MPP XXXXXC

 

Yes – our fiftieth actual in person MPP! That’s pretty cool for a bunch of guys who started getting together in my dining room because we thought it’d be cool to meet up and share our puzzles with other nutters.

Louis and Mieke arrived on Friday evening fresh from an escape room and a city tour of Oxford. After dinner we settled into some gentle puzzling – Louis had brought over a copy of Michel’s new Mibinity puzzle so I had to have a go at that. It’s a really neat little 2D n-ary design that’s been beautifully made by Jack… I take all the pieces apart and examine them and then realise that finding the right starting position turns out to be a bit tricker than I thought it would be… it does go back together again reasonably quickly so that others can have a play the next morning.

Louis has a bit of a play around with my Krasnow Clutch Box which I’ve managed to get into an awkward configuration, but between us we can’t reset it so it stays in the “to be solved” pile.

Next morning we gather our bits and head off to the new venue and try to work out where everything is. We find the tables well-concealed and Louis and I set about putting some out while the first few folks start arriving. When I get back from the shops to collect some fresh milk (there’s always a half empty somewhat sour bottle of milk in every hall we hire for some reason) I spot a familiar old face we haven’t seen in a while – it's great to see Chris after quite a long break.

I’ve taken a few spare copies of Oskar’s Zigguchain, George’s Trapdoor Octahedron and his version of Rik Brouwer’s tRIKube. Steve settles down at the table and begins to assemble tRIKubes in the wrong colour combinations and we end up jousting for a while as I try to disassemble them as fast as he’s assembling them – in my defence, the fit is snug and getting a grip on the right pieces is tricky… he tries the same thing on the Zigguchains but the odds are a bit more in my favour on that one. I manage to get rid of all of the copies I’d taken along and then realised I hadn’t kept a tRIKube apart for myself so end up printing another copy on Sunday.

On the topic of giveaways, Mark K had sent over a bunch of beautifully made little hardwood puzzles for Steve to dish out to all-comers – and he kindly set aside a set of them for me… I say kindly – he gave me a pile of bits and didn’t tell me what puzzles were in there… just an extra puzzle really.

When Frank arrived, he set out a table of books from his Potty Puzzles days and several folks ended up adding to their libraries… he also brought along a couple of custom-made plush toys for the Two Brass Monkeys – complete with their faces printed on the front…. Not at all terrifying for any children who might chance upon them – no siree! They did generate an awful lot of mirth in the room though… job done! :-)

I’d taken my copy of Mike’s 234 Cube along for folks to time themselves on (for science!) and many people had a bash with 7 people actually recording a time (for science!) – the sheet ended up with some amusing answers to the question of puzzle experience – among them “Yes”, “Rubbish at them!” and “No, but lucky” – the latter against the best time of 51 seconds by one S. Nicholls… I think my first attempt took more than 45 times that! (It’s true what they say about my dimness…)

I’d also taken along my recently acquired set of Minima puzzles and ended up encouraging several folks to have a bash of some of them – they really are an amazing little set of a dozen puzzles where the aim on almost all of them is merely to get a few little wooden bits inside an acrylic box. When you hear they’re designed by Frederic Boucher, you’ll understand these are quite challenging… there was lots of agreement about how weirdly hard they were for something that looks like it should be so simple.

It was great to see Adin again and Tamsin decided that it would be wise to bring her daughters along for some puzzling – they seemed to have a grand time, although that may have had more to do with the hall’s wi-fi than the puzzles. Hopefully the puzzlers and their plushies didn’t scar the poor kids for life!

Around noon we wandered up to the High Street for some brain food – with pig rolls winning over kebabs by about 12 to 3 – we missed you, Ed!

After lunch it was back into the puzzling – the Karakuri Christmas presents had a pretty good playing with, with several opportunities for answering the question “Have I finished?” with “Have you found the hanko, yet?” – the answer was always “No…”, but they got there in the end. When you know, you know.

I managed to spend a while chatting with Mikael before foisting Mike’s 234 Cube upon him – and I know this makes me a really bad person, but I was relieved when he didn’t just bang it together in a couple of minutes – thank for making me feel a tiny bit less silly, Mikael! You’re welcome back anytime! :-)

Dan had brought along a couple of variants of GPK’s Numlock… including a stupidly long version that will probably take a lifetime to open properly – we don’t think he assembled that one “properly”…

Louis had brought along his copy of Mail Call and it got a lot of attention – I’d had a chance to play through the first part of it on Friday evening, before resetting it for folks on Saturday, and then on Sunday I got to play through the last section. For my money, the first and last bits are absolutely excellent – seriously good – and if the middle bit were a little less complicated, it would be almost perfect… YMMV.

Sometime after 5pm we tidied up the hall and tried to put everything back more or less where we found it before heading up to the house for yet more puzzling and the traditional fish supper, which didn’t disappoint.

After supper there was a lot more chatting and a bit less puzzling than usual, although there was still a hardcore bunch who insisted on cramming in as much puzzling as they possibly could – everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves … and there was cake in honour of the golden anniversary. What more could you want?

Another great puzzling weekend with my mates – awesome sauce!

 

Fun, Fun, Fun!