A Little Puzzle for You

[painshill]

This is from an old children’s magazine, published in Britain.


1. How many people are staying at the camp?
2. When did they arrive: today or a few days ago?
3. How did they get here?
4. Is there likely a town or village nearby?
5. Is the wind coming from the north or south?
6. What time of day is it?
7. Where did Alex go?
8. Who was on duty yesterday?
9. What date is it today?


DON'T SCROLL DOWN IF YOU HAVE ONLY JUST SEEN THIS AND WANT TO TEST YOURSELF!

[Ron Kelley]

1. Four
2. Few days ago
3. Canoe
4. No
5. North
6. Evening
7. Hunting butterflies
8. Colin
9. Eighth [yes, but what month?]

[Cskelton]

I'll take a stab at it...


4 people
A few days ago
By boat
Yes a town is nearby
From the north
Late afternoon
Alex is out catching butterflies
Peter
June 21st

[painshill]

Not bad guys. I have flagged the correct answers in green. Self-evidently, if "north" is incorrect for the direction the wind is coming from then "south" must be correct.... but how could it be deduced?

[Ron Kelley]

Hey Roger, That was fun. We American boys cook breakfast in a fry pan and don't keep chickens in town. Maybe I'm overthinking this.

[painshill]

The clue for the wind direction lies in the trees. That information, in conjunction with the shadows will give you the time of day. The answer to which month it is will come from the watermelon... but it's not June.

[Driftwood]

You sure that not a pumpkin?

[Hoss]

Are you sure this is English? The kid with a polaroid is wearing a beret! Judging from the shadow on the ground just beyond the cook I would assume 11 AM as the sun is on his right shoulder the fire is moving away from the boy it would make the wind out of the south. He is probably cooking lunch. SO I call 11 AM not one PM If they had arrived a few days ago "few meaning three or four more in America" How could it have been Colin who was on duty yesterday. A couple is two and few is three or four. Interesting stuff.

[painshill]

James must be the photographer, since the backpack marked with a J has a tripod in it. The person rummaging through the other backpack (marked with a C) will be Colin. Since we’re asked “where did Alex go?” that means he isn’t visible in the picture, so it must be him collecting butterflies hidden behind the tent. That must mean Peter is doing the cooking and accounts for the three visible names and the hidden name on the duty list.

If Peter is doing the cooking, he must be “on duty” today, which means it’s the 8^th of the month according to the duty list. The list then tells us that Colin was on duty the day before (ie “yesterday”).

Both the flag on the tent and the flames from the fire are being blown to the “right” in the picture. If you look at the trees, the branches are much more foliated on the left hand side. In the northern hemisphere that’s an indicator that left = south. Tree branches grow more densely on the southern side because on average they get more sunlight.

Having established which direction is south, the shadows (notably Peter’s shadow) tell us that the sun is shining from the east so it must be morning. Since Peter’s shadow is moderately long, it must be mid-morning, which would be consistent with him preparing a stewpot lunch.

So, we know it’s the 8^th of the month… but which month? Trickier… but since we have a watermelon (that is what it is supposed to be) on the picnic blanket it is presumably ready to eat. Before supermarkets and commercial hot-housing made them available all year round, they had a short season and came to ripeness in August.

(The beret – as civilian headgear – was widely adopted as fashionable dress by artists and photographers over here, as an affectation to “trendy cosmopolitan artiness”).

[Hoss]

Thanks Roger! It was fun to look at and I had no idea about a lot of it but dug in on the flames and shadow in peter.

[Driftwood]

I still say it's a pumpkin and therefore October.

[lukecreekwalker]

Wow. I did awful haha. That was neat though. Thanks Painshill

[painshill]

I still say it's a pumpkin and therefore October.

A pumpkin would have been a very unusual item for anyone to take on a picnic in Britain at the time this magazine was published. We have a very limited history of pumpkin consumption. Mostly, the fairly small crop went for animal feed until quite recently. Even today, we don’t really use them much, except for carving at Halloween and that’s a recent American introduction driven by marketing. Carved lanterns at Halloween were traditionally made from swedes and turnips over here. In the 2014 shopper survey, 83% of Brits said they had never purchased a pumpkin and 8% said they had only purchased once during the year (usually at Halloween, and not for consumption).

[Cskelton]

I'd hate to be a Swede , living there around Halloween!!!!

[painshill]

Ha Ha.... I don't always remember to give you guys a translation! That's "rutabagas" on your side of the pond.

However, there is no such substance as "alooominum".