*Track 13 (continued)
“I’ve not seen one of these since primary school,” said Charlie, unknowingly echoing Stuart’s precise reaction to the first Riddle-Me-Ree, almost a year ago now.
“I was half expecting it,” Stuart countered, “they seem to be adopting a repeat pattern. Going by last month’s though it’ll have an extra layer of difficulty added this time.”
They had agreed a set of logistical tactics up front. Wherever possible they would subdivide tasks to speed progress, with Stuart, Anne, Joe, Ed, and Charlie taking a lead (but free to seek help from the wider group as required). The initial mechanics of this worked out fine, with each of them taking one of the riddle lines to work through its letter options, and within a few minutes they had the raw material needed:
In HAND but not SHOULDER = AN
In both TROUBLE and BOLDER = ROBLE
In FINGERS though not DIGITS = FNER
In EDGY as well as FIDGETS = EDG, and
In BIRTH yet not SURVIVAL = BTH
Which, for ease of reference, Stuart transcribed in large print onto a separate A4 sheet:
AN
ROBLE
FNER
EDG
BTH
“So, we just have to juggle these up now to make a word meaning a Tibetan revival?” interjected Ed, transparent enthusiasm further belittling his purported scepticism.
“Yeah, but Dad’s right, it’s harder this time,” Joe replied, “for the first one we knew the letter sequence, meaning this would have to start with an A or N, but I’m guessing the ‘mixed up’ bit means this lot can come in any order.” Stuart was impressed with how quickly Joe had assimilated the cryptical code.
“Afraid so,” Stuart confirmed, “which does make things a lot harder. If we knew the order there would only be 360 possible combinations, but …,”
Joe jumped in before Stuart could finish his sentence, keen to prove he was also on top of the maths, “but we need to multiply that by all the potential letter orders. 5x4x3x2x1, or 120 to be precise.”
With this latest ‘Challenge’ rapidly turning into a mental arithmetic arm-wrestling contest, Charlie made sure he wasn’t beaten, “well that must be about forty thousand.”
Anne, having accepted her numerical limitations in a game like this, had quickly reverted to the calculator on her phone and clarified, “it’s 43,200 to be exact.”
“Jesus,” Ed responded, accurately summarising their mutual reaction, “that’s more than eight thousand each, even if we could work out how to split them. If we want to get out to the island in time for Shame we’ll need to leave about three. That gives us four hours. You’re the expert Stu, is that long enough?”
Having given some previous, unsubstantiatable assurances that ‘Challenge 69’ wouldn’t impinge on their festival going, Stuart felt obliged to answer this positively (more so than he felt), “it should be, we’ve been taking about two hours on average, and there are more of us today. But if we do want to get there to hear ‘One Rizla’ we’ll need to find a better plan than working through forty-three thousand options.”
“Must be something that will help online,” Joe suggested, “like those anagram sites we used last month.”
Charlie, naturally assuming the role of their chief management consultant, was ahead of this proposal, already searching. “Joe’s right,” he confirmed, “there are loads of anagram and Scrabble sites. The first one I’ve found only allows fifteen letters though, and we’ve got seventeen. I suggest we each take five minutes to find one that works.”
Charlie’s plan panned out smoothly, although Stuart hoped he wouldn’t be billing them for his input afterwards. After a brief team get-together, to compare notes, they collectively agreed to run with Anne’s suggestion of www.crosswordsolver.com, a ‘cheat’ site she had uncovered that allowed them to input all seventeen letters (ANROBLEFNEREDGBTH). Amazingly, less than twenty seconds later, this spat out every possible phrase and word combination.
There were still 4,618 in total, but helpfully the Crossword Solver return had been split down further into distinct categories, allowing them to focus their efforts on its 571 five-letter word options.
“That’s a bloody sight more manageable than forty-three thousand,” Ed smiled “and it’s still only twenty past eleven. I reckon Sziget beckons!”
“Not sure it’ll be that easy,” Joe replied, raising a note of caution, “most of these don’t even look like words to me.”
“You’re right,” Charlie agreed, “and who the hell knows any words for ‘a Tibetan revival’ anyway. We’re gonna have to search all of them just to see what they mean.”
“But that’s only just over a hundred each,” Stuart suggested, “sounds manageable.” He had decided it was time to take back charge of operations (unwilling to risk any further consultancy fees!), and continued, “There are 109 words that start with A or F, Anne you take those, 113 beginning R or T, they’re Joe’s, Ed can take the 114 Bs and Ns, and Charlie the 116 Ds, Hs and Ls. That leaves me with the rest, 119 starting E, G, and O. We should be able to get through all of those in an hour. Good luck guys, shout up if you think you’ve found a possible.”
