The Pilot Who Wore a Dress

by Tom Cutler

  ‘There’s no need to be rude,’ replied the engineer. ‘By the way, are you by any chance a manager?’

  ‘How did you know that?’ shouted the balloonist, fiddling with the burner.

  ‘Easy,’ said the man. ‘You haven’t got a clue where you are, or what you’re doing, you’ve risen to your position by nothing more than hot air, and now that you’re in a muddle you’re expecting someone below you to solve your stupid problem for you. In fact, you’re in exactly the same position you were before we had this delightful chat, but now somehow it’s my fault.’

  This joke reminded me of that unlikely lateral thinking scenario often presented to staff on team-building awaydays. Five famous people are floating in a hot air balloon above the sea. They are Diego Maradona, Joanna Lumley, Albert Einstein, Hillary Clinton and David Beckham. They are losing altitude and unless one person is sacrificed they will all crash into the water and drown. It’s the job of members of the team to work out who exactly should be thrown over the edge.

  Of course, there’s only one sensible answer, which is Albert Einstein. All the others are still alive and he’s already dead.

  The problem is called ‘Five into four won’t go’, but in this fiendish little match betcha you can show that five into four will go.

  What you do is set up sixteen matches in the pattern of five squares shown below.

  Now tell your helper or helpers that they must move two matches to leave four squares, the same size as you started with. They may not take any matches away. All sixteen must form part of the final pattern.

  The chicanery

  No chicanery, exactly. The mystery as presented is completely straight and honest. It may not be a trick question, but neither is it one that is going to be solvable by logical thinking – you have to come at it sideways. The arrows in the diagram reveal the solution.

  This is a terrific match problem, and one of the best. In fact, you can even demonstrate the solution and then set the puzzle up again but upside down. Then watch as your spectator tries to solve the thing until his brain falls out through his ear.

  The kiss

  The bet

  What you do is take two matches from a box and push one upright, into the top of the box towards one end on an imaginary centre line, in the position shown below.

  Borrow a thin ring and place it on top of the box, as drawn.

  Now begin your tale.

  ‘These canoodling couples should be more careful in busy places like this,’ you say. ‘A girl had her handbag nicked in here the other day by a fellow standing right behind her, even though she’d put her leg through the strap, like this.’ Position the second match with its ‘foot’ inside the ring, as shown, and its head resting on top of the head of the upright match. It’s slightly fiddly but not too difficult.

  ‘Now,’ you continue, ‘you’d think that it would be impossible to steal the handbag without cutting the handle, but our thief was a superb tactician who had done this before.

  ‘I bet you I can take this ring without touching these matches, or moving them from their present position – just like the thief who managed to steal the bag without the lady noticing. Who’s willing to bet me that I can’t do it?’

  Everyone will be agog now, so take your time.

  The chicanery

  Continue your little story like this: ‘Our lady was leaning against “Lover Boy”, all gooey, and he gave her a really hot kiss, like this.’ Take a second box of matches from your pocket and strike a match. You must use a second matchbox for this bit or you will knock your ‘lady’ over.

  Hold the flame under the diagonal match, about a quarter of the way down, until it catches light. The flame will creep up the slanted match until both match heads suddenly ignite, causing them to bond.

  Shortly thereafter the female match will bend in the centre, dramatically lifting her ‘leg’ like a starlet being kissed something fierce.

  Say, ‘That’s when she lost her bag,’ and slip the ring out, returning it to its owner. Blow out the matches artistically and claim your winnings.

  Twelve minus two equals two

  The bet

  Mathematicians have their own language, and their own in-jokes, like the one about the plant on the maths teacher’s desk that grew square roots. I also like this one – Question: How do you make seven an even number? Answer: Take the S out – which is a lateral thinking joke as much as it is a number joke.

  Mathematicians love squares. The square is a fascinating shape, and its perpendicularity has led to its being used to represent honesty and straightness since the 1500s. It was only in the 1940s that it began to be used to refer to conventionality, but by the sixties young long-haired people were ‘with it’ and ‘groovy’, while bald cardigan-wearing pipe-smokers were ‘without it’, or, curse of curses, ‘square’.

  The square crops up in many match puzzles, and this one is one of the simplest to understand but hardest to work out.

  What you do first is make the shape below. It looks like the end of a Battenburg cake, or somebody’s window. You then bet that your assistant/s cannot remove two matches from the arrangement and leave just two squares. Cor, it isn’t half difficult.

  The chicanery

  The answer to the puzzle looks ridiculously simple when you see it (illustrated below), but it is hard for your victims to work out for themselves because the mind has a tendency to group similar things together. So, when you say to them ‘two squares’, they subconsciously think, ‘two squares of the same size’.

  The more abstract thinkers will see the answer quickly, but there again they will have clothes that don’t fit, wonky hair and no sense of humour. They may even be square. It’s swings and roundabouts when it comes to personality, in this life.

