Every Friday at 1300 hours, Tally-Ho Corner’s cleverest clogs come together to solve a ‘foxer’ handcrafted by my sadistic chum and colleague, Roman. A complete ‘defoxing’ sometimes takes several days and usually involves the little grey cells of many readers. Don’t be shy. All are welcome to participate.
The ‘cluster foxer’ is regarded by some as the most demanding form. Solving one involves identifying 25 pictures and five hidden themes. The enlargeable mosaic below consists of five interlocked picture clusters (some possible cluster arrangements are shown above) each with its own theme. Themes have nothing in common with each other. Don’t be surprised to find, for example, “Crocodiles”, “The Spanish Armada”, “Words beginning with “ter””, “1948” and “Fictional policemen” sharing a puzzle. A picture’s connection to a particular theme won’t always be literal. An image of the Brandenburg Gate is just as likely to be part of a “Bach” cluster as a “Berlin” one.
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SOLUTIONS
Last week’s geofoxer theme: chemical elements (defoxed by gusdownnup and ylla)
a. Thorium (AFKAMC)
b. Holmium (Colonel_K, gusdownnnup)
c. Strontium (gusdownnup)
d. Roentgenium (Phlebas)
e. Tennessine (Electric Dragon)
f. Rutherfordium (Phlebas)
g. Cerium (AFKAMC, Phlebas)
h. Thulium (gusdownnup)
i. Berkelium or Californium (gusdownnup)
j. Darmstadtium (gusdownnup)
k. Nobelium (Electric Dragon)
l. Copernicium (Phlebas)
It’s not Friday, is it?
D2: Sir Edmund Blackadder and ‘Bob’ ?
B4: Yeoman Warder / Beefeater Amanda Clarke at the Tower of London
E4: Robert Crumb – not-quite-a-self-portrait: “He yearned for a life of quiet study…”
Re: E4 – the title would seem to be “The Book Reader”
A1: Herb-Robert / Geranium robertianum / a species of cranesbill
aka red robin, death come quickly, fox geranium, stinking Bob, squinter-pip (Shropshire), crow’s foot
B3: Silver Cross – vintage ad for their prams
B5: Barbara Cartland, Debt of Honor
E1: Coldstream Guards – A lieutenant from No. 7 Company with its regimental colour. (on the Wikipedia page for “Military colours, standards and guidons”
This is like when that bookshop sold the new Harry Potter book a day early!
A2 – Revolver – Beatles album cover
B1 – looks like a Kimar Dog Training Pistol
It looks very much like one!
https://www.dogandfield.co.uk/gundog-training-equipment/starter-pistol/kimar-starter-training-pistol-22/
A5 is a Baltimore Oriole
C2 – Polka-Dot Man aka Abner Krill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polka-Dot_Man
ETA – ah Viscount pipped me there, but the Abner Krill bit may be useful?
C2 – the Batman villain Polka-Dot Man (I’m guessing the meeting where they came up with his name was late on a Friday)
AKA Mr Polka Dot, from the opening page of Detective Comics #300 by Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff in case any of those things help.
C5 – the command module of Apollo 8 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8#/media/File:Ap8-S68-56310.jpg
A4 – the statue of Robert E Lee in Richmond Virginia, after redecoration by BLM protesters.
C1 – is this at the St Petersburg military museum – https://www.google.com/maps/@59.9532457,30.3139537,2a,75y,14.09h,92.4t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sY5n9Wnkj99Y1i_YXugglqw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
I think it’s a B-4 M1931 203mm howitzer.
… nicknamed “Stalin’s sledgehammer”.
… also called the “Karelia Sculptor”.
Just next to a memorial to Kalashnikov, in case that helps.
I don’t suppose C3 might be a cutaway view of an AK47 or somesuch?
No, not an AK47.
B2: Robert the Robot by Ideal – retro toy / waste of money
A3: Bob Semple Tank – improvised NZ AFV, corrugated iron on a tractor
Maybe makes a group of Roberts ?
A1. Herb-Robert
A2. based on photos taken by Robert Freeman ?
A3. Bob Semple
A4. Robert E Lee
B2: Robert the Robot
A2 – alternative link is the song “Doctor Robert” which is on Revolver.
I think C4 is a Sherman tank. It might be the Firefly version that forms the memorial for the Battle of Hechtel.
Blackadder and Coldstream are both villages in the Scottish Borders, but somehow I don’t think that’s where we’re going 😀
It might not just be the Borders, but I think with D1 and D3 we might be headed somewhere North of the Border!
It’s a bit muddled at the moment. Skye is an island, Forth and Blackadder are either rivers or villages, Coldstream despite its name is (I think) just a village. But we’ll figure it out…
Actually, we might be looking for Scottish bridges – Skye and Forth are famous, the Coldstream bridge is a border crossing
E2 appears to be this plastic bridge in Aberfeldy https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1311420
Seems like it! No sign of the silvery Tay, though?
