Solve This To Be The Next James Bond!

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▶Bonus Puzzle◀
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Each year GCHQ, the British Intelligence Agency, publishes a neat Christmas brainteaser. They claim that they use these brainteasers as recruitment tools so, if you do solve it, who knows... you could be the next (real) James Bond!
You can find their tweet here:
/ 1339831772310364160
and, on their main page, here:
www.gchq.gov.u...
#christmas
#GCHQChristmasPuzzle
**************************************************************
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/ crackingthecryptic
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▶SOFTWARE◀
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▶Logo Design◀
Melvyn Mainini
▶ABOUT US◀
Hi! We're Simon Anthony and Mark Goodliffe, two of the UK's most enthusiastic puzzle solvers. We have both represented the UK at the World Sudoku Championships and the World Puzzle Championships. We're also "cryptic crossword" aficionados. Mark is the twelve-time winner of The Times championship and Simon is the former record holder for most consecutive correct solutions to The Listener crossword. We hope we can help your puzzle solving while also introducing you to some of the world's best puzzles.
Thank you for watching!
Simon and Mark

Опубликовано:

18 сен 2024

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Комментарии : 125

@Lodinn 3 года назад

Simon at 1:25 - You guys don't have to be very good with English. Also Simon 10 minutes later at 11:40 - this is just a rather specific Christmas song which is not at all the same even in all the English variations, let alone other languages... This puzzle is just savage.

@lauraolek6928 3 года назад

to be fair - by that point us normal humans are supposed to figure out the answer and call it quits

@Lodinn 3 года назад

@@lauraolek6928 True dat

@nicknick6788 3 года назад

Simon, I realise this wasn't a live solve. Out of interest roughly how many minutes did it take you to solve the clues?

@ballooooom 3 года назад

Even as a Chinese, I wouldn't have guessed the Chinese zodiac...

@davidh.4944 3 года назад

Well, _especially_ as a Chinese, since they wouldn't use the English animal names, and the English names are not always consistent either (rat/mouse, ox/bull/cow, goat/ram/sheep, rooster/hen/bird, pig/boar).

@lvl9lightspell962 3 года назад

Especially given CNY isn't for another month and a half...

@escaperoomleander1948 3 года назад

"I heard about this puzzle on the radio." Ah, Britain.

@Vykk_Draygo 3 года назад

Puzzles like this remind me point and click adventures. You click on everything, and the weirdest thing is usually what works.

@sarabearyt 3 года назад

can we just agree it's insane anyone could ever solve this?

@lada100 3 года назад

yes, give me a year and I will solve half of it. 😄

@lucasernesto1714 3 года назад

that last one is absolutely insane

@PurpleSidewalk1 3 года назад

I couldn't solve many of the clues, but once there was an S in that position I could see that it spelled seasons greeting immediately because of the number of repeats on S and the suspect that E was the character with a self-loop for double E.

@thecookiemaker 3 года назад

It would be a family thing. We would all start solving it and then sometime in June one of my brothers would probably respond that they figured it out.

@andrewgrant6516 3 года назад

I solved it after three letters.

@adamheywood113 3 года назад

"The name's Anthony...."

@user-rh7nd5xv7y 3 года назад

Simon Anthony

@maverickstclare3756 3 года назад

@@user-rh7nd5xv7y Double Oh Bobbins

@Varksterable 3 года назад

@@user-rh7nd5xv7y Sudoku Anthony, for sure? I very much doubt 'James' was Bond's real name, after all.

@dkosmari 3 года назад

These are so random, they could just have used the first letter of the 10 largest Moon craters and it would fit right in with most of the topics used.