“Before we jump in though,” Anne interrupted his flow, “has anybody searched ‘Tibetan revival’, to see if it comes up with something obvious on our list? That might be quicker.”
The rest of them looked a little sheepish. Having immediately got swept along in agreeing an optimal review process they had missed out an obvious interim step. Maybe they could blame it on the Palinkas?
Joe, unsurprisingly, proved quickest off the mark in completing Anne’s suggested Google search. The main hit he received was a 1999 article titled, “Buddhism in Contemporary Tibet: Religious Revival and Cultural Identity.” Initially encouraged, believing this might provide the exact short cut Anne had suggested, their bubble of enthusiasm was quickly punctured by the realisation that this academic paper was spread over five sections, each of them running to numerous pages.
“It’ll take ages to go through all this,” Charlie accurately observed, “and then the word we need might not be in there anyway. On the other hand, it’s almost certain to be on our list of 571 words. I suggest we go back to Stuart’s Plan A.” With a collective agreement reached on Charlie’s logic they each moved off to various parts of the apartment to begin working through their individually allotted lists.
Stuart started with his Es. After fifteen minutes he had worked his way through the first ten: eager, eagle, eagre, ealed, eaned, eared, earth, eaten, eater and eathe, with none of them yielding any Tibetan joy. He had held out hope for both eagre and eathe, before finding this dashed by their dictionary definitions; the first proving to be a dialect term for a bore, while the second, apparently, was an obscure word for easy.
A quiet air of philosophical (or possibly hungover) concentration had descended over the apartment, without yet resulting in any cries of eureka. Stuart couldn’t help calculating a quick time estimate, ten words in fifteen minutes would equate to almost three hours for his full list of 119. He resumed his task with increased vigour, acknowledging this wasn’t going to prove as ‘eathe’ as they may have first thought.
Approaching midday Stuart was almost half-way through, and undeniably finding the process a slog. Doubts were starting to build over Charlie’s earlier confidence that the required solution must appear somewhere on their overall word list. Having placed all of their eggs in this one lexicographic basket, what if none of them hatched?
Feeling a heavy weight of overall ‘Challenge’ responsibility, Stuart decided to take a quick walk around his fellow quizzers, checking up on their cumulative progress. While they all professed a continued commitment to the cause, Stuart could sense he wasn’t the only one who was starting to feel a creeping malaise.
Then, just as he was about to settle back down for his second stint of obscure definitions, Stuart heard a loud shout. It had come from the kitchen, where Ed had taken up residence claiming easier beer access would help lubricate his efforts.
“Got it,” he exclaimed, “Bardo. It’s a phrase from Tibetan Buddhism. A state of existence between death and rebirth which varies in length according to a person’s conduct in life. That’s got to be it.”
“Who would have known that?” Charlie asked, “guess it must be what that Booker Prize winner ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ was all about.”
“Nobody ever knows what Booker novels are about,” Ed accurately observed, “no one even reads them. But this must qualify as a Tibetan revival.”
Their superfluous bout of Booker banter had given Stuart a chance to run Ed’s Bardo definition back against the ‘Challenge 45’ clue wording, allowing him to add some further clarification, “it’s better than that Ed. You said it’s ‘a state between death and rebirth’, so while it’s not exactly a Tibetan revival per se, it could definitely ‘beget’ one. I think that makes it Bingo for Bardo!”
After the full team had voted in agreement Stuart successfully entered BARDO as their solution, and then established that this had placed them in the ‘Challenge’ top fifty for the first time. It had been a resounding triumph for their newly expanded consultative approach.
Stuart made a half-hearted effort to undermine Ed’s ultimate success by pointing out he could have achieved the same result much sooner if he had started with the Bs, rather than working through his Ns first (just because there were less of them), but his prevailing mood remained one of pride at their successful collective efforts. Charlie summed it up best, “I guess many minds really can make light solutions.”
Ed quickly turned his thoughts to more pragmatic matters, “it also gives us time for a couple of celebratory drinks, in the bar downstairs, before we head out for Sziget. Remember, we need to give Joe his big Hawaiian send off today. Think I might go with him, to avoid Capaldi!”
Another long festival day beckoned, with Lana Del Rey awaiting at its end, who, Stuart was confident, should at least guarantee a welcome return of divided opinions.
“Agree about those beers,” Stuart responded, “with your help we’ve made it through to the last three hundred. I suppose that means it my round.” He was only half joking as he continued, “that went brilliantly guys, what are you doing next month?”, but then felt duty bound to try making this up to a full quota of humour by adding, “oh no, sorry, you’ll both be back at work by then won’t you!”
###
(‘Track 14’ will follow on 25th March at 10am. In the meantime, it’s always good to get reader feedback, so please consider adding a comment below with any thoughts on ‘Track 13’)