidentally, my IQ is 164 for mathematics (which I'm useless at), 135 for general knowledge (which I don't have) and 79 - subnormal - for linguistic ability.

The kind of puzzle I wrote above (which BTW I wrote first, building the story around it) is easy if you know the method - draw a grid of all the possible relationships, and blank them out as they're discounted by the information given. Whatever remains after that is the answer.

PS. The "train" puzzle is based on the inference that a freight train transporting livestock would have no conductor. But we don't know that it is a freight train - we just know there's animals on board. So what looks like a purely deductive (therefore objective) test is based on an inductive (therefore questionable) premise.

But then, people who love to give that kind of test don't know much about logic.

[Bruin Fisher]

Haha that's not a very puzzling puzzle :P.

Maddy (:

No it isn't, is it? But it works much better spoken than written....

Bruin

[Bruin Fisher]

How did you know I drove a bus?

Camy

Well, I just sort of assumed ... because you always wear the peaked cap, the black leather jacket and trousers, the wierd leather straps around your naked hairy chest, and knee-length jackboots. That's bus driver's uniform, isn't it?

Bruin gullible and innocent....

[Bruin Fisher]

'The train that is going 15 miles an hour northbound will pass the train southbound from Leeds in 2 hours 17 minutes. On each train are 27 sheep, 14 mules, one cat and a Raven. What colour are the conductor's briefs?

I reckon I can out-stupid Camy on this one - I read the train puzzle and took it for a wind-up - it never occurred to me that it had an answer, so thanks for pointing it out!

Bruin the dim

[Camy]

I reckon I can out-stupid Camy on this one - I read the train puzzle and took it for a wind-up - it never occurred to me that it had an answer, so thanks for pointing it out!

Bruin the dim

Wind-up? Erm ... it was. I made it up. If it had an answer it's purely by chance. Out stupid me? Never!

[Bruin Fisher]

Wind-up? Erm ... it was. I made it up. If it had an answer it's purely by chance. Out stupid me? Never!

Well kudos to Madrigal, then for coming up with the answer!! Freight trains don't have conductors.

Here's another one: An Aer Lingus (Irish) flight from Amsterdam to Athens, carrying mostly American tourists, crashes in the Alps right on the border between Switzerland and Italy. Where did they bury the survivors?

Bruin

[Bruin Fisher]

Perhaps we need a forum for quizzes???

Here's another one: What event takes place on a clock face twenty-two times per day?

Bruin

[Camy]

Well kudos to Madrigal, then for coming up with the answer!! Freight trains don't have conductors.

Here's another one: An Aer Lingus (Irish) flight from Amsterdam to Athens, carrying mostly American tourists, crashes in the Alps right on the border between Switzerland and Italy. Where did they bury the survivors?

Bruin

It wasn't a freight train. 'twas a circus train. The conductor, who had had quite enough of commuter trains, thought it would be a sinecure. Ha! More fool him.

As the question above. Cutesy devil, thinking you'd catch me out like that ... oh, a shiny thing. *flaps off*

[Bruin Fisher]

thought it would be a sinecure.

Sinecure? No fair - I'm a bear of very little brain! Isn't that catarrh medicine? Or am I thinking of Rhinoceros?

Anyway, I still don't know what colour his keks are...

Bruin

[Trab]

Perhaps we need a forum for quizzes???

Here's another one: What event takes place on a clock face twenty-two times per day?

Bruin

I'm assuming you mean a non-digital style readout clock?

[Trab]

Sadly, Maddy was wrong. I already knew this information, since my brother married the daughter of a conductor, but I double checked, and you can too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conductor_(transportation) Freight trains DO have conductors.

[Bruin Fisher]

I'm assuming you mean a non-digital style readout clock?

Yup - an old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness analogue clock face.

Bruin

[Bruin Fisher]

Sadly, Maddy was wrong. I already knew this information, since my brother married the daughter of a conductor, but I double checked, and you can too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conductor_(transportation) Freight trains DO have conductors.

Well, I live and learn - thanks Trab! So a freight train conductor's job is truly one of Camy's sinecures!

Bruin

[Camy]

Sinecure? No fair - I'm a bear of very little brain! Isn't that catarrh medicine? Or am I thinking of Rhinoceros?

Anyway, I still don't know what colour his keks are...

Bruin

Dark green, or for you synesthesians: bitter lemon with a hint of kettle drum.

Oh, and I've been looking at my watch, and have no idea at all ... unless it's a clock from another dimension, or the 22 is just an arbitrary number. Would someone put me out of my misery, please.

[Bruin Fisher]

synesthesians

He's doing it again - surely this one must have something to do with sinuses?

And on this side of the big pond, we spell it 'synaesthesians'

Bruin, Bear with a sore head

[Trab]

Well, maybe we need more clarification about the clock. Firstly, we know that there are 24 hours in the day, so the 22 has to deal with that in some way. The trouble may be because we might have a 24 clock face (in fine railway tradition) or a 12 hour clock face. I'm assuming the quiz can be broken down into 11 of these whatevers in 12 hour sequence, by simply dividing each aspect by two.

It's hardly a solution to the quiz, and it may lead us completely off the track (hopefully not a railway tradition).