The Solution Game...

[Poppy]

I don't know if there is a Game already like this but here's what to do:
Think up a situation any Blyton character/s could be in (ie: the famous five could be locked in a cave with no windows, a tiny steel door and a piece of rope. How can they escape?) The next person has to think up a solution and then they can set up a puzzle. You can only use things that would have been around in the Blyton days, (no mobile phones unfortunately!) Ooh- and don't worry if you haven't got a solution to your puzzle. We'll find some solution surely! If not, somebody else can just make up another after a few days without luck!
Good luck!

Here's my one:
The Famous Five are stuck on Kirrin Island. There is no way to signal, their parents are away so they are not likely to miss them and all they have on the Island with them is the crumbling remains of Kirrin Castle, the jackdaws, a very strong wind and a scrap of paper floating about.
How can they escape?

[MJE]

     I can think of only one possibility off the top of my head, and I think it's only a slight chance. They write a note on the paper asking for help, and throw it into the wind if it's blowing towards the mainland, and hope it makes it there before falling into the sea. But I don't think that would be very likely, although it would depend on the distance between the island and the mainland.
     How far is the island from the mainland? I don't think the books ever said, but I got the impression it was more than just a hundred or two hundred yards - too far to swim, for example - but maybe not quite a whole mile.
     If the paper were big enough, they could tear it up into numerous small pieces, and write the message on each, and that would multiply their chances of sending a message for help, and actually having someone on the mainland get a copy.

     I've got a pretty pickle for a character to be in - but do I have to wait for you to approve my solution before posing it? And I do have a solution in mind, too - but do you have to pose a problem for which you know a solution? - or can you post any wildly hopeless fix and just hope someone else can find a way out?

Regards, Michael.

[Loony the Dog]

Great idea, Poppy. Michael - In a Claude Volier sequel both Timmy and Julian swim across to the mainland. I wouldn't think you could get across. If there is these treacherous rocks I wouldn't want to risk being smashed into one by the current.

[Poppy]

Good Solutions Loony the Dog and MJE!
I'll pass the next one over to you. It doesn't matter if you don't have a solution for your puzzle. We'll just use our imaginations and think up a solution however hard it is!

[MJE]

In a Claude Volier sequel both Timmy and Julian swim across to the mainland. I wouldn't think you could get across. If there is these treacherous rocks I wouldn't want to risk being smashed into one by the current.

     Hmmm... not sure that Voilier's books are a true part of the canon, so I'm not sure how easily I would accept things given in them which Enid Blyton never mentions. I think the Five are stranded on the island at least once, but never (as far as I recall) is there even any suggestion of considering a swim.

Good Solutions Loony the Dog and MJE!

     Ummm... what *was* Loony the Dog's solution? His/her post points out the difficulty about swimming (which I concur with), but I can't see a solution to getting off the island there - unless swimming ashore is it.

     Anyway, I'll give the next fix that needs to be got out of. There are two possible solutions to it that I can think of, but I'll wait for guesses before giving either of them.

     George has fallen down a hole in the ground - fortunately without Timmy. It appears to be a narrow mine-shaft, as it turns out - only a couple of feet wide, but with sheer walls.
     It's not extremely deep, and she lands at the bottom, shaken, but mostly unhurt, thanks to soft soil and leaves which have accumulated there. It widens out slightly at the bottom, to maybe four or five feet wide, but there are no tunnels exiting - as if the miners had begun to dig, then stopped when for some reason they changed their mind about continuing to dig.
     A storm is brewing, and it begins to rain heavily, and George gets very wet, and inches of water begin accumulating on the floor.
     To make things much worse, there is an underground stream nearby, and rivulets of rain soak into the soil enough to break a wall of that underground stream, funnelling it into the cave, and the water floods in - up to George's knees, and then chest - and eventually threatening to drown her.
     However, fortunately she is good at swimming, and also treading water - and she realizes that, if only enough water comes in from the broken wall of the underground stream, she can rise with it, and it might eventually help her get out - a bit like the copper mine in "The Island of Adventure".
     However, disaster strikes after several hours: the water level is only half-way up, and stops rising any further, even though the water is still streaming in from higher up. George is exhausted and cold, but manages to continue because she can rest at times by clinging to outcrops of rock in the cave walls.
     Not only does the water level stop rising; it actually begins slowly to go down again, and it is apparent that the water must have found an exit at the bottom of the shaft, and is draining out again - and apparently faster than it is flooding in from above. This means that, eventually, George will float down again until her feet are once again on the floor - where she will remain indefinitely, despite the water from the leaking underground stream continuing to pour onto her head.
     George must act quickly before she is completely trapped again. And there is a way she can get out, despite having no rope, or no tools of any sort. And she has only a narrow window of opportunity to act before it is too late again. (There may be a second possible solution, too.)
     How does she do this?

Regards, Michael.

[Poppy]

And, no- you don't have to wait for me to approve.
Just post it below your answer.

[Poppy]

A very difficult one MJE. Maybe someone else will have to answer this one.

(Yes I assumed Loony Dog's solution was swimming to shore)

[Daisy]

George looked round and angrily kicked at the wall of the shaft. To her surprise her toe left a little hole. This gave her an idea. She poked and scraped at the wall and found she could make toe and hand holds. As the shaft was only two feet wide she could quite easily brace herself on each side. Slowly she managed to scrape enough holes to move slowly up the shaft until she was able to scramble out.

