DCD ’25

About two weeks ago I drove down to London to meet up with Ali and Lily and Steve (who’d landed back in the UK from his post-IPP trip late the night before). We transferred a chunk of brass from my boot and Ali’s garage into the back of the truck and then headed south for Le Shuttle and a relatively painless drive up the coast to The Hague. 

We’d been dreading the inevitable traffic around Antwerp but the sat-nav had better ideas this time around.

While we were checking in Wil bounded over and officially welcomed us to his neck of the woods. We ditched our bags and met Wil in the restaurant for some dinner and a little gentle introductory puzzling: Kondo-san’s exchange and a pyramid assembly from Osanori… the puzzles remained victorious in that session.

We had a few drinks after dinner, did a bit more puzzling and then headed off to bed at a reaonsably sensible hour having been travelling all day, although Ali who’d done pretty much all of the driving was flagging a lot less than the rest of us… and Nicholls had a really good excuse having travelled from NZ – JPN – UK – NETH in about five days.

Next morning we grabbed the hotel breakfast with Frank who’d arrived after I’d given up on things the previous night, before finding Louis and heading off to Pray in Katwijk – which if you don’t recognise the name, is one of the best escape rooms in the Netherlands and was in fact the 13^th best Escape Room in the world last year on Terpeca…

We head into the room at the appropriate time and things get pretty dark almost immediately – and we proceed from the literal to the figurative darkness as we’re drawn into some wonderful theatre and story-telling – all set among an absolutely cracking escape room. I really appreciated the fact that there wasn’t a single clock or countdown timer in the whole experience, and there was only one single numeric padlock… we completed the room in 78 minutes which was apparently quite handy, having not had a single hint along the way… we then sit down in the town square and chat to our gamemaster over a nice cup of coffee and get the background on the development of the game and the tech behind it all… he’s clearly very proud of what they’ve done and ends up showing us around a little behind-the-scenes and it’s incredible just how much those guys have managed to cram into that site… if you’re going to be in the neighbourhood, book ahead if you want to try this room – it’s booked up many months in advance and there’s a good reason why!

We grab lunch at a great little eatery just up the road from St Maartens and of course the puzzles come out and it doesn't take Louis long to deduce something interesting and then solve Kondo-san's exchange - I'm well and truly gob-smacked, again. 

We swing by the school to offload all the brass in the back of the truck and say a few hellos to others also offloading. From there we head off to Rob’s place for the traditional pre-DCD PP… there’s already a whole bunch of puzzlers there so we settle into a comfy spot and pull up a puzzle or two…

I’ve taken my copy of Leisure Luke’s Spyglass and Louis makes pretty good progress through the many stages of the solve but can’t quite get the final opening to work… I try and help and manage even less, although I’m sure that exactly what we’re trying now has worked before and opened the puzzle… a little closer examination shows that something internally has come adrift so I may need to reach out to Luke for some advice…

I end up spending many hours playing with Louis’ copy of Castle Emberlock – there is SO MUCH to be discovered, manipulated and explored and even with some pretty direct hints at some points I must still have spent several hours taking it all apart – only to realise there was yet more to be discovered. It is an epic puzzle from Benno and I’m glad I’ve had the opportunity to play around with a copy. Thanks Louis!

There’s another traditional feasting on pizza before heading back to the hotel for a drink or three at the bar… and of course some more puzzling. We actually end up doing something vaguely useful and christen the Monkeys latest creation (Making Love Easier) and then QCing the batch available for sale at DCD. 

After all that, in the lift on the way up to the rooms, Frank decides to get revenge on the Monkeys who’d pressed all the buttons leading up to his floor the evening before and goes full-on rabid teenager pressing every single floor beyond his own in order to doom the rest of us to a long slow ride upstairs… Steve tries manfully to fend him off, but fails, largely… until Frank with a look of absolute horror on his face spots a civilian in the corner of the lift just looking at him with the sort of expression that says “What the heck, old bean?” – or something similar. At this point Frank becomes instantly super apologetic as he gets out at his floor… and we all apologise for our friend that we’re now referring to as little Richard… Steve duly turns off all of the in-between floors and we aren’t delayed by much in the end… but the look on Frank’s face will go down in DCD road-trip legends.

