Christmas Quizzes 2015–2016

The Final Instruction : 5 January

GAME NOW OVER

Please read this brief page carefully. There's nothing difficult in what follows, but we're pretty sure you can't guess much of it in advance. Some people will choose to print this page out, and use the hard copy as a guide while looking back over the twelve puzzle-pages.

Let's imagine a hypothetical set of twelve answers, as follows:
 

1	When Procol Harum shared the bill with The Bee Gees in Stuttgart, how many songs did they perform that were on the original UK release of their first album?	It's a total of eight songs, if you count youthful hits like AWSoP and Homburg too
2	What squats on the piano,  next to the music desk, on the UK Shine on Brightly album cover?	It's quite clearly a Fat Old Buddha of rather ordinary design
3	Many tracks on Procol's third studio album open with sounds that had not started any of their earlier songs. Which song starts and ends with the same sound, one they never used again in the studio?	Easy one; pretty obviously you get that solo acoustic guitar only on Too Much Between Us
4	Which song lyric on Procol Harum's 1970 LP masterpiece was said, by Keith Reid, to have come to him after watching the film Midnight Cowboy?	No More Fear of Flying is the only Procol track with 'sacred cow' on it
5	The Broken Barricades LP sounded quite un-Procol like when it was released, yet over a third of the album's songs have been performed by the band with orchestras. Which song was released, in its orchestrated form, as a top 20 'B' side?	My best guess is that long, very heavily produced track about the grand hotel. I forget the name of it.
6	Which Procol song (heard on the 1971/2 live orchestral album) apparently has an unstable title?	Definitely Whaling Story. The earlier issue on Home is printed as Whaling Story pt II
7	Why does Mick Grabham look so tall in the group photos on the Grand Hotel album?	For pity's sake, man, there's nothing particularly strange about being that tall. The whole idea of 'average height' implies that there will be some people taller than it, and some less tall; but we're not necessarily talking giants and dwarfs ...
8	Exotic Birds and Fruit contains a song that refers to Procol Harum's then record company ... not their first album to do so!	But it's possible that A Dream in Ev'ry Home is really 'A Deram in Ev'ry Home', which was true, if you think back to the time – 1967 or so – when the band's big hit (A Whiter Shade of Pale, on the Deram label) was at the top of the charts.
9	Which of these tiny sonic ingredients of Procol's Ninth can be detected with ordinary hi-fi listening equipment?	Faintly audible, the persistent incisive croaking of David Sanborn's alto sax at 4.42 on Taking the Time
10	Which piece from Something Magic was played live by Procol Harum with The Hallé Orchestra?	Enormous chords (representing The Tree) as the poor Worm gets torn asunder by a particularly vicious guitar-solo, representing The Young Man and his Sword.
11	Name a song published on The Prodigal Stranger that we have not yet heard on stage (according to BtP's setlists, at any rate!).	Many's the time I've wept tears of woe over this mysterious omission: unfortunately it's Holding On, which is really good on the record.
12	Which song – which track – was reported to be Keith Reid's favourite from the The Well's on Fire set?	Obviously Procol Harum found the instrumental track – the album's grandiose closing statement – a pretty good gigging number but, as Keith had made no contribution to it, he couldn't be held responsible if punters didn't like it for any reason

We're not saying these are the right or the wrong answers, incidentally. But we need a workable example, and that's what we've got above.

Now the way forward is pretty simple. The First Letter of Each Answer contains some information that you need. It will help you find a crucial 'Clue Word' ...

Convert the First Letter of Each Answer  into a number, using this table:
 

a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26

If the First Letter of the answer is, for instance, 'M' ... then convert 'M' to '13', then count along ... the Clue Word will be the 13th word in the answer.

For an example, consider this:

Nobody doubts that this sentence – written in December 2015 – contains the useful, significant clue that I'm looking for.

First letter is 'N'. Value of 'N' is 14. Count along to the fourteenth word ... and it's 'clue'. Good.

Notice that we're ignoring punctuation here, and that the date '2015' counts as a word.

That was just an example, of course. Now let's apply that counting principle to the hypothetical set of answers above:

Now ... take the initials of the Clue Words and write them out in a line ...  C R Y O G E N I C   P U G

You may not be able to get a lot of Procol sense out of that.
Is it a hidden message ... Frozen Dog? Preserved Cur?

No, in fact, it's half of an anagram (anagram: letters jumbled to create a fresh word)

To get the other half, you'll need to find the initial letter of the word, in each answer, that comes after the Clue Word. For your guidance we've highlighted these in green.

Now ... take the initials of the Words Directly Following the Clue Words and write them out in a line ...  Y O G I  H I P P Y  W I G

This is the Second Half of the Anagram.

Now we can put the anagrammable letters together:

C R Y O G E N I C P U G Y O G I H I P P Y W I G

And the riddle is, can you use these 24 letters to make the titles of two Procol Harum tracks, occurring on the same album (consider only the twelve albums featured in this twelve-day quiz – original UK issues, no bonus tracks) and, crucially, separated by one track in the running order?

So (given the right letters) Kaleidoscope and Good Captain Clack would be a viable answer (just one track (Salad Days) between them).
Simple Sister and Luskus Delph would not be a viable answer (more than one track between them).
The Idol and The Question would not be a viable answer (not on the same album!).

C R Y O G E N I C P U G Y O G I H I P P Y W I G ... or to put it another way, C C E G G G G H I I I I N O O P P P R U W Y Y Y

How to solve this example anagram? Look at the predominant letters. Unnatural predominance of G, P, Y. Look at this Useful List of Songs: could one of the anagram solutions be Piggy Pig Pig?

Which songs are two-tracks-away (forwards or backwards) in the album running order, from Piggy Pig Pig?

Either About to Die (which can't be the right answer, because there is no 'D', for instance, in CRYOGENICPUGYOGIHIPPYWIG.

Or could it be Your Own Choice?

Yes, that's clearly the right pair of songs. But neither of those is the place to look for the prize-winning answer: that is to be found in the song that separates the anagrammatised tracks Piggy Pig Pig and Your Own Choice ... which is of course Whaling Stories.

Great.

Except that this is only an example. Click here for the final final instruction.

Back to the how-to-play page for the 2015 'Beyond the Pale' Christmas puzzles

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