Procol Harum

Beyond
the Pale

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Christmas Quizzes 2019–2020

Thirteenth Question, and how to become the fortunate winner !


Well done! You've identified one Procol-related concert from each of our twelve Christmas puzzle-pages, and have your careful notes in front of you so you can revisit the pages about them at 'Beyond the Pale'.

A prize is within your grasp!

All you have to do now is find the odd-one-out among those twelve concerts.

We can't easily advise you how to do this. And of course you're thinking, 'there could be any number of 'odd-ones-out'.  

 

This one is the only gig at which song 'x' and song 'y' were played back-to-back
This one
is the only gig  from which you can see the Eiffel Tower on a clear day
This one is the only gig at which some Turkish Pearl promised to burn me up after the show, then went home with a prodigal stranger instead

And so on.

True enough. But the answer we  have in mind ... and that's the one you have to submit in order to be eligible for a prize – is not personal, but universal, and objectively verifiable, and we have no doubt that observant readers will all quickly come to the same conclusion.

Some already have, without a doubt.

For the rest of us, some clues.

The odd-one-outness you're looking for is a straightforward matter that ...

 

has no relation whatever to the place of the gig or the country or the duration of the concert

has no relation whatever to the personnel involved with the gig, onstage or offstage, nor special guests, nor missing persons

has no relation whatever to the year of the gig or the day of the week or the weather or the season

has no relation whatever to what was played at the gig or soundcheck, neither the songs, nor their order or authorship, nor the instrumentation

has no relation whatever to any recordings of the gig, official or unofficial, that allegedly may or may not exist

has no relation whatever to any words spoken or sung at the gig, nor any associated advertisement or review

has no relation whatever to any photographs, merchandise, souvenirs or anecdotes pertaining to the gig

doesn't depend on the visual appearance of any BtP page, nor on any hidden pun, anagram, in-joke or specialist Procoholic knowledge

is awaiting discovery in your own Very Careful Notes, taken during the Twelve Days of Christmas


We hope that helps (especially if you read it all carefully).

So, please do your brief thinking, then select your odd-one-out concert (and you have a one-in-twelve chance of guessing correctly!) and tell us what date – which of the Twelve Days of Christmas – your chosen Odd-One-Out Gig was published during this competition (publication dates are at the top of each puzzle page). So your answer will be '26 December', or '3 January', or whatever (please avoid the '26/3', '3/1' formula, which is a possible source of cross-cultural confusion).

Remember: you're sending us – at webmaster@procolharum.coman answer consisting of one number and one month-name, and not forgetting your choice of prizes, in the form of a ten-letter string (like 'ROMPDENIAL or MINERALPOD') using the reference-letter for each prize as listed here.

Very best of luck to all you thinkers and lateral thinkers!


Many thanks as ever to the ever-vigilant Jane Clare in Perth, Western Australia, who has worked all these puzzles through to make sure they cohere, and contributed a lot to their careful wording.

In the unlikely event of there being fewer winners than prizes this year, early claimants will get more than their fair share!
 
Prizes will of course be awarded at the absolute discretion of Roland and Jens, who run 'Beyond the Pale', and whose decision will be final; their families are not eligible to enter.


The fab prizes | How to play | Twelfth puzzle


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