We meet at breakfast the next morning before heading across to the school for DCD-proper where our entry fee gets us a name tag and a copy of Oskar’s Heptagon Temple.

I track down Jan Willem to offload a few boxes of chocolate (so I’ll have space for puzzles!) and dump my bag behind Wil’s extensive row of crates of treasure and then start wending my way around the various tables saying hello to old friends and chatting to new ones. 

I can’t resist the urge to pick up a couple of new Coffin tray packers from Jack (Thanks Jack!) and Michel shoves a couple of laser-cut Grabarchucks in my hand. Jan Willem insists on gifting me a lovely cherry toothpick safe from one of his Hakone Puzzle Parties (Thank you Jan Willem!). The Monkeys give me a special mini-BM2 and Phil insists I take a copy of his new Slide Away fresh off the machines just in time for DCD. I realise I already have a wonderful haul and I’ve hardly spent any money yet!

I have a long chat with Arie about his escapades now that he’s properly retired and he shows me a bunch of pics of his own designs and displays – I’m drawn to his various wooden balls and decide that I should relieve him of a 12-way Pentagon tangle in walnut for the princely sum of EUR 30 – he’s doing what he loves and giving some lovely reclaimed wood a new purpose in life… everyone wins!

The lunch is the usual spread-of-plenty and after lunch there are lectures on Complexity, an update from the World Puzzle Centre and a canter through some of the exchange puzzles courtesy of Rob (with Steve standing in for Diniar who couldn’t make it this year). (Once again Rob’s done a great job of pulling together a presentation between us leaving the night before and getting himself to the school for DCD! I must offer to let him have some pics next year to save him at least some of that effort!)

Things wind up slowly after the lectures and we spend a while chatting and moving tables and chairs into their more normal canteen setup while some folks hold a bored meeting next door. When that’s all done, we head off to the local Chinese for a buffet dinner… there are quite a few more of us than we’ve anticipated (and booked for) but the staff do a grand job of getting us all sitting within shouting distance of one another so nobody feels left out.

After dinner we all head off our separate ways, with the hotel gang meeting up (again!) in the bar, (well I had to spend my free drink tokens didn’t I!?).

Next morning Ali takes the four of us down to Calais where we grab Le Shuttle for our underwater time-travelling adventure (we forget to place bets on an imminent sporting event, sadly) before grabbing a burger back in Blighty more or less around lunch time. The traffic up to London is pretty darned reasonable, as is the drive back to Barnt Green from London – which is a lovely way to top off a fantastic weekend away with the Monkeys and a whole bunch of our European puzzling mates.

Thanks a million to Ali for driving us over and back and to Steve for the entertainment en route. Hopefully Lily wasn’t too scarred by the experience. 

 

IPP42 (Part 4)

Next morning we met Anne and Nick in the breakfast line and then Brian and Sue led the entire breakfast room in a round of Happy Birthday - really not embarrassing at all… after breakfast I headed to the puzzle party and joined the very orderly queue to be allowed to enter at 9 o’clock while watching all those with dealer tables wandering in and setting up… or trying to snag an early bargain before the rabble were allowed in.

I made a bee-line for Mine’s table hoping to find something new and didn’t at first, although on some of my subsequent visits I did manage to find a few little goodies that I didn’t already have.

Tetsuro tracked me down and presented me with a carrier bag of some of his older exchange puzzles that he’d recently found while cleaning out a room… and then Osho handed me another bag full of Hiroshi Yamamoto’s designs in recognition of his recent passing - both wonderfully generous gentlemen! Thank you!

A couple of the guys who missed the exchange the day before now have their exchange puzzles and we all get the chance to exchange with Namba-San and Hendrik.

During the course of the day I get to spend some time chatting with Scott Elliott - something that’s always enlightening and entertaining all at once. The Hanayama guys have some giant cast puzzles for sale and I spend a while wondering how I can justify spending a fair chunk of change on 5 big old chunks of heavy metal (10kg in total) before Ali puts me out of my misery and buys a couple of sets of them - Two Brass Monkey heavy metal puzzle research in action.

I decided to spoil myself with a copy of Stephan’s Moonage M5 because I still haven’t had a chance to play with one and I decide to nominate that as my birthday present this year.

