The Grumpiness of the Giant Wombat
Concerning dyspeptic diprotodons; some extremely boozy lunches; and a puzzle involving a squirrel's bottom.
So anyway, apparently there was once a type of wombat the size of a hippopotamus. Which is good news, surely. It was called the diprotodon (though it didn't know that at the time) and it lived in Australia, (though it didn't know that either) during the Pleistocene era (though it didn't… you get the idea).
Unlike more elusive Australian fauna, such as the Bunyip and the Dropbear, we have actual fossil records of the diprotodon, and so we know what it looked like - at least on the inside. As with dinosaurs, artists providing impressions of what it looked like on the outside differ about things like type and colour of coat, shape of nose, etc. But on one thing every artist who's ever drawn a diprotodon agrees: it was massively pissed off.
Ok… maybe not every artist:
Commentary Box, on:
Almost all of the commentary this week concerned the puzzle, and will be attended to later, but re The Researcher’s First Murder, Martin the Hypnotist asked:
Oh, and is anyone planning to release a more-or-less complete solution to The Reseacher's First Murder for the benefit of us nowhere-nearly-solvers?
To which the answer is yes, I would like to do this at some point, but probably not for a while, as - despite my accident-prone publisher’s on-going misfortunes - I’m still hoping to be able to release a paperback version first, either with them or elsewhere.
New Puzzle - Hybrid Vigour
Here are some tiles from a children’s game. Use the five up-turned tiles to discover which two animals are on the down-turned tile.
As usual, the first solver should simply name the animals, and the second solver should explain why. For what it’s worth, I have even less idea than usual how hard this one will turn out to be. I’ll give the solution in the next edition.
The solution to last edition’s puzzle is behind the pay-wall, because that’s where the puzzle was (they alternate). However, as it contained a non-fatal, but still irritating error, here is a corrected version, just to make me feel better:
Old Puzzle: So Mixy!
In each set, identify the odd one out.
1) AFTERWARDS; FEVER; NOUN; SEDATE; STEWARD; TART; WATERCRESS; WEED
2) DAN; DEBT; FINNISH; LUNCH; PEN; TART
3) BRAZIER; GARDENED; GRANDIOSE; PRESERVE; SEDATE; SIENNA; WAKES
4) BROOMSTICK; LADYLIKE; PLAYSCHOOL; REFILL; SEPIA; SPONDEE
5) BLUE; COMMIT; DAMS; GRAN; PLOSIVE; QUEEN; STEWARD
And now I see Thrifty Squadron have to hurry off to see that bloke about the thing, but Spendy Squadron and I will stick around for the answers to the above puzzle; some sketches of French people on trains, an account of how the Financial Times once killed a poet, and of course… the leaderboard.
Love,
The Airport