D1 – SKYE
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1214360/SKYE/
D3 – HMS Forth
https://b-c-ing-u.com/comments/malta-diary-brexit-turmoil-in-the-uk-brexit-concern-in-malta-recollections-of-a-boyhood-spent-under-the-union-jack/
D5: Ark Fortress, Bukhara, Uzbekistan
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7768031,64.409749,3a,75y,52.57h,97.93t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAF1QipM8-ra_6ZiPW5B06wc3yHA7ExLyKuPl6RrVeF2a!2e10!7i5120!8i2560
Oh, well done. I was looking at the wrong Uzbeki sand fortress!
Typical, I get here nice and early and all the obvious ones have been done a day before!
Or, alternatively, a lot of the hard work is done and most of what’s left are the glory runs of finding the links. 😉
It looks like Barbara Cartland and a/the Baltimore Oriole(s) have to be linked. Can anyone imagine how? ?
Now I have said that – tangential but possible:
– There’s a Jack Ryan book also called ‘Debt of Honor’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_of_Honor
– He is apparently from Baltimore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ryan_(character)
And apparently Tom Clancy was an Honorary Yeoman Warder.
So maybe it’s Clancy rather than Ryan who is the Baltimorean (is that a word?) in question
… and he was once given a Sherman tank as a Christmas present!
Tidying up the Tom Clancy cluster:
A5 – from Baltimore
B5 – wrote a book called Debt of Honor
B4 – honorary Yeoman Warder of the Tower of London
C4 – owned a Sherman tank given to him as a Christmas present
?
I can’t find an obvious link to silver crosses or Apollo 8, so the last one might be the unidentified D4 (C3 would seem to leave silver cross stranded)
D4 – Red October chocolate factory, Moscow
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Red_October_Chocolate_Factory.jpg
With the Clancy and Scottish bridges group it looks like D5 (Ark of Bukhara) and E4 (Robert Crumb) are in the same group.
Robert Crumb published an illustrated version of the Book of Genesis, which would link in with the Noah’s Ark.
I have that book – wish I’d mentioned it!
C5 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8_Genesis_reading
On Christmas Eve the crew of Apollo 8 had a television broadcast where they read the first ten verses of the Book of Genesis.
The cluster has to be C5/D5/E5/E4/E3, if everything else is right.
Which means that D2 Blackadder has to be in the bridges group. There *is* a Blackadder bridge https://www.scottish-places.info/features/featurefirst94523.html, but it’s a perfectly normal mid-Victorian stone bridge over a little local river, whereas the others are either famous or unusual.
The *episode* is called ‘Bells’ – I suppose there’s Bell’s Bridge, built for the garden festival https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_Bridge
State of play.
A1, A2, A3, A4, B2 – Roberts
A5, B4, B5, C4, D4 – Tom Clancy
D1, D2, D3, E1, E2 – Scottish bridges
C5, D5, E3, E4, E5 – Book of Genesis – E3 & E5 unsolved
Mystery group
B1 – Kimar dog training pistol
C1 – B-4 M1931 203mm howitzer, Stalin’s sledgehammer, Karelia Sculptor
C2 – Polka Dot Man
B3 – Silver Cross pram ad
C3 – ??????
Re: B1 – fires blanks, also used as a starting pistol
I was thinking basic shapes, but have no idea as part of what:
B1: Blank
C2: (Polka) Dot
B3: Cross
C1: !?
C3: ??
There are things like coins that start off as blanks…
E3 – Amiga (and Atari ST) game Tower of Babel
https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php?id=1637
E5 – LS-4 Esau S-Boat http://www.s-boot.net/englisch/sboats-km-dat-ls7.html
Esau was the elder brother of Jacob
C3 – receiver area of a Bren gun.
https://gunlab.net/cut-away-bren-gun/
Bren gun – named after Brno in Czech Republic
Polka – Czech dance
Can we make this work with the others?
Aha! English words of Czech origin include pram, howitzer and pistol (and robot, but that goes in the Robert group)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Czech_origin
(NB this is the pram which is a kind of boat rather than an abbreviation of perambulator, but I’m sure it’ll do!)
I was reading all about the etymology of howitzers to try to connect them to shapes, but it didn’t occur to me to go looking for other Czech words!
Cluster 1 – Roberts
A1 Herb Robert
A2 Doctor Robert, Revolver
B2 Robert the Robot
A3 Bob Semple Tank
A4 Robert E Lee
Cluster 2 – words from Czech
B1 Pistol
C1 Howitzer
C2 Polka
B3 Pram
C3 Czech
Cluster 3 – Scottish bridges
D1 Skye
E1 Coldstream
D2 Bell’s (or Blackadder)
E2 Aberfeldy plastic bridge
D3 Forth (technically the rail bridge)
Cluster 4 – Book of Genesis
E3 Tower of Babel
E4 Robert Crumb – illustrated version
C5 Apollo 8 reading
D5 Noah’s Ark
E5 Esau
Cluster 5 – Tom Clancy
B4 Yeoman Warder of the Tower of London
C4 Sherman Tank
D4 Red October
A5 Baltimore
B5 Debt of Honor
And we’re done, in spite of timey-wimey-ness
A cluster foxer finished at 6pm on Friday – we’re getting better at these 🙂