*Track 20 (part two)

Some elements of today’s latest ‘Challenge’ were exactly what they had prepared for, primarily its expected mirroring of ‘Challenge 28’s multi-day, alternative answer structure, but others were more surprising, and not particularly welcome.

Ed got to the most obvious first, “Challenge 4, shit, are we going backwards now? And it’s a reprise, what’s that all about?” He had at least spotted one positive, “I guess that means the musical tease is finally out in the open.”

There were no prizes for guessing who would be first to get to the most significant rule change. “No wonder they’ve called it playing Chicken,” complained Joe, “there’s no way back from a wrong answer now, talk about a cliff edge,” although he did find one numeric crumb of comfort, “at least twelve ‘Challengers’ go through, I was convinced it’d only be ten.”

“Maybe it ties in with a twelve-inch record,” suggested Ed, completely abandoning his previous scepticism over a musical link, now embracing it with the zeal of a convert.

“Come on then Stu,” challenged Charlie, focusing them back on the task, “I think I understand the format here, but let’s have your authorised version.”

“Well, it’s definitely got the same partial-solution structure as ‘Challenge 28’, so I suspect we’ll be back again tomorrow,” Stuart started, “and the difficulty probably lies less in solving the individual clues, more with how quickly we risk using the answers.”

“We were in Saltaire for the last one like this,” Anne correctly observed, “how many days did it take us to solve that?”

“Three or four, from memory,” Stuart replied, “the ‘handful of times’ comment here suggests a maximum of five, but to qualify we’ll probably need to risk an overall guess after two or three. I’ve just had a look back, the solution to ‘Challenge 4’ was ALPHA, so we might be looking for another five-letter word to link with that. Could be another Greek letter, maybe Gamma or Delta, or a different word that means first or powerful? The ‘no particular order’ bit suggests the clue solutions will be an anagram.”

“That’s all speculation at the moment,” Joe admonished him, “shouldn’t we get on with the first clue? We can worry what to do with it later. Anybody got any suggestion what the clue’s all about? Sounds to me like somebody’s after a fight!”

“You’re right on priorities,” Stuart conceded, “though I doubt anyone is going straight through today. As it happens, I do have an idea. This looks like a mash-up of different song lyrics. Like Ed said, our music link might have finally broken cover.”

“Don’t keep us waiting then,” Anne interrupted him impatiently.

“The morning in December bit is from the start of a Leonard Cohen song, something to do with a raincoat.”

“There’s one called ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’,” Ed confirmed, “and the words do sound familiar. How come you know it though, thought you never listened to him?”

“You’re right,” Stuart replied, “always been a Dylan man myself, but I know this one because Villagers covered it.”

“Not sure there’s time for debating singer songwriters,” Charlie pulled them up, “but it looks like Stuart’s right, partly at least. Thought I recognised anarchy being ‘loosed upon the world’, and the good god Google tells me it’s a line from a Yeats poem ‘The Second Coming’. So, they could all be words, but not necessarily lyrics.”

“Have any of you heard of a song called ‘Piss Factory’?” asked Joe, unable to mask a childish relish in his voice over the title.

“Patti Smith,” Stuart, Ed, and Charlie replied, almost in unison.

“So that’s where the final part comes from,” Joe clarified, “you said the clues might not take long Dad, but what do we do with them now?”

It had taken less than five minutes to arrive at Leonard Cohen, W B Yeats (to give him his full published title) and Patti Smith, an impressively poetic, if not necessarily holy, trinity. “According to the clue,” Stuart reminded them, “we just need to find out what ‘their creators have in common’? Up until now we’ve been useless at that!”

“If you’re right about five daily clues though,” Charlie responded, “and we need a five-letter word, then could it be as simple as a letter they’ve all got in common?”

Stuart could see, from the scribbling on her pad, that Anne had already started to work her way through this formula, and it took just a few moments longer for her to declare, “if Charlie’s right, then it’s an A. There’s no other letter common to all three.”

“Guess it was asking too much for it to be a helpful letter,” moaned Ed, “don’t think A narrows our options down too far. Leaves Gamma and Delta on the table though Stu.”

“I’ve got a Scrabble cheat site up, bestwordlist.com,” said Joe, “and Ed’s right, it’s got 5,122 five-letter words containing an A. Not sure we can work through those.”

“Agreed,” Stuart replied, making a snap decision. “I don’t think it’s time to play Chicken yet, or to jump off Joe’s cliff edge. We still get two attempts for a clue answer, so I propose we enter A in the partial solutions box, to make sure we’re on the right track, and see where that takes us. Presumably just forward twenty-four hours. Does everybody agree?”

With no takers for a more reckless tactic, Stuart entered A, with his heart in his mouth, taking obsessive care to make sure he used the second Entry box:

Stuart read out this expected, yet still welcome, message to his remote partners and simply said, “same time, same place, tomorrow then guys?”

“I just did a search on Cohen, Yeats and Patti Smith. All together,” Ed advised, before they ended the call, “do you know what I got?”

“What?” said Stuart instinctively, immediately realising he would probably regret the eager tone in his voice. After all this time he should know Ed better.

“Sweet FA,” laughed Ed, “just like everything else we’ve tried. See you all again tomorrow.”

#

They had agreed yesterday, before signing off, that a pre-meet today might, for once, add value. It now seemed highly likely this reprise styled ‘Challenge’ was going to be less about the complexity of its quizzing, particularly if it persisted with lyrical and poetic references, and would revolve more around how, and when, they chose to act on its solutions.

Joe opened Monday’s call at 8.45am, leading straight into a metaphorical theory he must have developed overnight. “This is like a poker tournament,” he started, revealing another of his statistically driven passions, “we’re gonna have to go ‘all in’ at some point, without being sure we’ve got a winning hand. Getting the timing right, optimising risk versus reward, will be the key.”

“So, should we have gone ‘all in’ yesterday then?” asked Charlie, clearly impressed by the analogy.

“God no,” laughed Joe, “just one letter, with five-thousand word options, that was like a Two and a Seven, unsuited, the worst possible hand. We were right to fold yesterday and hope we get some better cards today.”

Having singularly failed, in the quarter of an hour that followed, to develop a more scientific plan they all agreed that Joe’s suggested criterium of, “are we ready to go ‘all in’ yet?” should be the yardstick against which they determined their next move.

“For context though,” Stuart informed them, “a couple of players did shove all their chips in yesterday, and came away with the jackpot. The ‘Challenge’ success counter shows two people are already through. It never shows if anybody’s failed and gone out, but I don’t think we need to panic yet, still ten places to go.”

“Getting through with so little to go on,” Charlie reflected, “confirms what you’ve said before. There must be people, two by the looks of it, who’ve already worked out what these ‘Challenges’ are all about. We’re gonna have to catch them up at some point.”

This was an indisputable, sobering observation, but it served a useful purpose. Stuart couldn’t have wished for a more focused set of minds as he revealed (and distributed) the second daily clue:

###

(To be continued, at 9am tomorrow. Can you solve ‘Challenge 4 (reprise)’ in the meantime? Still very difficult, but if you think you have got the answer (or another partial solution), then please reply direct to this email post, to help keep the ‘challenge’ open for other readers.)