On one of my many visits to the 2BM table Steve sneaks up behind me and launches into yet another rousing round of happy birthday with most of the room joining in yet again. Like I said, not at all embarrassing!

I spend a little while chatting with Yavuz and pick up a copy of his (subsequently award-winning) Design competition entry Rhombox… and he throws in another puzzle for no good reason at all! Jules convinces me I need a copy of his dad’s new disentanglement with a number 42 in it… I don’t need much convincing it turns out!

I grab a couple of interesting little goodies from George Bell’s table, pick up another number puzzle book and spend a little while raking through Osanori Yamamoto’s table and grab a copy of his Square Lock. I’m somewhat taken aback when he recognizes my name badge and remarks about my blog - it still takes me by surprise when I find out that the designers whose puzzles I really enjoy even know about my blog.

With the puzzle party winding down I find Gill and we head off for a milkshake and burger at Shake Tree - there’s a little concern when I order the slider and a shake and Gill orders a burger and a shake… yes, I’m not very hungry and she is (I’ve polished off a couple of sacks of 7Eleven snacks for my lunch already by this time…) - both the burgers and the shakes are excellent, albeit not particularly Japanese-y.

The afternoon lectures include memories of Hiroshi Yamamoto who’d recently passed away, Marc did a presentation on cataloguing puzzles with a call for volunteers to help. Miura-San gives a delightful talk on puzzle design, being between obvious and impossible and then George gave an update on the World Puzzle Centre.

Having learnt our lesson from the night before we asked Nick if he had place at his table for us and then joined the throng waiting to be allowed inside the hall at the appointed time. This time there was plenty of space in the hall for everyone, and subsequently plenty of food for everyone too. (All’s well that ends…)

Shoko and Esa run a game for us which allows us all to put random messages on the screen, and it doesn’t take long for some random hamster references to appear… followed shortly thereafter by more happy birthday messages and a subsequent round of singing too… yeah, maybe a wee bit embarrassing now! :-)

Wooden Tie Club

 

Nick launches into the presentation of the Design comp awards and there’s plenty cheering when Koichi Miura wins two Jury Honourable Mentions and a Top 10 Votes Award - definitely a popular local hero! :-) There’s even more cheering when another local lad, Yasuhiro Hashimoto, takes the top prize for Diagonal Twins, one of the few puzzles I’ve solved and really enjoyed!

After the awards there’s the customary thanking of the hosts who are each presented with a giant Cast Baroq (of which these are the only two in the world) before the committee and volunteers each receive a special Hanayama puzzle as a thank you.

With the festivities over we allow the hotel staff to turn around the room and we chat in the foyer for a while, saying some goodbyes and just chatting with those who aren’t leaving yet. We end up getting to bed at a reasonable time and take advantage of not having to get up at a specific time to not set an alarm for the first time in a while…

As it is we end up sleeping until 9:30 and missing breakfast (see earlier comments about room snacks!) - Gill takes charge of sorting out the packing and we get most of our stuff squared away (including most of the puzzles and the recent fabric purchases before we head down to meet Nick, Anne, Brian and Sue for lunch… we wander across the river and find a little noodle bar down a back alley for a great lunch costing about £22 - for the six of us!

We do some touristing and selfie-taking before heading to another nearby ice cream shop we haven’t tried yet… we get affogatos and iced coffees and I can’t resist their last piece of tiramisu - it’s all great!!

On the slow walk back to the hotel we bump into Benny and the Monkeys who’ve just surfaced and are planning to head into town for some breakfast at 3pm - they’ve had a long night… we all agree to meet up at breakfast the next morning, except for Brian and Sue who head out this evening on their next leg… we fail.

From there on we’re more or less solo, out for dinner at Shake Tree so I can have a real burger and then an early night (I’m getting too old for these IPP late nights!) - however being a Monday evening Shake Tree is closed so we head back to our favourite Chinese joint for more spicy noodles and dumplings - I am very much a creature of habit it turns out! This time the chef has seriously cranked up the spice levels and I end up wearing some of my dinner, to the point that the shirt will get abandoned back at the hotel as the stains ain’t going to be coming out any time soon… on the way back to the hotel we find several groups of puzzlers who manage to crack a smile at my clumsiness.

