COMPETITION

Quiz

Jaspistos

In Competition No. 1683 I set you four posers.

My awareness of these is due to the late Professor Ivan Morris, who challenged me with the first three, and to the still very living Francis Huxley, author of the deeply teasing The Raven and the Writing-Desk. I shall be, as the wide boys used to say, frank with you. I expected plenty of correct answers to the first three questions, which I posed for mere fun; the prizes are reserved for those who did best with the riddle.

1. The single-word anagrams of 'roast mule' and 'roast mules' are 'emulators' and 'somersault'. Oddly, if you solve the former first, it is more difficult to solve the latter. In a personal challenge it is a good idea to tell your opponent that the answer to the second is a word that any three-year-old knows. 'Soul- master' gets a quarter point.

2. There are a number of words that contain the vowels of the alphabet, once only, in reverse order: uncom- plimentary, subcontinental, unnotice- ably, quodlibetal (good marks), possibly unoriental, but not unforgiveably (which shouldn't have an e), and de- finitely not ur-policeman, delightful though the concept is. May I personally remind you of what many of you may have forgotten — the Turco-Chilean crisis of 1887?

3. The most obvious English place-name that has six consecutive consonants is Knightsbridge. Hampsthwaite in York- shire was much touted. And since y is a consonant, among others I was given the Spectatorial Dalrymple and Phygtle (which I can't find on my map, though I love it).

4. 'Why is a raven like a writing-desk?' the Mad Hatter asked Alice, and couldn't provide an answer. Carroll himself had no answer in mind, and didn't intend there to be one, though he scrabbled together a poor one years later. Yet, as Wittgenstein says in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: The riddle does not exist. If a question can be put at all, then it can be answered.' In this spirit, Sam Lloyd, the American puzzle maes- tro, came up with two: 'Because they should both be made to shut up' and `Because Poe wrote on both'. 'Because each begins with an e' is an amusing, barefaced cheat. My own two contribu- tions to the problem are: 'A raven is like a writing-desk because it bodes ill for owed bills' and 'Because they each contain a river, though flowing in oppo- site directions' (Neva and Esk).

The prizewinners, printed below, get £10 each, and the bonus bottle of Chivas Regal 12-year-old de luxe blended whis- ky goes to Roy Davenport as the freshest riddle-solver.

Because without them both Brave New World could not have been written.

(Roy Davenport) Because one has flapping fits and the other fitting flaps.

(Peter Veale) Because one is good for writing books and the other better for biting rooks.

(George Simmers) Because a writing-desk is a rest for pens and a raven is a pest for wrens.

(Tony Weston) Because 'raven' contains five letters, which you might equally well expect to find in a writing-desk. (Roger Baresel) Because they are both used to carri-on de-composition. (Noel Petty) Because they both tend to present unkind bills.

(M.R. Macintyre) Because they both have a flap in oak.

(J. Tebbutt)