Once again on a Friday evening I find myself collecting a
few Dutch puzzlers from BHX… except this time there are three of them: Rob’s
spent the day sight-seeing around Brum (basically sampling craft beers and
buying a few bottles – “for a friend”) and meets us at the airport when Louis
and Wil arrive from Schipol.
Back at home I make a round of coffees and, not
unsurprisingly, we start puzzling. I get to have a rake through Wil’s crates
and manage to score a copy of Tube It In for a friend and a few of JCC’s latest
creations that haven’t made it into my collection yet. Wil gives me a prototype
hyper dexterity challenge consisting of an angel dangling from a hook on a
chain inside a Kikkoman bottle – the aim is to dangle a necklace around the
angel’s neck… I can only picture the angel coming unhooked and NEVER going back
on the hook again!
Louis presents me with a 3D-printed (his new toy!) ambiguous
object that either looks like six round pipes or eight diamond shaped pipes –
I haven't seen that one before and it's rather trippy! Thanks Louis!
Some time after midnight, wondering how the heck they’re
still so wide awake when they’re supposed to be an hour ahead of me, I head to
bed, leaving them happily chatting and playing in the puzzle cave.
Next morning we feast on croissant and pain au chocolat before heading down to the hall to set up before
the rest of the gang arrives… and for the first time in a while, I actually
manage to get there first! (Probably only because Angela wasn’t able to make it
– she always beats me to it!)
It doesn’t take long for the gang to gather – although Big
Steve seems to be registering a protest vote: he’s brought along a bunch of jigsaw
puzzles and his new (but growing!) collection of tongue depressors.
Actually I
do the man a great disservice: the jigsaw puzzles are awesome pieces of art from
Mike & Gill Hayduk – must order
some of those soon!
…the tongue depressors, well that’s another story entirely.
Since I last mentioned them in the MPP XXXi write-up, things have gone a little
downhill on the tongue depressor front… and for the benefit of those of you who
haven’t followed Steve’s social media cries for help, here’s a potted summary: first of all, someone sent Steve a bunch of tongue depressors in an
envelope with no discernible postmark – this confused Steve.
Then he started
receiving random parcels, some from Amazon with no apparent way to identify the
gift-giver (yes, you really can give a gift through Amazon absolutely
anonymously, just in case you were wondering!) and some from anonymous well-wishers,
there were large quantities of coloured dowels (technically not tongue
depressors, but close enough!), coloured popsicle sticks (ditto, but even
closer!) and even a work of art (postmarked RAGUPON?): a Tongue lifting device crafted purely of painted
tongue depressors – real vintage Blue Peter stuff! Somewhere in there a couple
of hilarious videos popped up with helpful suggestions and encouragement…
things may just get a bit silly! But even after all that, the pièce de
résistance, a pair of tongue depressors arrive through Royal Mail with
just Steve’s address and a stamp on each of them… pure-dead-brilliant!
…not only had Steve brought along these wonderful artefacts
(making a promising collection, don’t ya know?!) he also brought along several
boxes of tongue depressors to give away… and a couple of tongue-depressor-art
sculptures (some assembly required) to give away – and we ended up playing pass
the parcel with them, hiding them in one another’s crates in the hopes of
avoiding them – in the end Ali and I ended up the winners…!
We had a new guy called Ed join us for the day – Ali collected
him from the station and we had him sat down and puzzling with us pretty soon
after he’d arrived – he wanted to feel some Karakuri boxes so we’d brought a
selection along for him to have a go on… generally he knocked them off pretty
quickly and told us how simple he was finding them… Ali passed him a Super-Cubi
and that kept him quiet for a little while – but he got it open and closed
again fairly efficiently, pausing halfway to run a finger around the mechanism
inside and express some awe and wonder at the engineering – you see, he’s
totally unsighted – and a pretty darn good puzzler!
Shane had brought along a small number of vintage locks and his
full collection of Popplocks, just in case anyone wanted a bash at one they
didn’t have themselves…!
Having met up with Jim Kerley the week before, he’d given me
a few copies of an old puzzle he’s reproduced in laser-cut acrylic – I give
them away as a gift from Jim and ask the guys to let him know how they find the
puzzle… and I trust they will! :-)
Rich Gain had brought along some 3D printed copies of his recent
designs and I managed to grab a copy of his Coronation Cube and Printable Interlocking Cube
#3 (I think – someone will correct me if I’ve got that wrong!) – I had a great
time fiddling with those on the Sunday evening after all my puzzling guests had
left… they’re definitely worth a look.
Wil did a reasonably steady business all day and his bags
weighed a lot less on the way home than on the way over. As usual he had
everything out for people to play with and it’s interesting to see how some
people decide to buy a puzzle: some solve it and decide “That’s brilliant, I
have to have one” and others don’t quite manage to solve it and decide they
need to take one away and solve it at home… we’re a pretty strange bunch, but
we all manage to justify our purchases somehow!
Toulouzas 1 – MPP hive-mind 0
… in
fact it remained unsolved by the gang until the following day when Rob managed to
solve it around lunch time… Well done Rob!
Everyone who played with my new copy of Coffin’s Hexagonal
Prism absolutely loved it… everyone managed to assemble it and all seemed to
enjoy playing with it… it is an absolute delight!
The gang did best me on one of my own puzzles, with several
of them solving my Ixia Box, even though I’d had a month’s head start on them…
and that final compartment still remains locked for me… although the guys did
rather helpfully put some coins and treasure inside there for me – no doubt
when I eventually get it open I’ll find a few tongue depressors in there too!
:-)
We had a surprise visit from our youngest MPP member in the
form of Oren – aged 5 weeks – he’d thoughtfully brought parents Adin and
Sophie along knowing they enjoyed a bit of puzzling!
Somewhere after 5 o’clock we all decamped back to my place
for the traditional fish supper, where there was a fair amount of really good
banter and some dinner, and puzzles, of course.
When everyone else had left, the Dutch contingent and I went
on puzzling in the puzzle cave and yet again I was the first one to crash,
desperately needing my bed…
Sunday morning was complete with the traditional
Coolen-Puzzle-Solving-Service, sorting out a couple of pesky little blighters
for me, before I dropped him and Wil off at BHX for their flight home… followed
by more puzzling and some lunch before Rob was safely deposited there for his
flight home… and another fine MPP weekend draws to a close.
KOPA, or KO Box has
been my go-to puzzle for inflicting on random puzzlers for a good few months now – it
has a great balance between looking innocuous and managing to convince you it’s
totally impossible… and pretty much everyone who’s solved it, absolutely loves
it! 
There are three pieces making up the box, and one more piece to
go into the centre… two of those box-pieces are permanently joined (back right in the picture above), and one
piece can be introduced and removed at will while the central drawer-piece (front, centre) isn’t
in play… The movements are governed by tracks and dowels in the respective pieces
– and the whole thing ends up working a bit like a universal joint. 
And therein lies the puzzlement. 