  Nine plus nothing makes ten

  The bet

  Show your victim a handful of matches. Ask him to hold out his hand and pour the matches into his palm. Say, ‘Count these matches slowly into my hand.’ Allow him to do this. ‘How many?’ you ask. ‘Nine,’ he says. Ask him how many more matches he would need to make ten. He will say that he needs one more match. Bet him that, without breaking any matches or adding any more, you can count them onto the table and show him you actually have ten.

  The chicanery

  This is lateral thinking at its purest. What you have said so far is absolutely true, although in writing it is not quite true. This is because I should have put inverted commas around ‘ten’ because what you do is count down the matches one at a time onto the table to form the pattern illustrated:

  You do this by laying down the vertical matches first, counting slowly, ‘One, two, three, four …’ Then quickly put down the horizontals, ‘five-six-seven-eight …’, then the diagonal, ‘nine’, and finish with a resounding ‘Ten!’ as you point to the word. This showy presentation adds a bit of suspense to a delightful bald-faced cheat, building the drama and preventing your victim from guessing too soon what it is you are up to. As in many lateral thinking puzzles of this sort, you must choose your words carefully. Don’t say, ‘I can count these onto the table and have ten matches.’ That would be untrue and unfair.

  Don’t forget to smile as you take the money.

  Betting edge

  The bet

  The £2 coin is the only British coin made in two pieces, from two metals of different colours. The outer yellowish ring is made mainly of copper with a bit of nickel and zinc; the silver-coloured inner disc is made mainly of copper with a bit of nickel but no zinc. This is the first British coin to be made of two distinct bits since the 1692 tin farthing with a copper plug.

  Around the outside edge of the £2 coin is an inscription that nobody ever reads. In pre-2015 coins this says, STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS, from a famous remark by Isaac Newton. Around the new £2 coin, introduced in 2015, is the Latin inscription QUATUOR MARIA VINDICO, which translates as, ‘I will claim the four seas,’ a more pompous, less modest and rather expansionist-sounding legend.r />
  The coin is pleasantly weighty and is nice to handle. It is easy enough to balance on edge on a flat surface if you hold it between your thumb and fingers. But if you try to do this, holding the coin by its outer edge with the tips of your two index fingers, it is remarkably difficult. Try it, and you’ll see. However, once you know the secret it can be done.

  Trying to put the coin down without your fists on the table causes an invisible but significant wobble, which is magnified by the fingers, so here’s how you should do it. First, you must plant your curled fists together, thumbs-up on the table with the index fingers extended, holding the coin.

  Next, touch the coin to the table and, looking directly from above it, get it absolutely upright. It’s tricky but practice helps. Once it appears steady, press it slightly from opposite sides.

  Now carefully release the finger of your dominant hand, leaving the coin touching the other index finger. It will be held slightly by the finger’s natural moistness.

  Finally, carefully pull the supporting finger away from the coin. Sometimes it will topple over but usually it will stay upright.

  OK, this is all very well, but what is the bet?

  The bet is that you will give your victim £1 for every coin he can balance in this way. If he can’t he pays you nothing.

  The Chicanery

  First you must borrow a £2 coin from the spectator to show what you mean. But when you demonstrate, don’t rest your hands on the table and don’t release the coin. Just say, ‘Hold the coin like this with your outstretched fingers, put it down on the table and leave it balanced on edge, and I’ll give you £1 for every coin you can balance. If you fail you don’t have to give me anything.’

  It sounds like a terrific bet and your victim will have a couple of goes, probably failing. So do it yourself, this time anchoring your fists on the table as described earlier. Make it clear, without saying, just how you are steadying the coin. If your sucker is not watching closely enough, make it very obvious. Volunteers soon spot what you’re up to and try to copy your technique.

  After a couple of goes they will do it and will be punching the air in victory. If they want another go, say that they must leave the balanced coin where it is, and use another £2 coin from their purse or pocket.

  Three successes is plenty, so once they’ve succeeded say, ‘Well done. I’m going to give you a pound for each coin you balanced, as I said. You’ve balanced three [let’s say] coins, so here’s £3.’

  As they take your money, reach over and pocket their three £2 coins. When they object, say, ‘I said I’d give you £1 for each coin, and I have.’

  You’ve made £3 on the bet. Be ready to run for it.

  The house move

  The bet

  There is a wonderful problem with matches that involves the construction of a matchstick house.

  You begin by telling your audience a story about an ordinary-looking house that had a roof and four sides, and looked like the representation of the house shown below, which you make using eleven matches.

  You say that there was a window in each wall of the house and that each window faced south. One day a bear walked past one of the windows. The question is, ‘What colour was the bear?’

  The answer is a classic of lateral thinking. It is to do with the odd assertion that each window of the house faced south. How could that be? Normally each wall of a square house would face in one of four different directions. They can’t all face the same way.

  Actually, ‘all facing the same way’ is not the same thing as, ‘all facing south’, for at the North Pole every direction is, indeed, south. So, if the house was precisely over the North Pole, the bear passing the window would have to be a polar bear. Therefore the colour of the bear must be white.

