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Clive

I came across an unusual piece of knowledge last week, and am trying to turn it into a riddle. You have to come at these things backwards, don't you?

TRiG.

Yes! 'Come at it backwards' that's it exactly!

The example I usually gravitate to for demonstrating that process was the coin question, I mentioned in the interview.

12th century England, King Stephen for the first and last time, essentially cedes the right of the state to print money to barons and rivals Thus the lots of mini multiple valid currencies spring up - 'the anarchy' historians call it and treasure hunters love it.

The simple question would have been to ask straight up 'which monarch was responsible....' or some such easily to connect construction.
What I eventually recognised is that the multiple valid currencies was the fact that I could use to obscure the link.

So the question in the end became about the 'when was it ever illegal to spend a penny in Bristol?' or something like that. Foxed people for a good long while that one, and it permitted me to be pretty generous with clues so it eventually tumbled. But what was successful about that was the things I ended up not mentioning, so The West Country was the power-base of Stephen's great rival a disputing a thoroughly legitimate female heir Matilda. The title I came up with which I was especially pleased with was 'die sloely' die as in a coin die, and Sloley is location in Norfolk, Stephen's centre of power.

The 'detail' being that coins had the minter's name and stamp often obscured. The money men of the 12th century were clearly hedging the bets as to which side would be the victor in the civl war that was in open season.

'spend a penny in Bristol' omitted all of that to let people unpick it and guess at it but it took a while of me thinking through those details to be able to step back from it and see it not for the connections that were obvious but for the connection that wasn't and suitably unspecified to build a question around.

Another recent example was the 'spiritual exercises' of the Jesuit priests cunningly disguised in the question as 'Pneumatic drills' where all the klaxons were connected with drilling and digging holes, (although I missed dentist's drills (which annoyingly really *are* pneumatic drills!)

That's an example of 'how to think like your opponent' (or to try and not wholly succeed) which is the other, *other* skill involved in 'coming at it backwards' or as I used to call it 'the askew view.'



QI - Die Slolely!
F7180006?thread=6263105

QI - Sound of Silence
F7180006?thread=6910900

Just working on a new QI.

How is yours coming along?

No progress?

Did it ever materialise?

Good grief I'd completely forgotten about it. It's come back now. And I recall that I actually finished formulating it and wrote it down, but I was in bed at the time so it's on a piece of paper somewhere. And I've tidied* the room since.

I'll dig it up.

TRiG.

*Shoved everything under the bed.

Ha Ha Ha.

I was telling someone about QI earlier and came back to this page, re-read the thread and thought: "I wonder?"

And what are you doing online at this time of night?

TRiG.

I couldn't sleep.