Clutch Lock

When Andrew Coles offers me a puzzle the only question I ask is “What do I owe you?”. There’s never any point asking about the puzzle or the design process as I know that I’m going to want one, so let’s just cut straight to the transaction-y bit. 

At the last MPP Andrew offered me a copy of Clutch Lock so I followed standard procedure and gave him some cash and a few days later I was playing with a rather weird puzzle lock.  The lock itself isn’t that weird, but the key does have some interestingly aggressive bitting, if that’s even a thing. There’s the usual AC keyring, drawstring bag and information card… so far, so standard. 

The key goes into the lock, but it doesn’t turn, at all… you have to try, don’t you!

The fun starts when you try and remove the key… and you discover that you can’t… and thus begins this little emotional roller coaster ride. 

Some purposeful experimentation will assist in releasing said key, but you will need to have your wits about you… and anyway, there’s not a lot of point in just removing the key as the shackle remains very firmly locked shut.

Clutch Lock is a fiendish design where you will be absolutely convinced that there is nothing you can actually do and you will need to assess things very carefully indeed to find that there is in fact something you can do, although how the heck that can possibly be helpful, is beyond me. 

Some more serious study and experimentation is rewarded with the shackle opening, and while I’m chuffed with being able to do that, repeatedly, I have absolutely no idea what the heck is going on inside that lock - my best guess is literally magical pixies are deciding when to open the shackle and release the key.

Andrew has produced another puzzle lock unlike anything I’ve ever seen before - and I really want to know how the heck he’s trained those pixies to confound puzzlers so completely! 

RaDio

I first spotted a pic of this puzzle in the wild in one of Wil’s occasional emails - there wasn’t any description, just a picture of a little old-fashioned radio in a rather distinctive finish… if the finish wasn’t enough, the curious capitalization of the name should have been the give away that this was a new puzzle from the enigmatic Roger D. 

I made polite enquiries and was assured that I was on the waiting list and a few months later Wil offered me a copy. Faced with the choice of paying for shipping or waiting a few weeks for a personal pick-up at King’s Day, I did the obvious thing and offered to send my money right away!

A couple of days later I had a shiny new aluminium puzzle with the eponymous sand-blasted finish in my paws and I was playing with my first new Roger D puzzle in a while… 

It’s a super cute little radio with a sturdy aerial, copper coloured speaker panel and four prominent buttons on the front. Around the back there appears to be a little compartment and some assembly screw holes - which you can safely leave alone - there is no way in heck you’re getting in there without an external tool. 

I spend quite a while fiddling and twiddling and pushing and prodding and I get absolutely nowhere…

During the next MPP Rich has a bash at it and at one point I sort that he’s made some progress, which is interesting, and with my tremendous powers of puzzling I manage to undo said progress once he’s left… leaving me in exactly the same position again… for quite a while. 

The next time I pick up a copy is at Louis’ place before Wil’s King’s Day party… Louis encourages me to have a bash at his copy and asks me a question that I really should have been asking myself already…. But you know, I’m a puzzler and I don’t need no stinking clues… 

He makes me think a bit and I realise I’ve been approaching this puzzle in totally the wrong way… so I start thinking a bit differently and all of a sardine all sorts of weirdly magical things begin to happen…

This puzzle is VERY DIFFERENT - it is not what you’re going to assume it is and at some point it is going to surprise you with absolute wonder… trust me - it’s an amazing little puzzle… 

and I’m afraid I’m going to stop talking about it right here so that I don’t spoil any of that wonderousness for anyone…

Bag o’Tangles

A few weeks ago Gill got me an awesome anniversary gift – apparently 21 years is brass or nickel, so Gill reached out to the Nicholl that does brass and colluded to get me a personalised copy of the Bag o’Tangles that was almost ready for public consumption.

My copy arrived all in bits in a big old bag, with every(?) little brass rod engraved with “To infirmity and beyond” – which is kind of our thing. Steve had somehow forgotten to assemble any of the tangles or even separate them into separate bags so the first task turned out to be actually working out what I could assemble the bits into… (You won’t have that problem because the lads have helpfully put some nice pics up on their website showing you exactly what you’re targeting along with some helpful descriptions.)

Luckily, I managed to deduce the likely shapes from counting up the bits I had – and didn’t get too side-tracked by the few spares bits the boys had thrown in.

I started with the triangular tangle and found it to be a rather fiddly little fiend. (Other nouns are available!) It took me a couple of attempts before I got enough bits in there that it began to hold together well enough in order to complete the structure.

My arithmetic suggested I try tangling squares for the second structure, and not having been told that they hadn’t been intended to nest, I set about building the squartangle around the outside of the tri-tangle – ignorance makes for a great taskmaster! Once or twice I needed to backtrack a bit and reposition things, but the squartangle went together a bit easier than the tri-tangle, IMHO… and the first two were nested.

