*Track 9 (part two)
Stuart acknowledged, for the first time, the useful role his instinctive number focus played. It was a form of karmic calming, a short period of inconsequential contemplation, front of mind, that somehow freed his remaining brain cells to start working away, in the background, on the meat of the latest ‘Challenge’:
2, 4, 7, 12, 14, 15, 17, 24, and now 28. This numbering wasn’t getting any more logical over time,
800 correct solutions, the expected drop to three figures, but this meant they would, this time, need to beat a third of the remaining ‘Challengers’, which sounded tough, but,
The biggest change here was the radically altered solution format, with an unprecedented second ‘entry’ box having appeared for ‘partial solutions’.
Despite having learned it was necessary to try foreseeing the unforeseeable, such a significant rule change was undeniably unsettling. More positively, ‘Challenge 28’ seemed both short (at least this part of it was) and pleasingly familiar. This cryptic clue format looked identical to that employed for ‘Challenge 14’ back in December, the first one they had worked on as a team, and that hadn’t worked out too badly.
Stuart started with Lofoten. A Norwegian archipelago whose beaches were indeed renowned for their surfing, (“this is an education in itself,” he mused). But ‘Challenge 14’ had required more lateral thinking. If you switched this around to web, rather than wave, surfing, then it didn’t require a huge leap to arrive at NO, the internet country code for Norway, which, in turn, gave the now familiar two-letter answer format he had been half expecting.
A little more British surfing (no need to stay Norwegian!) soon allowed Stuart to tie this answer back to the other two elements of the clue. He discovered NO could also stand for nitric oxide, a gas, “naturally excreted into the nasal airways,” which, despite sounding pretty unpleasant, apparently eases breathing, while Sean Connery’s debut as Bond had come in ‘Dr. No’, in other words an NO without medical assistance.
Pulling all this together, Stuart had no doubt NO was correct, although clearly it didn’t constitute the full solution. Taking great care to avoid the normal entry box, he typed NO into the new ‘incomplete’ variant, and pressed enter, apprehensive as to what would happen next. A previously unseen message appeared:
Stuart had mixed feelings. Pleasingly the familiar clue structure, playing to his cryptic capabilities, had allowed him to reach this stage in less than fifteen minutes. Yet, disconcertingly, he couldn’t claim any overall victory. All he seemed to have earned was the chance to start all over again tomorrow.
His overriding emotional reaction was, “I’m really not sure how Anne’s gonna feel about this.”
It might still be early days (early hours maybe) for ‘Challenge 28’, but a discovery that the success counter was still sitting stubbornly at zero, the first time he had ever seen this, was enough to reassure Stuart that none of his remaining 1,199 competitors were any further forward. It looked like everybody was going to be in for the long haul on this journey.
If he hurried though, Stuart might still catch Anne and her dad before they had finished with Hockney. More importantly, he would definitely make it in time to buy Chris his promised pint at the ‘Salt Bar and Kitchen’, the modern brewpub, housed in a refurbished Edwardian tram shed, that they had quickly made their local.
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“Can’t believe we’ve got to wait in again,” Anne said on Wednesday morning, in grave danger of winning dual awards for persistence and repetition. Stuart had been right about the likely unpopularity of ‘Challenge 69’s new rule change.
“Not just today either,” she continued, “this could ruin our whole holiday.” At least, with her father around, Anne had tempered her language, otherwise he suspected her ‘ruin’ phrasing may have been replaced by something altogether more Anglo Saxon.
Accepting that he was on to a loser, Stuart let her continue, “you do the dishes, me and Dad will look ‘round the shops, don’t suppose you’ll mind that. You can look after the dog as well. We’ll be back at 11, you need to be finished by then.”
This was the scheduling they had agreed yesterday, after he finally plucked up the courage to reveal the problem. Stuart feared this timetable may prove tight, but he always worked well under pressure and hoped that yesterday’s cryptic precedent, if repeated, might just make it achievable. He hadn’t yet dared contemplate the explosive stand-off that might occur if Anne returned home to a still unresolved clue.
With the ‘happy shoppers’ departing, at five to the hour, it left one man (and his dog) free to log back on at 10am:
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(To be continued, at 10am tomorrow. Can you solve ‘Challenge 28’ 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.)