*Track 4 (continued)

Many things about this process were still perplexing; the inconsistent numbering (which had reared its head again, this time jumping forward to twelve), a total absence of any explanation as to what the ‘Challenges’ meant, where they were coming from (the ether apparently)? or what you needed to do with the solutions anyway? But through all of this ambiguity at least the timings had been precise, each new ‘Challenge’ appearing on cue, to the second, at 10am UK time. Stuart rechecked the time back home on his phone, 9.52am. So why was the latest clue already there, eight minutes early?

His undeniable discomfort only increased further as he logged off and on again. Not really expecting the new ‘Challenge’ to disappear (indeed that would have added a whole new level of panic), neither had he anticipated the success counter would already be back in place and showing 173 people had already passed ‘Challenge 12’. Before Stuart had even given it a moment’s thought. While this represented less than 4% of the qualification places available (which had dropped again to 4,500) Stuart realised it already put him behind in the game, or perhaps more appropriately, given where he was, behind the eight ball.

The logical, sensible reaction to this unexpected turn of events would be to ignore the time issue for now and worry about it later, to get on with the ‘Challenge’, but Stuart knew well enough that if he couldn’t work out why this was happening it would prey on his mind and become a distraction from the focus needed to maximise his problem-solving capability. Having maintained a discipline of copying and pasting all previous ‘Challenge’ wordings into a single PDF file, confident a time would come when cross-referencing was required, Stuart opened this document and started to read through the earlier communications. There it was, up front, in the smallest of small print, at the end of his successful registration message, “all times given will refer to BST.”

While annoyed he hadn’t spotted this earlier, particularly given the long debate they had over the clocks changing, at least Stuart now understood. ‘Challenge 69’ was perversely, fittingly he guessed, sticking with BST. Presumably back home 9am had now become the new 10am (at least until the Spring). Of course, if you happened to be in Ohio that translated to 4am. This meant he was virtually an hour late getting started, but always capable of looking on the bright side (“thanks Dad,” he thought, not for the first time), at least ‘Challenge 12’ seemed to be based around some form of numbers game, another discipline Stuart felt comfortable with. Back on an even keel his confidence returned, but a further log off/on, to accurately size his task, showed there was no time to hang about:

Another 1% had been added in the quarter of an hour he had just spent contemplating little but time. At the current rate, Stuart estimated, with an arithmetical confidence he hoped would stand him in good stead, he had about twenty-two hours left to pass the latest ‘Challenge’.

Reading through the clue again, calmer this time, there were a few more nuances to be gathered from its wording. The chaotic numbering system now ran, 2, 4, 7, and 12, still devoid of any immediately obvious sequence. At least the number of qualification spots was starting to drop in a predictable pattern though, 7,800, 6,600, 5,500, and now 4,500, the monthly reduction falling by one hundred each time. If that trend continued, Stuart calculated, it suggested another nine challenges would be needed to get down to zero. Nine more months presumably, making ‘Challenge 69’ a whole year’s worth of quizzing. To have any chance of getting that far though he needed to summon a bit of that Lee Harvey like focus and set his sights on today’s conundrum:

For the want of a better starting point Stuart plugged the whole number into Google, but simply received that rare, if on this occasion reasonably predictable, return of, “did not match any documents.” A follow up enquiry on the standard number of digits used by various offshoots of officialdom was barely more informative. Passports have nine, barcodes twelve, and credit cards sixteen he discovered, but there were only two hits, neither particularly encouraging, on the use of eighteen numbers. UK driving licenses have eighteen characters, but that includes letters, while the only example of a standard eighteen digits seemed to be the Serial Shipping Container Code. Whilst this was likely crucial in the realm of logistics, allowing packages to be tracked anywhere in the world, it wasn’t going to get Stuart any closer to home.

His next thought was to break the longer number down into more manageable chunks, to see if anything made more sense that way, hoping this might reveal some hidden meaning. With eighteen divisible by 2, 3, 6, and 9 this exercise at least gave him a different sheet of paper to stare at blankly:

169121215      16        169      169121

230697820      91        121      215230

                        21        215      697820

                        21        230

                        52        697

                        30        820

                        69

                        78

                        20

Stuart had a feeling, for no better reason than them looking more promising, that his 3s and 6s columns might bear the most fruit, but twenty unproductive minutes just confirmed this wasn’t a strategy ripe for picking. He had got interested, temporarily, in a list of IT based, three-digit, international codes, which had seen his first four lines convert to Tunisia, Angola, the Cayman Islands, and Guyana respectively, only to find this Country categorisation stopped at 599, making his last two entries redundant.

The only good news was that Stuart wasn’t physically flagging yet, the mental challenge keeping him alert despite it now being 5.45am, but in the bad news column he was undoubtedly flailing. Another fresh logon, a form of self-torture, revealed 487 successful ‘Challengers’ had now passed (over 10%), confirming his worry this could be all over if he fell asleep, deliberately or not. An unhelpful Eels refrain swam back into his mind from earlier, undeniably this numbers game was now ‘fucking with his head’!

It was high time, Stuart reasoned, to order a medicinal, doze-averting coffee from his perplexed porter. This, of course, necessitated the conversation he had been avoiding until now, “it’s just a work thing,” he lied, “time difference and all that,” adding at least a grain of truth.

Whether it was the caffeine that did the trick, or just night fever starting to kick in, Stuart’s breakthrough came shortly afterwards. Salvation visited him in the unexpected form of Victoria Coren or, more accurately, in the guise of her contrarian quizmaster alter ego. Didn’t a string of numbers on ‘Only Connect’, he suddenly recalled, often represent letters, indicated by their position in the alphabet?

He only got a short way through an initial conversion of the ‘Challenge 12’ number into letters, AFIABABA (Ali Baba’s younger sister perhaps?) before realising he was simply replacing one set of gobbledygook with another. Approaching the task more scientifically though, realisation soon dawned (at a wholly appropriate hour) that while a 1 could represent an A, and a 2 a B, they could equally well be the start of two-digit numbers in the alphabetical tens (J to S), or twenties (T to Z). Applying this advanced logic Stuart started again. As 16912121523 magically turned into PILLOW in front of his eyes he felt confidence growing that he had finally cracked the code.

Briefly thrown by the next number being a zero (what letter could that represent?), Stuart simply decided to combine it with the six that followed and plough on regardless, conveniently ignoring for now that the single digit letter used previously (the I in PILLOW) had been represented by just a 9, not by a 09. Blind persistence paid off however, as 697820 easily converted to FIGHT, at which point he realised the middle zero must just have signposted the need to leave a gap. The whole number therefore became PILLOW FIGHT.

This clearly qualified as a type of contest in which, it could be argued, you were unlikely to get beaten up. At least not badly. That seemed to fit the second part of the clue nicely.

Confident enough to risk this as his answer, and equally keen to get some more sleep, Stuart typed PILLOW FIGHT into the answer box at 6.03am and submitted his entry. His confidence didn’t prove misplaced, and the now familiar (but always gratifying) Congratulations message appeared instantaneously, backed by a ‘success counter’ position of around 620th.

It was, happily, time for bed. On the way past reception Stuart returned his cup and thanked the night porter for his drink. Feeling the need to explain the rather undignified whoop he had unleashed two minutes earlier, Stuart simply said, with a big grin, “landed the deal.”

Which in a way he had.

###

(‘Track 5’ will follow on 25th October at 10am. In the meantime, it’s great to get reader feedback so please add a comment below with any thoughts on ‘Track 4’.)