I started experimenting with assembling the pentagonal tangle on its own and found it to be pretty fiddly – and I quickly decided that putting the penta-tangle around my current nest was going to require way more hands (and co-ordination!) than I have available to me – so I reached out to Steve to enquire if there might be a jig available… a short while later one was finishing up on the 3D  printer and I was back in business.

Truth be told, assembling the penta-tangle around the other two was pretty straight-forward with the aid of the jig and my fully nested set was ready to show off… which rather amused Steve as he hadn’t expected the nesting to be possible… and actually in theory, it isn’t possible, however in practice, it works… figure that one out!

I’ve enjoyed playing with a couple of variations on these tangles over the years, including some excellent tongue depressor models! This set is definitely the best of the bunch – they go together nicely and the Monkeys have done a great job of balancing the grip and give between the various bit and pieces to make assembly an absolute pleasure. Wrapping the various pieces over and under one another is great exercise in visualising the various symmetries in the shapes. Heck! You could probably even call these things mathematical sculptures if you needed to diversify your puzzle-habit!

You don’t have to assemble them in a single nested configuration, but you know you’re going to want to try at least once! Get yours over here...

Thanks Gilly for colluding with the Nicholl and brass chaps for a super anniversary gift!

To infirmity and beyond…

Kings Day 2025

This year the Two Brass Monkeys invite me to travel over to Eindhoven and Venlo with them, so I head down to Ali’s place on Friday morning. My sat-nag takes me around a bit of a roundabout route, but it does keep me out of any rush-hour traffic, which is great. I get to Ali’s at pretty much the appointed time (albeit we’ve decided at the last minute to bring our departure forward an hour or so, and that turned out to be a good decision!) and it doesn’t take long to load up the trick and head down toward Folkestone.

Getting onto Le Shuttle is super-efficient, with trained seagulls checking our tickets. The trip under the channel is an opportunity to stretch our legs and have some snacks on the tailgate. Heading out into France, Steve and I keep reminding Ali to drive on the wrong side of the road and asking if we’re nearly there yet. We stop for a mid-afternoon lunch at a roadside Belgian Burger King and we chew up the miles pretty ruthlessly until we hit the outskirts of Antwerp where we find traffic that will end up delaying us for around an hour or more. My job of supplying snacks to the driver and up-front passenger becomes crucial at this stage.

After we clear Antwerp, the roads open up again, but by now we’re later than we’d hoped to be, and we’re rearranging the evening plans with Louis…we manage to get to Louis’ place in time to say hello and grab a quick drink before heading out to our Friday evening escape room in Oisterwiijk.

We all get dressed up like merry woodsmen and somehow resist the urge to launch into a rousing rendition of “I’m a lumberjack and I’m OK!”. It’s an interesting room where the first section made us toil for quite a while until we (OK, Louis!) spotted some tiny details… that helped us make significant progress before heading into the second area which felt more tractable (i.e. suited our “Let’s just try this”-style) – the mechanics for opening the third area surprised us all and we found we had a heck of a lot to do in the final area – so that ended up being quite a rush... with quite a few nudges we just managed to get though everything in time. We reckoned it was a pretty good room -with some really surprising mechanics along the way.

Back at Louis’ place plenty of puzzling ensued – I know – shocker! Somewhere around midnight we call it a day and head off to check into the hotel.

Next morning I meet the monkeys for breakfast before Louis and Mieke collect us to take us bargain-hunting at the King’s Day flea markets, resplendent in our obligatory orange polo shirts. We get a lot of steps in wandering around viewing the various treasures for sale. We fail to find any Stickmen, Lensch or Toulouzas treasures. Ali does manage to find a 3x3 Mastermorphix(?) and against our better judgment he buys it for a euro. (In fairness it provides way more than a euro’s entertainment over the rest of the weekend!) Steve manages to find an absolute treasure of a vintage Swine Dissection (SD) puzzle and duly sends in the A-Team to negotiate the purchase – Louis and Mieke secure the pièce de resistance and the team of travelling puzzlers celebrated!

We grab a bite to eat at a café before heading off to the next flea market, where sadly zero Tom Lensches or Swine Dissections are discovered... so we head back to Louis’ for some more puzzling.

I’d taken over a few of my latest Pelikan acquisitions which were duly passed around – Girish’s Heavy Lifter gets several nods of approval, Frederic’s Sym Duo puts smiles on everyone’s faces and I enjoy (finally) solving a couple of Mine’s latest assemblies.

I’d printed off a few copies of Steve’s Smells of Roses (where the heck do these names come from!?) so Louis made short work of assembling that, and in fact running through all of the Pelikans I’d taken over. Knowing I’ve been getting nowhere on my RaDio, he suggests I have a bash on his, and after some subtle questioning, he coaxes me into doing the right thing and the puzzle comes alive for me in a totally unexpected manner – it is magical.