We finish off the packing after breakfast the next morning and say goodbye to Benny and the Monkeys and Nick-San before grabbing a cab back to Haneda for the flight to Blighty.

Another wonderfully memorable Japanese IPP thanks to a great organising committee. 

IPP42 (Part 3)

 On Friday morning Jan suggests we head off to a pop-up embroidery workshop hosted by a local artist whose work she and Gill both admire - Dave navigates us there and the girls manage to get copies of her new books and some accoutrements before getting their books signed and getting some proper-fan-girl pics taken with Tomomi Mimura.

Gill and I hightail it back to the Sky Tree to find Marc and the Monkeys, arriving just in time. We head up a couple of high-speed lifts and we’re admiring the views and taking pics when Ali realises he’s left his phone somewhere… Ali and his brother duly head downstairs and Gill heads off to search where Ali thinks he may have put it down… Gill gets the details of the lost property office and by the time Ali gets to it, his phone is there safe and sound waiting for him.

We finish up and head into the mall for a quick spot of lunch before Gill heads off for some more shopping (serious stamina!) and the boys head downtown for our sumo experience - a presentation on the sport and some demonstrations by a couple of wrestlers with a great sense of humour hamming it up for the crowds - it’s brilliantly entertaining and we end up spending an hour and a half well-entertained at the antics. 

 

I load up on some snacks for the exchange day and source the obligatory uniform for the exchange from Steve’s room where Ali gives me a mini BM2 - their latest experiment.

On exchange morning I leave Gill sleeping in the room and grab breakfast with Frank who’s also flying solo - not because Jo’s sleeping in as well, but because she’s off doing a park run in Ueno - they’re playing Park Run Bingo and a U-Park Run is a great find! After brekkie I give Louis his shirt so we can do the usual feigned embarrassment that someone else is wearing the same outfit when we meet downstairs… although Frank’s got an even better story since Brian’s dressed him as a Japanese postman (complete with cap and white gloves!) in keeping with the theme of his exchange puzzle.

Louis and I set up our stall and offload about 85 exchange puzzles onto our table and then have a bit of a wander around having a gander at the goodies we’re about to be gifted…

In the end a couple of the guys have to pull out of the exchange at the last minute so we’re down to about 75 exchangers - and after the traditional welcome we’re off and running.

My exchange this year is Sly Burr 2 - Frank’s reprise of Sly Burr, in a box, with a bit of a twist added by the Two Brass Monkeys. I get into the groove of telling folks to take it apart, and then keep puzzling until the puzzle tells them to stop… most look a little quizzical but they’re prepared to go with it…

William Waite exchanges what he happily describes as a simple entry-level tray-packer with pattern matching constraints, Rich Williams has a Baker’s Dozen Burr - supposedly a standard 6-piece burr requiring 13 moves… which is interesting if you know anything about burr-analysis... from there we hit up Andreas for a four-piece cube dissection that looks diabolical and then we begin heading further and further afield…

There’s a few surreal exchanges where I’m giving Ali a copy of my puzzle that he and his daughters have assembled for me… and then something similar with Steve who’s been instrumental in the design and tweakage - including adding a layer that I’m not even aware of… makes mental note to solve one of his own puzzles when he gets home.

Steve Canfield has another exceptional puzzle in the form of a Japanese train carriage with pieces for the stuffing thereof… albeit along the way there will be some sequential discovery jiggery pokery - Louis establishes there ought to be a couple of spare copies for sale the next morning…

We make pretty good time and by about lunch time Louis’ efficiency means I only need another three exchanges, so we break for lunch, me for my 7Eleven snacks and Louis for his packed lunch, before we resume a suitable amount of time later. The final couple of exchangers duly appear and I can fill a couple of plastic crates with puzzles and zip up the case that doubled as puzzle luggage for the day.

We’ve finished fairly early so I take the time to chill and chat with a few of my fellow exchangers - it’s always interesting to hear the different strategies - I like the idea of a one-on-one exchange and the chance to catch up and see how people are keeping while others prefer a more efficient approach handling several exchanges all at the same time…

I dump the puzzles on the bed for the obligatory haul shot before hitting up Tye for a bunch of puzzles he’s brought over to Tokyo for me (and a few other UK puzzlers).