[Poppy]

How about you use the out crops on the walls or rock sticking out to try and climb to the surface?
Or... you try and work out where the water is escaping and follow that... you may come out at the surface. What were you thinking?

New Puzzle:
After investigating an old deserted cottage lost in the countryside, Jack , Philip , Lucy-Ann and Dinah find the only two doors (the front door and the back door) locked or jammed shut. All there is in the house is wooden furniture in the house (wooden tables, chairs, beds, ect.) an old fire place with heaps of coal, sticks and paper piled on it. The windows are boarded securely up and you cannot jump from the roof without earning yourself a broken leg or two. There is no cottage in sight and no-one wanders this lonely spot. How are you going to get out?

(I haven't got an answer for this one!!)

[MJE]

George looked round and angrily kicked at the wall of the shaft. To her surprise her toe left a little hole. This gave her an idea. She poked and scraped at the wall and found she could make toe and hand holds. As the shaft was only two feet wide she could quite easily brace herself on each side. Slowly she managed to scrape enough holes to move slowly up the shaft until she was able to scramble out.

     Yes - that is the principal solution I had in mind. I was assuming that the water level, in rising half-way, reached the point where she would brace herself between the walls, and then sort of "walk" up the remaining distance. If the walls were of rock, and didn't crumble away, it would be possible to do this even without footholds. I recall, when at school, trying this on a narrow pathway between two adjacent buildings, and was able to climb up several feet this way. However, I didn't dare to go up too far, in case I slipped - but it can be done, although I imagine it would be exhausting, because you would be pushing outwards with both your feet and back, and couldn't relax for even a moment, lest you fall down.
     I might point out, though, that even if George reached the top, she may have difficulty getting out before falling down again, depending on the exact layout and shape of the top of the shaft. If I had climbed up the building walls at school until I reached the top of the lower one, I'm not entirely confident I could have climbed out onto the roof before falling down again. It might depend on suitable handholds being within reach.

How about you use the out crops on the walls or rock sticking out to try and climb to the surface?

     Well, that's assuming that the outcrops continued all the way up to the top, and were close enough. But I was intending the solution to depend on the information already given (or reasonable deductions from it), and not to assume new features such as outcrops going up all the way.
     But, as Daisy pointed out, and I found out at school, it is possible to do it even without the outcrops: you are relying on friction from muscular exertion to keep you between the walls as you edge upwards.

Or... you try and work out where the water is escaping and follow that... you may come out at the surface. What were you thinking?

     No, I wasn't thinking of that. That would assume the outlet was wide enough for you to fit in. But I said the water level started going down again only very slowly, so that would imply a very narrow outlet.
     I was thinking that if George floated down to the bottom again, between the wider walls, and lost the opportunity to climb up the narrow walls in the way Daisy described, you could find the outlet, and plug it up with debris (soil, leaves, whatever was there - and it was, because I said it softened George's fall), so that thw water would rise again, carrying George upwards again, so that she could use the first method again.
     But all that is assuming that by that stage she hasn't collapsed from exhaustion, exposure, or something like that - but theoretically possible. (It could be summer, so the ambient temperature relatively high, which would delay hypothermia by some hours.)

New Puzzle:
[...]
(I haven't got an answer for this one!!)

     Nor do I exactly at the moment - but I have the beginnings of an idea that may work (although very risky), if I think it through a bit more.
     But I suppose I shouldn't hog this, so I'll wait a bit and see if someone else can answer it.

Regards, Michael.

[Fiona1986]

To answer Poppy's new dilemma:

They light a fire in the fireplace (if they have no matches they would have to use the good old fashioned friction method) and then using long pieces of wood from the furniture they try to set fire to one of the doors. Very risky, though!

[70s-child]

New Puzzle:
After investigating an old deserted cottage lost in the countryside, Jack , Philip , Lucy-Ann and Dinah find the only two doors (the front door and the back door) locked or jammed shut. All there is in the house is wooden furniture in the house (wooden tables, chairs, beds, ect.) an old fire place with heaps of coal, sticks and paper piled on it. The windows are boarded securely up and you cannot jump from the roof without earning yourself a broken leg or two. There is no cottage in sight and no-one wanders this lonely spot. How are you going to get out?

How did they get into the cottage in the first place? Or are you saying they got locked in by the bad guys? With locked doors, you can always create a battering ram with the furniture, or the four of them could push with all their might till the hinges give way. In some detective shows, people even just kick the door down.

[Poppy]

In the first place they wandered in there just by chance wanting to investigate and the bad guys locked them in.
(Good Solutions by the way)
Feel free to post your own puzzle now...

[Loony the Dog]

New Puzzle:
After investigating an old deserted cottage lost in the countryside, Jack , Philip , Lucy-Ann and Dinah find the only two doors (the front door and the back door) locked or jammed shut. All there is in the house is wooden furniture in the house (wooden tables, chairs, beds, ect.) an old fire place with heaps of coal, sticks and paper piled on it. The windows are boarded securely up and you cannot jump from the roof without earning yourself a broken leg or two. There is no cottage in sight and no-one wanders this lonely spot. How are you going to get out?

How did they get into the cottage in the first place? Or are you saying they got locked in by the bad guys? With locked doors, you can always create a battering ram with the furniture, or the four of them could push with all their might till the hinges give way. In some detective shows, people even just kick the door down.

You could have took the bed linen off knotted it together attached it to one of the beams and climbed down.

[Poppy]

Yes... good thinking. I never thought of that one Loony the Dog.
Who wants to set a puzzle now?