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[ramsfan]

yes i meant that your numbers all factorise so they can be translated into ordinary letters, whilst the previous numbers, on which I'd worked, included numbers that were primes or factored down to primes larger than 26. I think one was 61. Haven't had time to work on your numbers. I was suggesting that this was sufficient complexity, but I'm realiably informed that ont his is not yorkshire, which would be ont on its own, ie the ont his does suggest the kind of shift referred to above. Then there's the clockwise rotation of the letters. Perhaps the answer's just

[ALISDAIRPARK]

I've been looking at the factors route, however this is a nightmare, unless someone has any fancy coding to break it??

For example even a small number like 15 has 9 possibilities, unless we assume each number relates to a word, which would help. Although Von's clue indicates at least one word will be wrong.

EDIT: I've been working on this most of the day, and have to say for a "pen & paper" code it's impossible.

EDIT2: I've had a go at the Atbashed text, and the original, using the numbering a=1 etc. and multiplying. I got nothing usful from the Atbashed text, but got a lot of words from the original, however I think this is down to the number of possibilities, as the words do not form any sort of coherent sentance. Back to the drawing board I think (or with how this is getting to me maybe the sanitarium..)

[Lilian]

been Looking at vons clue. the only reason i can come up with for the apparent misspelling/error/glich is ont-thology stuck it in the sarch engine and came up with so much info ,sifted through it till my brain hurt still looking

[ALISDAIRPARK]

no-ones thought of that so far, well done! Although it seems ontology is a highly theoretical branch of philosophy, and my head is already sore enough (or is it really my head? what is my head? what is?.....)

It may be worth investigation, as I see links to Greek in there, and Wittgenstein gets a mention too, and he's cropped up before.

[Grizy]

Count ?

[hally]

Been looking into the idea with the grids. The best I can do at the moment is the following:

IA NO AH LW
KD SZ OU ME
ET HW SA BY HX
FN IZ IM
IN AE
TX RY
MA ST

See anything in that at all?

Hally

!EDIT!: Been playing around with these letters in their set rows and there is something of interest. Line one had the word Halo, two had Zek, and three had Hex. Now Halo is a computer game, Zek is a character in the computer game Everquest, and Hex is some sort of code used in configuring Playstations.

!FURTHER EDIT!: Ignore that rubbish in the first edit, I think I'm on to something: The last five pairs of letters, (AE TX RY MA ST) can be decoded as an anagram of START MY EXAM. Surely this is relevant.

[cronogenesis]

This looks promising. Looks like each part of its split into sections (last 5 is start my exam) so if we can find there bounderies it should be quite easy.

Edit: the last five boxes only contain one M. But you can borrow that from somewhere else.

Iv'e added a bit more to a possible message and deleted used letters.

[locqust]

just so no-one wastes their go on this card

[hally]

I think it will say something like 'Hale failed his exams' or something because the person writing it would know he will read it out.

[Grizy]

The output text depends on the size of grid you use.

I get this:-
PI PO HA QM
XK MU XP DN
CF LI LT BC MI
WF EW PV
EJ EA
5,17 JT
XM GU

Using a 24 by 25 grid to get xy=600. Doesn't seem to make much sense though. Not really sure about the 5,17. I think its intentional, possibly a time or reference to chapter and verse?

[hally]

True, Grizy, I used a 26 by 26 grid in which XY still equals 600. I played around with another grid but when I discovered the 'START MY EXAM' bit at the bottom, I was sure the letters translation I have used is the one. Wouldn't you agree?

Grizy indirectly has a point though. The clue about this puzzle being twice as hard may extend in such a way that requires two grids to solve it. I hope not though!

Hally

[Grizy]

The output you get looks far more promising than anything I've come up with.
I was hoping that converting Hebrew numbers to decimal might be one step, but I'm not sure its that simple.
How did you number the grid Hally? I was counting each cell left to right then working down the grid. I thought that if you used a 26 by 26 grid the xy would be around 648.

Just had another thought. If the grid is the correct way to proceed, maybe we should plot the points then rotate it 90 degrees to read off the text. This would be made easier if the grid was 26 by 26 (or indeed 24 by 24 as the highest number in the cipher is 533).

[hally]

I had 26 columns (A to Z across the top) and 26 rows (A to Z down the side). I then just counted the squares. So square AA = 1 and ZZ equals 675 (i think)

Have just realised XY does not equal 600 this way. Would in fact be 622.

[Fuseunderground]

ZZ (26x26) = 676 this way
XY and YX do equal 600

see attachment

[hally]

Right, I've made a right mess of this i think! I'm going bacvk to square one. See Fuseunderground Grizy