From there I head to Prof Sugimoto’s lecture workshop on ambiguous objects and learn about the development of his ideas from the early gravity-defying roof, to the objects that don’t behave well in the mirror (the always right arrow?), through things that appear to be totally different objects in their reflection and finally origami ambiguous objects, before we have a go at making a few of them ourselves with some brave souls heading up front to test out their illusions in the mirror… Nick, Frank and I manage passable attempts, albeit my lion needs a bit of a re-fold as Nick points out I’ve missed a key step.

After the workshop there’s a chance to get a bit refreshed before heading down for the banquet. We’re a bit surprised when we get funnelled off to a fairly small room where there are already long queues for the food even though we’ve arrived 10 minutes before the official start time expecting to find a long queue outside the banquet room. We find out from Steve that we’re in the overflow room and we’ll be moved into the main room for the entertainment… we try and make hay, joining the food queue only for most of the food to run out a few people ahead of us. We totally miss out on dessert as well although some folks didn’t quite manage to finish all the desserts they’d loaded up on… ah well, good thing we had snacks in the room.

At one point Nick poked his head in and asked us what we were doing in there… then disappeared and returned with a plate of sushi and hot food from the other buffet, where the food was still most definitely available… we were ushered back across to the main room where we joined Nick and Anne at their half-empty table and settled in for the entertainment which consisted of a delightful young lady performing some tricks she’d recently purchased and a juggler with a brilliantly entertaining streak - he really played up the language barrier and had us all in-stitches while performing some quite pretty decent juggling.

After the show we were duly ejected and made our way down to the Design Competition Room where we puzzled and chatted until closing time…

IPP42 (Part 2)

 

On Tuesday Gill and Sue head off to Shinjuku and Brian and I head off to Torito. Brian does an ace job of navigating and we pretty much just went straight there - no detours like we normally have when I’m navigating! We find Tim and Carol already at Torito (we’ve arrived shortly AFTER opening after all and I get in a little bout of laundry, topping up on my Hanayamas (minis and disentanglements), a couple of new puzzles from Teddy and Kofuh, and some Japanese number puzzles. The Luxembourg contingent arrived in full force and proceeded to shop seriously. Brian and I settled down and embarrassed ourselves trying to reassemble a bunch of random Hanayama puzzles scattered around the play table… between us we manage to reassemble two or three…but we’re suitably embarrassed.

From there we headed across town to Shinjuku where the girls had found a spot in Memory Lane for lunch - Google got us more or less to the right place and Gill found us and took us upstairs into a tiny little hole-in-the-wall that did some really nice meat and veg skewers. After lunch we headed off to a wonderfully swanky department store where we window-shopped a while before heading across the road - devoid of cars due to the public holiday - to grab an airplane adapter for Brian’s noise-cancelling headphones - success when a wonderfully helpful sales assistant worked out precisely what was needed and found one for us.

Back at the hotel we meet Shoko, Esa and Iwahiro for a final planning meeting for the Fabric & Fibre tour the next morning - they really don’t need us as Shoko’s done a brilliant job of organising it all already… final details agreed we find Louis and Patrick fresh off a plane and they join us and several others on a trip out to Asakusa for some gluten-free (and well-glutenated!) pizzas and pastas. Iwahiro is sporting his 2BM IPP41 shirt – making a serious fashion statement.

Next morning we grab our usual breakfast before getting the F&F gang sorted and onto the bus before a few of us head upstairs to help Nick set up the Puzzle Design Competition entries… Brian and I sort out the solution sheets while Chinny and Nick unpack the puzzles and then we distribute them around the room before sitting down to test things. We manage to get a couple of hours playing in before we all feel the need to head off and find some lunch. After a couple of false starts we end up sitting on the floor in a traditional restaurant - the creaking and complaints getting down onto the floor are nothing compared to the noises when we have to get back up about an hour later - we hobbled back to the hotel…

Frank needed to try and find a charger and we decided we needed to go in search of some puzzles at a toy store in Ueno - we’re joined by Chinny and Benny and the Monkeys (a new J-Pop band?) and at the toy store Ali gives Steve some money and Steve gives him crabs.

