unforum

[BrianEnigma]

Circling back around to the answers of the original puzzles--they are all underground station names, correct? Well, except for #3, which is more of a basic graph theory puzzle. So why is #3 different? Should we be looking for a station name in it somehow?

[fatnickc]

I'm going to Green Park tomorrow. Might as well have a nose around seeing as I'll be there anyway. I'll look out.

[Seej]

Just in case it helps anyone see some esoteric pattern (or even if it just helps you find the stations on the map) I've highlighted all the relevant stations on the tube map with pretty pink dots. If we figure out any more or decide that Green Park is definitely something to look at I'll update that file.

And I'm still not sure about that bit about the sovereign's palace just before the Hyde Park reference. I guess the nearest to Buckingham Palace is either St. James's or Green Park (again) but I'm not a local so I'll leave the final call on that up to those of you in London. Or I guess they could be talking about Crystal Palace or something.....

[Leeravitz]

To clear up the 'mystery' surrounding my posts:

1. I'm an actor, and when you're an actor, you tend to alternate between periods when you have no time on your hands at all, and have to enter into effective 'radio silence' for months on end, and other periods when you basically have very little to do for most of the day (performances in the evenings, or every other day etc. if you're lucky enough to be working, and...er...nothing to do at all for the day if you're not). So, it just happens, I have a lot of time to write at the moment.

2. On the other hand, I also simply have a tendency to write very long sentences, in a very detailed way, pretty fast, and so, can produce lots and lots of information very quickly. It's something that I tend to be good at, whereas lots of other people on the board are much, much, much better than me at working the puzzles out, so I leave most of that stuff to the real cryptographers, programmers etc. amongst us. What I'm good at is organising information. I love a good bit of speculation in the right place, but, unfortunately, I tend to believe that most of our specs are, if anything, much more exciting and thought - provoking than most of what happens in game. If we knew for certain that we were dealing with a Reconstructionist kidnapping plot or searching for a hyper - dimensional tesseract then I, for one, would be enjoying the game a whole lot more. We've had some really, really good specs emerge in the past - only to find, as time has worn on, that they don't (sadly) appear to bear any relation to the actual game plan. The upshot of that is, we tend to accumlate specualation at a much greater rate than we actually accumulate any solid information, and I'm getting as frustrated at the lack of headway that we can make into getting to grips with the theft and the murder mystery, as those of us who are puzzle - nuts are getting at the noticeable lack of card materialisation.

And, yes, none of this has anything to do with the rest of the thread...

Please go back to discussing Tube lines now...

[tanner]

[Tomby]

Could this riddle be a reference to the Albert Memorial?

This is in Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens.

The nearest tube station is Knightsbridge on the Picadilly Line.

Kensington Palace abuts the Park.

The statue is of Queen Victoria's beloved husband, who is depicted seated in a chair.

Or just a meaningless coincidence?

[Seej]

[Leeravitz]

That *is* a good theory - because Albert is very prominently seated. But I have to say the 'seating place' definition still seems pretty obscure. I can't help but think that the translation may be a little imprecise.

[Kirjava]

First of all, great work Salkunh- the translation looks good. It's nice to have our own resident Egyptologist here! I decided to take a look at some of the introductory sites posted earlier and was able to find some of the words I think Step mentioned in irc that the first word on the second line might mean "passing by", which I found in the online dictionary too and I think that might actually fit better. Also, I think that middle word on the bottom line can mean "stop"(ie. underground stop?)- I couldn't find "seating place". Could you check those out Salkunh? Would either of those make sense in hieroglyphics? Thanks! I'm having fun with this but I can see how it would take a really long time to learn all this stuff!

[Salkunh]

The last sentence is very hit and miss because theres a somewhat vital part hidden. The bits I can see for sure are

ptr p3 ....... nn

who/what the ..... this

so, looking at the hidden parts i can see a hn bird of somesort, the determinative for house (or pr but in this sense the words before lead me to believe its definitely a determinative) and then two missing parts. The | type lines that can be seen mean there must be a symbol above each one.

Whatever the | symbols are is what the nn (this) refers to. As I cant see what these symbols are I've just related the nn (this) back to the last known word.

Assuming there is no symbol above the house determinative then that word is hn (pintail duck alighting or G41 in Gardiners list) and then the house determinative.

This doesn't correspond to any word I can see in Faulkner's dictionary. However, hnw meaning seating place or abode can be written with G41 and the house determinative. It means it is lacking two symbols though, the W24 bowl and the G43 quail chick.

Thats the best I can come up with though because there may be a symbol on top of the house determinative and there is definitely two other symbols that cant be seen because of the obscured bit.

[Salkunh]

I cant see iw=s as passing by in Faulkners dictionary at all and that online one isnt the greatest resource i've ever seen so it may be wrong...that is assuming you are refering to the iw=s lol

edit: also which middle word on the bottom line? lol

[Leeravitz]

Good clarification, Salkunh. That was exactly what I wanted confirmation of. Let's be honest: if the final line actually asks 'what is the abode?', then the answer might be Hyde Park. Or it could be a reference to the line, or...it's tricky. It is a bit of a mystery, though, why the PM's would offer a puzzle that isn't fully decipherable - the reason we can't work out the glyphs is because they're obscured by the banner on the actual artwork. Almost as if the MC team thought it was worth sticking in another puzzle as wallpaper to make their entry look impressive (works on several levels, dont'cha know?), but aren't too fussed whether anyone can interpret it or not??

Odd, really...unless we're jumping the gun, and a more explicit version of the same puzzle is going to turn up on a Tube hoarding sometime soon...

[Kirjava]

Actually, I thought that the first two signs- the iw- weren't really supposed to be a proper word at all. I thought the 'broken paperclip' sign belonged with the next ones, making the word swa 'to pass by'. It's on this page: http://hieroglyphs.net/0301/cgi/lookup.pl?ty=tr&ch=s&cs=1
The word in the bottom row I was referring to is the one that's partially obscured- looking at the Gardiner sign list, it looks like Aa1 and N35- xn I think, and then that duck thing. Could the house sign possibly be used as a determinative for a place or a building?

[Salkunh]

yeah thats why i say hnw or xnw in computer transliteration (god i hate computerised translit!) the house determinative would fit with seating place or abode then.

though the two hidden glyphs is going to make that last line somewhat impossible

as for swA being pass theres nothing stopping it being

[Bubsicle]

Could the sitting place be a bench at the tube station? Maybe MC has hidden something taped under the bench?

Also, could the tube station in question be South Kensington? I say that because it is diametrically 2 stations in the opposite direction from Hyde Park Corner stn as compared to Picadelly Circus (where the statue of Eros is). The translation seems like it could imply somewhere away from the statue. Green Park seems like a simpler solution, but if it is wrong, then South Kensington would be a good next guess.

Bub