Riddles & Brain Teasers

[MrKaplansGlasses]

Does anyone know any good ones? DH and I live an exciting life and have been trying some brainteasers out on each other. I appear to have run out now but I want some really tricky ones to get him with tomorrow if anyone can help!

@BothersomeCrow is right. However, you do have a point @AngeloMysterioso - I should have written "with colours corresponding to our names"; otherwise one of them could be e.g. in pink Converse even if pink stinks. Oversight on my part - with these riddles, wording is everything!

1. In Lamberton Road there are 3 houses. The black house is on the left and the grey house is on the right. Where is the white house?

1. In Portobello Road there are 5 houses.

The red house is made of wood. The blue house is made of wood. The yellow house is made of wood. The brown house is made of wood. What is the green house made of?

1. Mrs Pinkerton lives in a pink bungalow. The door is pink. The walls are pink. The curtains are pink. The carpet is pink. What colour are the stairs?

xalyssx 1. Hill

1. Glass
2. No stairs

xalyssx:

1. Washington DC.

2 & 3 - As LittleMissLonesome said.

Here's one involving some technology which might be lost on today's young folk. WARNING - not very pleasant.

The detective arrived on the scene of an unfamiliar body slumped over a cassette recorder; a gun was in the body's hand. The detective pressed the "play" button on the cassette recorder, heard a recorded suicide message, followed by the sound of a shot. The detective was certain that someone had imitated the victim's voice and murdered him. How did he know this?

And here's another old technology one. Anyone under the age of 18 who knows the answer is well-informed indeed!

When you dial a telephone number (with an actual dial), some pulses are sent down the phone line: one pulse for 1, two pulses for 2, and so on. How many pulses are needed altogether to call the operator (dialling 100)?

wanderings - someone else would have had to press the stop button.

Wanderings 1. Because it had been rewound after the shot was recorded.

1. 21 - 1 + 10 + 10

• Disclaimer - I am in my 40s, so this tech is familiar stuff to me!

Oooh, ScreamingValenta - I obviously hadn't thought far enough.

Here's one for fans of doing sums:

A census taker knocks on a door and asks the woman inside how many children she has and how old they are.
"I have 3 daughters, their ages are whole numbers, and the product of the ages is 36," says the mother.
"That is not enough information," responds the census taker.
"I would tell you the sum of their ages, but you would still be stumped," says the mom.
"I wish you would tell me something more," begs the census taker.
The mom responds, "Okay, my oldest daughter, Annie, likes dogs."
What are the ages of the three daughters.

Great answers ScreamingValenta. The thought of tapes having to be rewound seems so quaint now!

Records: how many grooves are there on each side of a long-playing record?

kooshbin 2, 2 & 9. There's only one answer for the sum (13) which could be ambiguous. The only possible answers are 1, 6 & 6 and 2, 2 & 9. As it refers to an oldest daughter (singular), if must be 2, 2 & 9.

Excellent, anothernamechanged. At first, I had skimmed over the "oldest daughter" clue, thinking "what has liking dogs got to do with it?"

That’s still ambiguous, though. There’s always an oldest child, even if they’re twins and one is only a minute older than the other. So could be 1,6 and 6 if Annie is a first-born twin.

You don't even need twins. You could have one six year old who is nearly seven with a younger sibling who was born less than a year later who is just six.

@wanderings one grove on each side.

@QueenOfAccidentalDeathStares That's right.

This thread is probably dead now, but for those still reading, you might like Alex Bellos's problems here: www.theguardian.com/science/2018/apr/09/can-you-solve-it-the-hipster-bicycle-race

I think I've solved some of them - solutions will be published at 5pm. Actually, Q1 has already appeared on this thread in a different guise.

Still watching, what were the answers??

The answers are here: www.theguardian.com/science/2018/apr/09/did-you-solve-it-the-hipster-bicycle-race

DadDadDad - thanks for those!

wanderings, there are quite afew examples of records with more than one groove on a side, usually these have 2 grooves on one side and one o the othe, but at least one has 2 grooves on each side. In fact, you could have as many grooves perside as you like, but the more groovesthe shorter the songs.

Sorry to revive this fab thread, it is a ZOMBIE thread folks!