Our attempt to source a charger for Frank fails abysmally and we end up wandering back to the hotel via the underground. 

There's heaps of hilarity when Steve brings out a box of surprises for the SOAPs in the form of customised deely boppers (I think that's what they're called!) that he's christened SOAP-finders - making it easier for the SOAPs to find one another in a crowded room... inital tests in the lobby are promising. 

The guys decide to head off to a nearby Tiki Bar and when another 9 of us follow on later we’re met by some patrons leaving in a huff remarking about the stressed-out bartender… up the stairs we find said-bartender who works himself into a bit of a froth at the fact that another bunch of rowdy puzzlers has just rolled into his bar and want another 9 seats… we decided it wasn’t worth trying to convince him we’ll be fine just grabbing chairs and end up deciding to head off in search of dinner - we duly end up back at the local Chinese who happily accommodate 9 of us in one go (it’s a tiny joint!), and then another 9 when the boys follow on a few minutes later… we’ve virtually filled the place in one foul swoop and they handle it superbly… right up until one of our friends insists he hasn’t received the rice he ordered… we order him some and he’s happy, we think, but it’s hard to tell…

I grab an ice cream on the way back to the hotel and we crash early ahead of a long trip to Hakone in the morning.

There’s a massive throng of excited puzzlers in the lobby waiting for the four buses to Hakone in the morning. I hook up with Nick and Anne as Gill and Sue are heading off to a traditional tea ceremony and some shopping. Nick and I end up on the number three bus between Matt, John, Yacine and Clive… there’s a chunk of puzzling and a lot of banter… probably more than planned given we end up in a bit of a traffic jam on the highway due to an accident that seems to come neatly between our four buses… Nick spends a long time working on a new design from Andreas and I toil on Minima Bi-cubes - it takes me ages to get the pieces out of the frame before I can even start… in the end it literally takes me several hours before I finally manage to push everything into the little 2*2*3 box… another goodie from that man Boucher!

The excitement builds on the bus as we climb up the hills heading into Hakone and there’s a rapid exit as the bus empties and Izumiya fills up. I stop for a chat with Mine who’s recovering from surgery and when I have a look through his boxes of wares he politely informs me that I already have everything he’s brought along to sell today… it turns out he’s right - he promises to have new things in Tokyo…

We head up the road to the closed Karakuri museum and the largely-emptied Maruyama before heading back to fetch Anne from her somewhat productive shopping trip to Izumiya. We pull up a couple of tables of puzzlers at a tempura joint which feeds us well in plenty of time for our bus onwards. We head through the scenic countryside to Gora where the puzzles have largely already been purchased. We enjoy the scenery that only gets better and better as we ride the funicular up the hills - on the Honeymoon train - I try not to think too hard about that name.

The bus collects us at the top and we wend our way down the mountain and onto the motorway back to Tokyo - the traffic isn’t as bad this time and we have a short break at a rest stop where Otis and Nick grab a selfie at the same Starbucks they took a selfie at exactly 6 years earlier. Somewhere around here Nick finally manages to solve Andreas’ project and declares it worthy…

Matt brings out a Giiker Super Slider and demonstrates it and then lets Nick have a go on it… we’re all a bit surprised when the machine gives up on Nick and turns itself off, presumably because it’s gotten bored waiting for him to solve the puzzle.

We eventually get back to the hotel and Gill tells me about the tea ceremony she and Sue have been at (and the shopping side trip) - a bunch of us head out for ice creams rather than dinner and the Monkeys join us having completed their trains, planes and automobile rally around Hakone under their own steam - they’ve had a fantastic day and Steve’s managed to find an absolute treasure of a puzzle along the way.

Back at the hotel Gill heads off to bed and I spend a few hours in the design comp room not solving much but enjoying catching up with a few folks - Stefan gives me a copy of his gift puzzle: a micro-scale four-piece rhombic dodecahedron that requires assembly - the fact that I have a full-size copy at home to crib off might make assembly almost possible… I witness a lovely moment when Stefan introduces himself to Iwahiro and gives him a copy too, at which point Iwahiro exclaims “Ah, you’re are THE GUY!” - I think Stefan’s already made a massive positive impression at his first IPP!

Soon after that I head off and crash.