Pablo's Armchair Treasure Hunt

Armchair Treasure Hunt 1994

Title: "The Armchair" Magazine
Setter: Paul Coombs
Themes: Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Hunters' Tales

"Original and Best" is a slogan for Cornflakes. We couldn't think of a product with a slogan "No Home Is Happy Without It" but ... any home would be miserable without a DOOR. The streamers are blowing around or, according to Robbie Bums, are WIN'T. Put these together with CORNFLAKES and you get "LOOK WEST IN CRANFORD", I'm sure we're almost there..."

"Is it 5, Rue Donut?"

"5 Rue Dau Nau - Crazy Horse"

"5, Rue d'Aunou"

"5, Rue D'eau Nu?"

"Organisation des Nations Unis - 5, Rue d'Onu"

"It's obviously a phonetic rendering of Cinq Rue Du Nous"

"Farmer Mint and His Son, Boy. This well-known book tells of an old farming family who had lived on a farm called Little Pigley since 1610. Farmer Mint and his wife lived on the farm with their three children, Ted, Martha and Mary. They had a strange field called Dog's Mead which held a mysterious power over Farmer Mint - he used to walk around it for hours at 3mph continuously reciting its size of 32 roods. He was also obsessed with the value of the field, which he had recently estimated at £17 15s. At the end of this rivetting novel, you are forced to draw the conclusion that this sad state of affairs was brought on by Mrs Grooby, his aged mother-in-law."

"Buckeye. None of the others are anagrams of real seven-letter words. This follows an exhaustive search using the word server at [email protected]." [Try the OED next time - PC].

"it was the Welsh lady at the fast night of the Proms."

"This is a guess - you don't expect me to admit to listening to Our Tune do you?"

"Assuming the 'Logica' question is not 'The Logica Question' then presumably this is it."

"Pop Quiz. Bugger all here - must be getting old,"

"I thought this was a family quiz. "Mummy, what's a handjob?", "Ask Daddy darling - he knows".

"5446 was their number, which means that they joined Logica around 1982, I reckon."

"These are all the names of holes at the Augusta Golf Club. The series is 11, 13, 10, 15, 8, Alternate adding and subtracting of the prime numbers is needed so the next is 19 the clubhouse."

"He hasn't got a dog."

"Captain Pugwash ... I could sing it to if you liked."

"I don't believe this is a true-to-life question - my dog can only pedal at 14 mph."

"If I had that much of the other fruit I wouldn't have any room for any pawpaws."

"Enough for a nice fruit salad?"

"Substitute 1 for A, 2 for B etc. Save the prime numbers, Find the HCF of what's left. Compare the HCF with the remaining factors of what's left. If mutually prime then keep, otherwise discard the remaining factors. Multiply the HCF, the primes and any kept factors..."

"Good grief! The only place I've seen this question before was in the Cambridge Scholarship Further Maths paper."

"There seemed to be a dearth of maps in the shops - you didn't buy up the existing supply did you?"

"The map is a sordid part of Islington. 'X' and 'T&S' are a well-known disorderly house and the pub next door, positioned so they can be frowned on by chapel-goers opposite."

"X marks the Sequinpark Women's Health Club and Gym. The Health Club fits the clue "In the First Place X is in possession of the Amazons" and so we went in to see what they knew about the quiz. They knew nothing but mentioned that their premises in Stoke Newington had just been sold and was going to be called The Amazon Gym. Then we noticed your home address..."

"Almost exactly 350 feet having turned left as you exit from the tube is a magnificent plane tree (one of not many in the area) ... the tree is outside the chapel of Saint Oliver Plunkett"

"All I found was a Twix wrapper saying something like 'Sorry! You are not a winner this time but keep buying Twix, Mars etc.'"

"By counting the number of boundaries in each over and using the same grid letters as for Dunwich one gets a point that is just outside a place called Blacksmith's Corner"

"There are numerous references to Mrs Gaskell in this year's quiz but we were forced to conclude that this was just down to Pablo showing off his knowledge and had nothing to do with the location of the treasure"

"Sweater code. There is a place called Cranford in New Jersey, USA. Yet another indication..."

"My mother was amazed/horrified/surprisingly tolerant about me frantically phoning her on Christmas Eve and insisting that she dig out the Annual Report..."

"Now I knew where the treasure was. My car was parked less than a mile away in the long-term car park at Heathrow and I was 500 miles away..."

"...We set off for Cobham, muttering dark things about the treasure having been near there two years ago and not ever being near Speedwing Logica's offices. After failing to find coincident signs we retired to the pub with a map to locate other possibilities. Shortly afterwards I was grateful for my pint to wash down those foolish words of mine as we identified Cranford Park, not ten minutes drive from Heathrow House..."

"...carefully watching for Logica teams disguised as dog walkers..."

"I could have done without the tree marked with an enormous 'PC' in blue next to which there was a fallen fence - surely the perfect hiding place..."

"...very muddy..,"

"...through the mud..."

"...muddied boots..."

"...we just found mud!..."

"...'twere a cold and foggy night, indeed it was difficult even to find the car park in the swirling mist. Surprising then to find so many cars in the car park on such a dark and bitter night. What dastardly deeds could all these suspicious characters be up to? Taking care to ensure we were not followed, we set out to follow the trail, pausing only to listen to the howls of werewolves, just barely audible above the roar of traffic on the M4..."