Sunday 29 April 2012

Observer Viewfinder Competition (win £150 in hotel vouchers)

Not much sport in solving this puzzle (bit too easy, they need to up their game a bit, even a big eejit from British mensa  could do this one ;-) ), anyways I'm pretty sure the name of the city they are looking for this week is Memphis, Tennessee.

The first picture shows some basketball players and mentions that " You might have to brave Grizzlies and Tigers in this city, named after a 5,000-year-old capital ".   There are teams called the Memphis Grizzlies and the Memphis Tigers and Memphis was an ancient capital of Egypt founded c 3000 bc, which would make it around 5000 years old.


Second picture, the Beale street music festival kicks off there in May 2012


Third/Fourth picture, 'Graceland' is the second most visited house in the USA, the first being the Teleprompter of the United State's (The Whitehouse). The 'moving' motel, is not one which literally moves but one which some people may subjectively find emotionally 'moving' (the Lorraine motel is a civil rights museum).


Link to the competition (not very easy to find on their site menu)


http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/gallery/2012/apr/29/viewfinder-competition-win-a-hotel-voucher#/?picture=389283693&index=0

Sunday Times Where Was I?

Not too difficult this week, the Eastender Himself has been on holiday to this location and near as I can figure it, the answers are:

Q1 . Bournemouth

Q2. Melita Norwood

The initial clues place us in darkest Dorset, specifically, Bournemouth. Bourne is an old English word for burn or stream, so the name of the town is literally 'mouth of the stream'. The trolley buses there, were indeed yellow and were by and large replaced by diesel buses c1969.

The Bournemouth symphony orchestra was formed c1893 and one of its famous conductors from 1951 to 1961, was Sir Charles Bernard Groves (b 1915). The 750 ft pier that the author passed, was most likely Boscombe pier, which opened in 1889. This is where it gets a tad confusing, the puzzle compiler says he descended to the beach via a cliff railway to the east and then walked west past Boscombe pier. There are three cliff railways in Bournemouth, from the eastern most to western most in order, these are Southbourne, East Cliff and West Cliff. The railway at East Cliff is between Boscombe pier and Bournemouth pier, so he cannot have descended using this one and instead must have used the one at Southbourne and walked west, until he came to Boscombe pier.

An astronomer and author who spent the later years of his life in Bournemouth was Sir Fred Hoyle. A world light heavyweight boxing champion (1948) who was born there c1919 was Freddie Mills.

The first spy (born in the town c1912), was a woman called Melita Norwood (aka 'Hola'), a dodgy clerk at  the British Non Ferrous Metals Research Association, who by all accounts, read the 'Morning Star' newspaper and passed on secrets to the KGB. The second spy was a member of a group called 'The Cambridge Apostles', Sir Anthony Blunt (b1907). He got lifted by the police c1979, for keeping some of her majesty's pictures.....

Sunday 22 April 2012

Yakult 'Win a Dream Holiday' Competition

In this competition, you have to identify the country from the clues and  the picture, to win a £5000 holiday or one of five Kindles. I'm pretty sure that the answer for this month, is Australia (The picture of the Kangaroo on the signpost, the koala bear and the boomerang give it away)........other clues like outback and opals confirm it....

Enter the comp on this link:

http://www.yakult.co.uk/around-the-world

Observer Viewfinder Competition

Pretty sure the name of the city they are looking for is Casablanca, in Morocco.

The first photograph does not offer much of a clue beyond that the area is likely to be a north African  country  (palm trees and tourists). The second picture gives the clue, a black and white film about a city and the first one that springs to mind is 'Casablanca'.The third picture is the giveaway, it's the Hassan II mosque, in Casablanca .Casablanca is described as being Morocco's largest port and economic powerhouse, so that also fits the clues given.

Sunday Times Where Was I?


The puzzle writer has upped his game this week and taken us to a region which is a relatively
unexplored MAMBA wilderness and which does not have much infrastructure to illustrate on a
map but near as I can figure it, the answers are:

Q1. Calum Macleod

Q2. Holoman Island

(nb for question 2, depending on which map you look at, this is sometimes spelled Holman island, the Eastender is going with the first spelling as he has seen some documents written by government employees (RCAHMS) which use it, not that this is any guarantee of competence on their part of course)

The initial clues, place us squarely on the Island of Raasay, off the east coast of
Skye. The road builder was a guy called Calum MacLeod (or as he is known in those parts
'Calum the road' ) and from looking at the harsh terrain which he single handedly constructed it through, he must have been a descendant of another famous builder, Fion Mac Cumhail (Finn Mccool).Apparentley, to become the Macleod clan chief, you have to drink four pints of claret from a cow horn and if you survive and stop seeing pink elephants, you are considered to be worthy of leadership...(bit like that scene with David Niven and Deborah Kerr, in the film Casino Royale)

Calum MacLeod worked as a keeper on the lighthouse, on the Island of south Rona, which is north of Raasay. The lighthouse is listed as being 13 metres or approx 43 feet high and was established in 1857. At the southern end of his road, lies Brochel castle, which looks like the castle that the Kurgan destroyed in the film 'Highlander'. The hill which is the island's highest point at 1,453ft is called 'Dun Caan'.

A famous poet from Raasay, was Sorely MacLean, and he was born in the hamlet of Oskaig, which lies south west of Brochel castle.The ruined chapel is possibly that of an Ulsterman called St Moluag.His feast day is on the 25th June.The map shows a disused mine with a dismantled railway track leading from it to the sea, a little way south east of the chapel ruins.From the writer's position at the junction he mentions, a half mile to the west, lies a small tidal island called Holoman island. Depending on which map you look at, this can also be called Holman island.