@Varksterable 3 года назад

I disagree. Apart from people with a specific interest in space/the moon it's unreasonable to expect 'the average Joe' to know the names of the craters on the moon. But numbers, keyboard keys, letters of the alphabet, Roman numerals, the 12 days of Christmas, chemical elements etc. are all things any decently educated English person should know and hold in their head somewhere. Ok; I agree with you about the Chinese calendar; that was a complete curve-ball. The hard part (and beauty of this puzzle) is the ability to take all this completely disparate and unrelated knowledge and apply it as needed. Given what GCHQ do, this is exactly the kind of ability they look for/expect in most employees. Hence their puzzles (and sometimes they throw out challenges aimed, I'm sure, at recruitment) are often of a similar nature. So it's random as in 'random access' rather then as in 'random problem domain.' BTW, I'm fairly sure I heard somewhere that one of the top positions in some intelligence service (and I'm 90% certain it was GCHQ) is dyslexic. Because not everything involved in cracking codes/cyphers/information streams needs l337 language skills. As we see here.

@dkosmari 3 года назад

@@Varksterable Oh, you know the periodic table? Then list the third letter of all the lanthanides. The point of a thematic puzzle, IMHO, is to have some connection to the theme. Yes, the alphabet, the periodic elements, the Roman numerals, they're easy, but unrelated. There are pop songs, carols, decorations, folklore, movies, cuisine, snow, etc, to draw inspiration for topics. And there's nothing wrong with encouraging people to do a little web search on a topic. Solving a puzzle on something you haven't memorized is even more a show of intelligence. I paused the video and managed to solve the song clue second, after the alphabet clue. Then after 5 min looking up the lyrics of other songs and not finding a match, I watched the rest, and was disappointed.

@Varksterable 3 года назад

@@dkosmari I recognise the first few elements of the periodic table, sure. I don't think I'd like the puzzle if it was based on lanthanides or actinides, or even transition elements. But that's not what was being asked for. At no point is there an explicit indication that the sequences are thematic. The official site says "Taking on this Christmas cracker gives puzzlers an insight into the skills you need to be a GCHQ analyst." There is an _implicit_ suggestion that the sequences are Christmas themed, given that some clues actually are, and the bauble graphic. But THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK! JK; Yes; I do see your point. I think we are maybe just seeing the puzzle from different angles. The 'theme' for me was 'how the mind of an intelligence/information analyst works.' The 'theme' for you was 'Christmas'. And I can see why from that POV it doesn't work very well as a puzzle.

@Varksterable 3 года назад

@@dkosmari Wait. You say solving something based on looking something up online is a mark of intelligence. But at the same time say this is unfair in a puzzle because it needs looking stuff up? What? Thematic schematic.

@57thorns 3 года назад

GCHQ to me is geocaching head quarters.

@skydragono3 3 года назад

Yep

@StorymasterQ 3 года назад

GCHQ for me is the female equivalent of the onomatopoeia fap.

@crazypomp927 3 года назад

Solved without really solving. It was quickly clear that the final message would be "Season's Greetings" so I knew what the letters needed to be and just had to place them on the bauble by following the arrows to make sure the message came out correctly.

@pascalm1305 3 года назад

The first 4 or 5 you did were aha moments but the ones after that I would never have found them.

@57thorns 3 года назад

Luckily you only need the first four (and knowledge about Frosty) to figure out the message. Once you have that I suppose it would be easier to retrofit the answers.

@thecookiemaker 3 года назад

@@57thorns I would probably discover some word using a cypher doing retrofitting before I discovered the legitimate reason.

@marrykurie48 3 года назад

This is a cool type of riddle. But just for you to notice: Keyboards are different in Germany. We have QWERTZ instead of QWERTY. Therefore this backward didn't come to me at once. But once you explained it, it was all clear. Thanks a lot, Simon! :-)

@esajpsasipes2822 3 года назад

in czech republic, its the same but we have both printed on the key

@marrykurie48 3 года назад

@@esajpsasipes2822 Okay, that's at least some help for the orientation ;-)

@Varksterable 3 года назад

Why is it I find the concept of GCHQ having a Twitter account so hilariously funny? "Meet near Fat White Cat Studio, Hatherley Brook side. 12:43am. Bring vodka. #justmeetingarussianfriend #comealone"

@Rutgerstds9 3 года назад

That's just a brilliant solve. I can say, as a non-native English-speaker, that this is highly unsolvable. How would I ever come up with shapes, animals in the Chinese astrology or even A partridge in a pear tree?! Very entertaining and at the same time disheartening to see you solve it, Simon! Happy holidays!