  While your victims are cursing you for this knotty problem, you pose another puzzler. You tell them that your matchstick house is now a log cabin in Nebraska, and that it faces west (marked with a W).

  The matchstick man who lives in the house loves the morning sun, which comes up in the east, so he doesn’t like his house facing west, as it does. But neither does he have enough money to make any big structural alterations to the residence, so he decides, by moving just one match, to adjust the building so that instead of facing west it faces east, towards the morning sun.

  Bet your spectators that they can’t move one match to make the house face east instead of west.

  The chicanery

  There’s a kind of beauty to the simplicity and subtlety of the answer to this puzzle. The diagram below shows what you do.

  And you didn’t have to ring round a lot of builders.

  Blind date

  The bet

  In his autobiography the philosopher Bertrand Russell said, ‘I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux,’ which seems like quite a task for a Monday morning.

  Numbers are interesting and there is even a theory knocking about that they have a mystical relationship with events. This idea is called numerology, and, along with other pseudo-scientific theories, it has been used by stock market analysts as well as outright charlatans – but I repeat myself. Anyway, the point of all this is that you can use the idea yourself in the following coin betcha.

  Give your audience a spiel about numerology and how mysterious and important it is. You can if you like quote the enigmatic numerological links between Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy: Abraham Lincoln was elected to the House of Representatives in 1846, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected to the House exactly 100 years later; in 1946; Lincoln was elected President in 1860, Kennedy was elected President in 1960, precisely 100 years later; both presidents fathered four children; both presidents had seven letters in their last name; Lincoln’s assassin had fifteen letters in his name, Kennedy’s alleged assassin had fifteen letters in his name. It’s quite a list.

  Here’s a little betcha that uses the idea of numerology to confuse people.

  The chicanery

  Announce that you will leave the room, or turn your back, and that if anybody will place a coin face down on the table and cover it with his or her hand, you will be able to name the date immediately, owing to the numerological propensity of coins. (This doesn’t mean a damn thing but sounds marvellous.) It’s £1 each to watch the demonstration.

  Collect the spectators’ fees in your hat (if you wear one), and look away or leave while a coin is placed on the table and hidden under somebody’s hand.

  When you are told that everything’s ready, turn round or come back into the room and make the Rodin’s Thinker pose, with your knuckles to your brow. After a suitably dramatic pause, say, ‘Yes, I’m seeing the date … Yes … It’s … It’s …’, and then just announce the date on which you are perpetrating this outrage.

  Magnetic matches

  The bet

  Tell your spectators about magnetism. Actually, don’t do this, because it’s a very hard subject to explain, especially if you’ve had a couple of large ones. Instead just give them a bit of history.

  Although people have been aware of magnets and magnetic properties for thousands of years, it was a chap named William Gilbert (1540–1603) who first investigated magnetism in a scientific way. One of his discoveries was that the earth itself is a magnet. He must have had a really huge one himself to find that out.

  Tell your assembled admirers that, although it is usually metals containing iron that are magnetic, you have discovered how to magnetise anything, by using the ferric properties of your hair. ‘I can even magnetise wooden matches,’ you say.

  You hand a match to one of your spectators and ask them to rub it through your hair (if you have any). They then do the same with the other match.

  When they have done this you touch the head of one match to the head of the other, which you are holding upright, and pause dramatically for a second. Then you let go with the fingers that are holding the top match. Miraculously, the two are now attracted to each other, with the top on
e seemingly stuck to the bottom one. You explain that this is not balance, if that’s what people are thinking, but magnetic attraction. You say you can even turn the two matches upside down without the top match falling off, and you do so.

  When the amazed silence becomes too much for everyone to bear, you pull the matches apart with a little magnetic pop.

  You now bet your victims that nobody else can do the trick. They may try, but they won’t be able to do it, unless they know – or are laterally minded enough to work out – the sneaky secret.

  The chicanery

  The trick to this lovely little betcha is that match heads become slightly sticky when wet. If you lick the top of one and then press it firmly against another the two will be lightly attached.

  The way you make use of this secret is to take your two matches in your left hand (if right-handed) and hand one match to a spectator with your right hand. You need to be seated to do this effectively.

  Keep the other match held upright between the fingers of your left hand as you bend forwards to offer the top of your head for them to rub their match through your hair, or on your scalp if you’re as bald as my Uncle Bob. Bend far forwards so that your nose is almost touching the table.

  When they have finished, sit up and switch matches, taking theirs and giving them yours. Bend forwards again and get them to repeat the business with the second match. There will be a lot of giggling during all this, which you should encourage.

  As their attention is focused on what they are doing, briefly insert the end of your match between your lips. Don’t leave it in there for ages, as it’s not a recommended food. A swift lick should do it. Your helpers will not be able to see this because of your bent head, and because of the attention they are paying to what they are doing. This is what magicians call ‘misdirection’.