MPP LCII

This was definitely the most exclusive MPP in a long while… we had none of the usual overseas visitors and Big-Steve was over in Hobbit-land visiting his mum. As a result MPP literally only started at 10am on Saturday for me instead of the evening before. I picked up some milk and cold drinks on my way to the hall and I’d just about got most of my stuff out of the car when Ali and the London gang pulled in.

I set up the stuff in the kitchen while the lads unpacked some tables and chairs… clearly channelling Steve in the process… they settle on one straight row and a zig-zag row to encourage conversation, with one table up against the wall for anyone we didn’t like… in the end that one didn’t get used – draw your own conclusions!

I’d printed a bunch of things to dish out and spent a while encouraging folks to have a play with a three-piece cube assembly I’d found on Printables by something called mad gardener – I’d printed off a pile of the 4*4*4 cubes because I thought they were fun, and a couple of the 5*5*5 cubes because I thought they were less fun… clearly I’m not a good judge of puzzles as everyone who played with the 5*5*5 succeeded in assembling them rather rapidly and pronounce them good… I managed to find homes for all of the 5*5*5’s and a chunk of the 4*4*4’s, but there’s still a pile of those left, so I may need to take them to America to foist them on some unsuspecting puzzlers who don’t know better.

I’d also printed off a few sets of George Bell’s Hex Screws – I’d tried, spectacularly unsuccessfully to put the simple assembly together so I offer rich a copy if he’d assemble a set for me – and of course I wanted the difficult assembly – it was Rich after all! He ended up spending a fair amount of time, but managed to crack it in the end and I now have an assembled copy in my cabinet – and if anyone disassembles it, they will probably be drowned in the tears of a disentanglement of puzzlers – you’ve been warned…

Rich brought along a couple of sets of Akaki’s baskets and a few folks who hadn’t yet made their acquaintance ended up scoring a few of them – he’d re-printed a set in a different size so he was giving away the smaller set – good lad!

Rich also brought along a bunch of his own designs – a couple of design studies of three-linked six-piece burrs -one set included Love’s Dozen and Piston Burr tied to a third burr to make for some interesting interactions – I can vouch for the fact that it’s well-challenging trying to keep your head around them…

He also had a few simple little two piece take-aparts that lead you nicely up the garden path and then stop you and make you think when you get onto the third one…

One of the good things about having a smaller bunch this time around was that we got to spend some time getting to know folks a little better – I had no idea that Pastor Dan was in fact a Reverend (available for weddings, divorces and burials – apparently he never leaves home without a shovel just in case he’s called upon) and we heard about the time Kyle thought he’d nearly died in a hot tub (literally days before that Friendly actor did) – he’d finished off (but not in a weird way – © KCM) in the hot tub outdoors in the driving rain (again, not in a weird way – © KCM) when he became very light-headed (you’re getting the hang of this now, aren’t you?) and he swears there was no Ketamine involved, but apart from that, the likeness with Matthew Perry’s death a few days later was apparently uncanny! (But not in a weird way – © KCM.)

Kyle had a set of his wooden puzzles and I took the opportunity to play with them as I hadn’t seen them before… I can definitely see why they’ve been so popular on Discord – I managed to limp my way through the first two, but the third one had me asking for a hint and still not getting any further… so I’m going to have to try again in the future.

Hugo the Hippo had arrived earlier in the week so he had an outing and several folks enjoyed taking him to bits and then reassembling him…

We totally managed to miss out on the pig rolls, arriving on the high street just after they’d sold out so I ended up with pork en croute and an onion bhaji. Healthy eating at its finest!

Dale tormented Frank and a few others with Teddy’s Bear(?) which arrived and left in bits – spending a brief amount of time badly (very badly!) entangled, but never solved.

Back at the house afterwards Frank and Chris had a go at Jesse’s Captain’s Quest – Frank doing most of the solving with Chris proving a running sound effect score to enhance Frank’s solving experience (but not in a weird way – © KCM). When the sound effects weren’t amusing Chris sufficiently, he resorted to words of encouragement (“Pump, it more Frank” – albeit not in a weird way – © KCM). At one point most of us were in tears – but to their credit, they did manage to pretty much complete the solve…

Some of Juno's older designs had a thorough playing with and Lilly showed the boys a thing or two onAir lock and Ziggu-Hook. Alexander Magyarics' Delta Force (courtesy of Tye) had a good playing with with quite a surprising number of folks managing to find the symmetric assembly...

Somewhere in between there was some fish and chips and most folks headed home as it was getting dark, so not too late an evening… and then on Sunday, I find myself with time to write up the obligatory blog post… and while it still feels weird not having any visitors at all for an MPP, it was a damn fun day’s puzzling with my mates – thank you all for the amusement you provided, intentionally or otherwise!