@theunwelcome 3 года назад

"Be sure to drink your Ovaltine"... all that for a crummy commercial...

@Socika14 3 года назад

So my dumb ass paused it before he gave the instructions, assumed it was all anagrams with a missing letter and now I'm trapped in the 6th dimension... HELP!!!

@clffliese26 3 года назад

My first thought was they were cryptograms. Guess I'm not going to make Her Majesty's Secret Service. Of course, since I'm an American, that's, probably, out of the question from the get go.

@Krysstof 3 года назад

that moment when you recognize poiuyt right off the bat but none of the other

@theunwelcome 3 года назад

yep, that was the only one I got before he explained them too, and how weird it is that I can thank Mad magazine for that one

@bobbydragon9322 3 года назад

Double Oh Bobbins

@lewsouth1539 3 года назад

I would definitely call "GMRDPR..." the most "vicious" sequence! I'm sure that I'd have never got that, even if I'd recently been reminded of the Chinese zodiac (which I expect would be the minimum prodding needed for even a snowman's chance in hell). I particularly liked "POIUYT...", which dawned on me about a second before Simon said the "keyword", and which seemed eerily familiar up to that point....

@sbjerk 3 года назад

Spotted in another comment.... they are all END-OF/Countdown sequences!! (except elements one for some reason)

@ragnkja 3 года назад

You’re going down the periodic table, at least in the standard arrangement.

@ramspencer5492 2 года назад

My pick for Bond: Theo James would be perfect. He'll still look good after a few films... He has the deep British baritone voice... The charm, plus he's a good actor and can bring the danger and gravitas.... Just a little more bulking up and a good script and he would be perfect.

@OjingeoChaemuchim 3 года назад

That NAMWON must be this year's League of Legends Worlds champion, Damwon Gaming. Therefore I'd put G in the center.

@PauxloE 3 года назад

For the title: The tradition of GCHQ publishing puzzles was not started to find people like James Bond (i.e. agents out in the wild), but to find people helping to crack encryption algorithms. 7:30 My keyboard doesn't have a Y at this place (I'm in QWERTZ-land). 11:00 "It's about shapes" ... or just about greek numbers, I guess?

@ThereIsAnExtension2UndoHandles 3 года назад

I like the theming of the clues too. Spoilers Starting from the end of an alphabetic sequence The six most recent years of the Chinese zodiac moving on to 2021 Starting from the end of the word snowman The last letter of each number starting from the end of the keyboard top row starting from the final day of the Christmas song going backward through the standard polygon list going backward through the roman numerals the only one I can't really tie to the end of the year is the chemistry one

@lilzerolil 3 года назад

Well spotted! Beryllium powder, among others is used to make white or silver colored firework. But other elements are used for other colors so maybe that’s not the connection they were going for.

@kohanstraven1550 3 года назад

I did notice their Atomic Numbers are in order, which just made me think of the four seasons. Winter for some countries is in December hence a white Christmas. Bit of a stretch though. Hydrogen - 1 Helium - 2 Lithium - 3 Beryllium - 4

@kevgermany 3 года назад

And of course many countries don't have Qwerty keyboards...

@sushirunner 3 года назад

Also many countries don't have the GCHQ :-D

@maxmaier4170 3 года назад

the englisch itself may not be that hard, but how do you expect us non english natives to know that song,.Also thinking of the Chinese year animal in an other language is like using Google translator through different languages, which always results in a disaster. So this puzzle is definitely only for English natives

@skih9486 3 года назад

Don't forget the QWERTY one...

@57thorns 3 года назад

Yep, but the bottom right sequence was easy enough: MDCLXV_

@maverickstclare3756 3 года назад

Imagine Britain's GCHQ setting a puzzle from English Culture !

@Gilagr26 3 года назад

True, German Keyboards swap the y and z, so yeah, for me the top row reads: QwertZuiopü

@garanceadrosehn9691 3 года назад

... and not even all of them!