Sunday 15 April 2012

Observer Viewfinder Competition

Pretty sure the name of the city they are looking for is Truro, in Cornwall.


The pictures are a bit hard to gain any clues from this week, I think the scientist they are talking about is Humphrey Davy who went to Truro grammer school for a time but the giveaway is the nose in number three, which belongs to none other than the UK's Prime Teleprompter, David Cameron. His daughter Florence was born in the Royal Cornwall hospital in Truro, a few days early, which is where the surprise element comes in......

Sunday Times Where Was I?

Second question is a little tricky this week but near as I can figure it, the answers are

Q1. The Spa Valley Railway

Q2. Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells

The initial clues place us in Groombridge, a village in Kent. Groombridge place was allegedly used as the model for Birlstone manor, by Arthur Conan Doyle in the Sherlock Holmes adventure 'The Valley of Fear'. The Spa Valley railway line has a station at Groombridge and from reading the railway's web site, it was operating around 1866 and passed from public ownership in 1985. The headquarters of the Spa Valley Railway are in Tunbridge Wells West. You can see from the satellite picture that there is indeed a railway track running from Groombridge to Tunbridge Wells West (or there was, when the picture was taken).

The Baron who put Tunbridge Wells on the map was Dudley, Third Baron North (born c1581-82) .He looks a bit like Blackadder but it was he who discovered what is known in the trade as 'chalybeate springs' there (ferruginous waters). The architect known for 'The Great Stove' was a guy called 'Joseph Paxton' (he seems to have been a workaholic) and the gambling operation in Tunbridge Wells was taken over from a gangster called Bell Causey, by a dandy called Beau Nash (c1735).

From looking at the list of claret plaques in Tunbridge Wells, a famous novelist who lived there was E.M.Forster, and the first leader of fighter command, was the far sighted air defence visionary genius, Hugh Dowding (gawrd bless 'im, everyone on this island owes him, big time!). The famous musician (born c1905) was most likely Mantovani (for some reason, he doesn't seem to merit a claret plaque, probably because he didn't actually live there for very long). This is where the second question becomes tricky, the town's most famous scriptorial resident, was not a real scriptwriter at all but was in fact a brainchild of the town's newspaper editor, who used to get his staff to write a bit of banter in the letters section to keep the readers interested and sometimes they would sign their names to these bits of 'outraged' prose as 'Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells'. 'Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells' became the name of a BBC radio four feedback program which started in 1978.

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Monday 9 April 2012

Observer Viewfinder Competition

Pretty sure that the name of the city they are looking for is Cagliari,  in Sardinia.

The flag with the four heads on it separated by a red cross is the flag of Sardinia. There are large lagoons around the city which are known to have flamingos in them and there is a tower called 'The Elephants Tower', which has an elephant statue perched on a bracket at one of the corners. There is a beach called 'Poetto' and a promontory 'St Elias' next to that beach, which is known locally as 'The Devil's Saddle'.

Sunday 8 April 2012

Sunday Times Where Was I?

Not too challenging this week, near as I can figure it, the answers are

Q1. Withernsea

Q2. Julian's Bower

The initial clues place us in the East Riding of Yorkshire region. The first pier described is most likely Hornsea pier, which was 1072ft in length, opened in 1880, hit by a ship called 'The Earl of Derby' in the same year and demolished in 1897. Travelling around fifteen miles southeast of Hornsea, takes us to Withernsea. Withernsea pier opened in 1877, was 1,196ft long and was hit by a ship called 'The Saffron' in 1880. It closed in 1903.

A Napoleonic fort sixteen miles west of Withernsea, overlooking the river is likely to be fort Paull. There has been a fort at that site since before the Napoleonic wars (Henry the VIII period), though I have not found the exact date of its construction, the location looks to be in the right place, there also appear to be some very nice vintage aircraft on display there. A riverside town, around 14 miles west of there is Brough, there was a Roman fort/settlement called Petuaria there. Five miles to the south west of Brough, takes us to the village of Alkborough and the ancient site of Julian's Bower ( a c12th century turf maze, visible on the satellite picture which was allegedly designed for penitential monks).

The phone boxes in Kingston Upon Hull were painted cream because they were run by the corporation of Hull and not the GPO. Crossing the Humber bridge and travelling three and a half miles to the east takes us to New Holland pier, which used to allow trains to run to the ferry at the end.

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Sunday 1 April 2012

Sunday Times Where Was I?

Not too difficult this week, near as I can figure it, the answers are:

1. Elcho Castle

2. April Fool

The initial clues put us in Glenrothes, a new town next to Loch Leven. There are several islands on loch Leven, two of the more well known ones are St Ser(f)'s and Castle Island, where king R(o)bert the II of Scotland (b1316), was imprisoned. The sixteenth century tower house to the north of Loch Leven, which from the satellite picture, appears to be roofless, is Bur(l)e(i)gh castle.

A castle, five miles to the north east of Burleigh castle, is Ba(l)vaird castle (late 15th century) and north east from there, on the south bank of the Tay, is Elch(o) castle (described as a 16th century fortified mansion). To get to Elcho castle from Burleigh castle, the author has likely crossed the meandering river Ea(r)n.

Travelling south east from Elcho castle takes us to the village of (A)bernethy and its 72 foot Celtic tower. The roman fort near there is called Car(p)ow.

This gives the letters

F O L I L O R A P

which can be rearranged to give APRIL FOOL

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