Late afternoon we head off to our second escape room at Hotel Veloria (IYK,YK) – we grab a drink in the hotel bar before being ushered into the Reception area and then head into the room… which I’m not going to say much about, because the element of continual surprise is just incredible. The theming throughout is literally perfect and the mechanics are jaw-dropping! It’s easy to see why this one has consistently scored well in the TERPECA league tables ever since it opened in 2017(!). It’s worth going (well) out of your way to visit this one!

We head back to Louis’ place via Dominos to collect some pizzas. Louis refused to accept any contributions toward either the room or the pizzas, so we left a random sum of cash in the glovebox for someone to find.

We spent an hour or two trying to get into Pavel's "What is the name of this puzzle?" and failed miserably... Yet more puzzling, with some actual solving, ensues until we decide to call it a day at around midnight.

Breakfast with Steve and Ali is always fun and Louis collects us to take us through to Wil’s place where we find our genial host putting the final touches on his arrangements. We’re welcomed like long-lost friends and we take the opportunity to foist gifts on our host before the rest of the gaggle arrives.

The usual spread of fruit tarts is on display in the kitchen and Wil is quick to offer everyone something to drink… the crowds begin arriving and I put a pile of sundry 3D printed bits and pieces out in the hope that they’ll find new homes. (They do.) There are a few more copies of Smells of Roses (mental note: ask Steve about that damn name, it’s starting to bug me), a couple of spare Barcode Burrs and several copies of Bram’s Hinged Cube.

Chris throws himself at Smells of Roses and looks suitably proud when he finally slides the stubborn tetrahedron together. Rani did a pretty good job on assembling some not-so-orderly tangles and several puzzlers need to have their bubbles burst by pointing out that the proper solution for Bram’s Hinged Cube does not allow the two sticky-outy-bits to meet. I reckon that puzzle is still hands-down the best value for money puzzle out this year.

Wil's spread for lunch is phenomenal yet again, there is plenty of food to refuel hungry puzzlers and there seems to be a constant supply of cakes, tarts and snacks on the go throughout the day!

Oskar takes up his traditional spot with a table-full of his latest creations. There’s a constant stream of puzzlers chatting and fiddling and buying bits and pieces throughout the morning. It’s a gloriously sunny day and while we’re all enjoying the warmth, sadly some of Oskar’s 3D prints start wilting in the afternoon heat, so they’re gathered up and put in the shade to be repaired. Oskar moves into the shade and there’s a surreal conversation when Steve asks Oskar what his day job is at the moment – there are some highly intelligent people in this community of puzzlers. I have no idea how I managed to blag my way in!

Jules had brought along a bunch of really interesting looking puzzle locks and they had a constant stream of admirers, and a slightly less constant stream of solvers. I manage to solve a few of them, but several of them bested me! The centrepiece was a fascinating German(?) padlock with the front removed so that you could see all of the complications added to make opening it seriously non-trivial.

Wil dished out a number of his latest disentanglement finds from China – what appears to be a riff on Foshee’s Holey Bolt – always a fun challenge!

It was great to catch up with Rob & Rob & Daan & Michel & Rik & Jan Willem & a whole bunch of other Puzzling friends from around Europe!

The crowds had thinned out and we headed into town for another great meal on the river – puzzles all over the table, and a rather vocal toy train for some reason. I spent ages trying (and failing) to work out Wil’s mind-reading trick, interrupted only by Steve’s successful solving of the method… must try harder – I now have two sets of those cards and I’m still no closer to working out the method! The meal was great and we headed back to Wil’s where Esther continued the entertainment with a traditional campfire game that had most of us confused for quite a while. Everyone eventually worked it out and the crowds thinned out further as folks with further to travel headed home… we puzzled and chatted and got plied with coffee and chocolates until we finally gave up just before midnight, knowing we had an hour’s drive back to Eindhoven.

Louis got us all back safe and sound and we said our thank-yous and goodbyes. Breakfast was a fairly leisurely affair with Ali and Steve so that we missed the traffic out of Eindhoven – that bit was successful, although we still contrived to find some traffic around Antwerp in late morning – albeit significantly less this time!

We topped up on snacks at the border, getting into Folkestone literally just after we drove onboard the train in Calais, in spite of the now-traditional tailgate snacking on the way back. The drive back up the motorway to Steve’s place was thoroughly uneventful (all the best journeys are!) and soon I was back in my own car heading back to Brum, where the sat-nag once again did a good job of keeping me away from the traffic so I made good time getting home…

An absolutely brilliant weekend away with my mates – Thanks a stack to Ali for doing all the driving, Louis for looking after us the whole weekend and treating us to escape rooms and flea markets, and Wil for hosting another awesome King’s Day party, and dinner! Thank you all for giving me a brilliant weekend’s entertainment.