@futurefox128 3 года назад

So this puzzle is about christmas. Ok, I got it. Let's just look up Chinese zodiacs in English and start at a random animal (yes, I do realise, that it ends with O(x) because of 2021, but still FEELS completely random to even think about that)

@YorkshireLen 3 года назад

Do you email the answer to GCHQ or is recording it on your hard drive sufficient for them to know you got it right?

@Varksterable 3 года назад

Ah, come on. There are many far more serious issues facing the UK information and intelligence services which demand much more attention. This is just a casual, harmless pass time that no agency in their right mind would waste resources on. So yeah; they probably know already. 😎🕵️‍♀️📡💻

@prunabluepepper 3 года назад

@@Varksterable XD

@muskyoxes 3 года назад

The impressive part of this construction is that the letters in the final answer are constrained yet they're able to be precisely the seventh in a wide variety of sequences. (Some of them are freeform, like they could start the chinese zodiac from anywhere, but many of them like the reverse qwerty are constrained.)

@theletsplayprincess3894 3 года назад

At about 6:00 I figured out what the actual message was supposed to be and what letter went where, but trying to reverse engineer and go "How does the letter correlate to the puzzle that gives it" left me with nothing >.< Thank God for Simon.

@guilhermeteofilocachich4892 3 года назад

Absolutely incredible, Simon! Congratulations!

@ShinyLocke 3 года назад

I love you cracking the cryptic

@SailSmBi 3 года назад

The top right has a hidden pattern as well. If you count the differences between each digit you get 7,5,12,17,29. Which is a fibonacci sequence and the last digit would be 46 more than R which is K. This messed the puzzle up for me

@tie7384 3 года назад

i saw one video and now i get this channel recommended everyday i aint complaining pretty unique to learn and watch along.

@elevendarter112 3 года назад

There' are only three people in the world who could solve this out. The one who has created it, Robert Langdon and you.

@jokevv1 3 года назад

What if these three are all the same person?!

@LLCCB 3 года назад

This is ridiculous. Wow. Thanks for doing it so we can see

@mindthegap9541 3 года назад

What an brilliant and unexpected surprise

@noahkilgus9860 3 года назад

Can't believe he knows the Tom Lehrer song. Love him

@Coyotek4 3 года назад

Nice puzzle ... I was able to figure out 5 of the 9 letters and then guessed the solution from those.

@ericpraline1302 3 года назад

Kudos for the Tom Lehrer reference (and solving the puzzle).

@sushirunner 3 года назад

Had to like it for the Tom Lehrer reference :-D

@adamtaylor5040 3 года назад

These are clever. Made trickier by some of the sequences starting in the middle of larger ones.

@Tahgtahv 3 года назад

All of the sequences start at a logical beginning or end. For shapes, you can't really have a one or two sided shape, with straight lines at least. For the Zodiac, Ox is the upcoming year (2021).

@RichSmith77 3 года назад

Pleased I got five of the letters (I, A, N, R, S in that order). From those I could get the message. I failed to get any of the other four, though, even knowing the answer. Periodic Table - perhaps I could/should have got that one. The rest, not surprised I didn't get. Chinese Zodiac animals - wow. Not a prayer. With the hints on the video, I paused after shapes was suggested and couldn't for the life of me work out why the second letter of "square" (Q) was in the sequence instead of the first letter (S). Quadrilateral! Doh! 😂

@drstkova 3 года назад

What I dislike about this type of puzzle is the arbitrary subject matter. The setter can literally choose as obscure a subject as they like. Puzzles like “A bell rings and a man dies. Why?” similarly drive me crazy. Fuelled by obscurity and not logic.

@scifigrl23 3 года назад

This must be the puzzle for me as I got the answer after 2 minutes. I'm super shocked.

@LucyXuCovers 3 года назад

Tom Lehrer might do the opposite of help, but ASAPscience definitely will

@prunabluepepper 3 года назад

As a none native speaker who grew up bilingual it was unsolvable for me. Cause I am not used to this type of riddles and the language thinking it requires. I immediately got the one with the roman numerals though. Your English QWERTY is a QWERTZ on other keyboards. Love these puzzles never the less, you can learn how "the British" think.

@electromika 3 года назад

I don't solve puzzles usually, but are there a lot of puzzles like this? It seems very disconnected between all of the topics and "clues" they gave.

@BeyondOrdinary 3 года назад

Had a look at this with my son yesterday. NOHHPQ was much easier than HHELIB no idea why. Ok we are both heavily into maths but even so.

@justinwhite2725 3 года назад

@7:34 other than the first 2 I wouldn't have gotten any of the sequences, but I solved the message already just from the letters already on the board (I've always been good at wheel of fortune)

@nendwr 3 года назад

Is Tom Lehrer's pronunciation of AN-timony weird, or have I been pronouncing An-TIM-ony wrong all these years?

@ragnkja 3 года назад

I don’t know if both are common in English, but yours definitely is, if I remember correctly from the Periodic Table of Videos.

@azamingxzc9570 3 года назад

Love the videos Simon!!

@joekerr3638 3 года назад

Now I am wondering if Simon or Mark work for the GCHQ. Is CTC a GCHQ creation? I am onto you Simon. 😝

@Varksterable 3 года назад

You know those puzzle hunts they keep publishing? #justsayin #recruitmentdrive

@jimmarshall5337 3 года назад

M will be in touch. 😉

@ListennnnRach 3 года назад

Random video?! Yes, please!! 😁

@jeffreyvannieuwkoop6809 3 года назад

Always time for CTC

@sandyhafenbrack141 3 года назад

I don't see how I could have ever solved this puzzle.

@noobofnoobs6165 3 года назад

⚠️SPOILER WARNING ⚠️ Somehow I knew it was season’s greetings without getting any letters

@mrcommonsense9145 3 года назад

Well this is blooming marvelous. Ill have a watch of this an early doors martini, a smoke of a chesterfield or two then off out to clean the DB5.

@Varksterable 3 года назад

Off to watch the servants clean the DB5, surely?

@eliaskar5084 3 года назад

I find these puzzles interesting, but also definitely not uniquely solvable. I'm pretty sure you can come up with an answer of your own using another base to decipher the sequences, and there is no reason why "elements of the periodic table" is more valid than whatever premise you can find for matching the given letters.

@wren4077 3 года назад

So it's canon that Simon already has this solved in front of him right? Or am I supposed to believe that this man just looked at GDMPRMSASDJAKSJDH and figured out that it was the first letters of the animals in the Chinese years My brain is melting

@maverickstclare3756 3 года назад

He says "I solved this yesterday" right at the start

@wren4077 3 года назад

@@maverickstclare3756 oh thanks. I just skipped to the solve.

@logiciananimal 3 года назад

Isn't this a bit of misdirection? I thought GCHQ was a signals intelligence organization, and Mr Bond seems to work in HUMINT. :)

@dma-rising8876 3 года назад

Fun to be walked through it, but a few of these have issues with Zodiac is rough, but have a real issue with EOEREX_ because ok the "answer" is N, but why not an E? E is every other letter in that sequence

@RichSmith77 3 года назад

Because that sequence doesn't account for the other letters.

@michaelengher9895 3 года назад

4:36 “HHELIB_ here we need to be thinking about chemistry.” What?! Why chemistry? Can someone please explain how such a conclusion might be reached?

@Mechanical01987 3 года назад

If you google the periodic table, the first four elements in order are H, He, Li, Be. I saw this one straight off, but it's a weird one because in all the others (from memory) each letter stands for a different thing

@LednacekZ 3 года назад

dont understand the title. James Bond has nothing to do with puzzles.

@johngilbert7359 3 года назад

I saw the final answer long before the smaller clues.

@SimonSideburns 3 года назад

Me too.

@davidbeaumier4953 3 года назад

I can't begin to comprehend how anyone can find out how to begin to solve most of these... I saw the roman numeral but i came up to the I not because i need the number 1 but because it's the only number that would fit correctly there. MDCLXV being 166x i could add multiple I but as only one is needed. 1661. For the POIUYT clue, it work on both QWERTY and AZERTY keyboard, but it won't work on many other type of keyboard (which there are many).