The Pilot Who Wore a Dress: And Other Dastardly Lateral Thinking Mysteries

Finally, with the help of someone else, because it’s heavy, Laverne empties the water out of the bucket onto Stu’s head, producing a round of applause and shouts of glee. Stu then dries himself off and goes in to change.

If people want, they can examine the bucket at any time (Stu has been known to sell a couple during this procedure).

The problem

How on earth can Irish Stu turn a full, lidless bucket of water upside-down in his back garden without the water pouring out?

Tap here for the solution.

The impossible brothers

The mystery

Bob and Jim are brothers. Bob was born in Hastane Maternity Hospital, near Drumroos in Scotland, at 8.15 a.m. on April Fools’ Day 1976. Jim was born in the same place, just seven minutes later.

Their mum remembers the day not only because of the happy occasion of their births but because of the Jovian–Plutonian gravitational effect that astronomer Patrick Moore reported would happen that day.

Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system, with a mass of about two and a half times that of all the other planets glued together. Pluto on the other hand is so small that in 2006 it was reclassified as a dwarf planet.

Moore told listeners to BBC radio that as Pluto passed behind Jupiter at 9.47 that morning, a powerful combination of the two planets’ gravitation would decrease the gravity on Earth. People were told that if they jumped in the air at exactly the right time they would stay up longer than normal and briefly feel as if they were floating.

Shortly after the appointed time hundreds of listeners telephoned the BBC to report that they had indeed felt the effect. One woman said that she and some friends had been ‘wafted’ from their chairs and ‘orbited gently around the room’. Not that you can orbit around a room when you’re inside it, but never mind. (These people actually vote.)

Of course, the whole thing was an April Fools’ hoax by the mischievous Patrick Moore. Although Jupiter is very massive, it is also a very long long way away. At its closest to Earth the planet has a gravitational pull only about the same as that of a Renault Twizy on an old man standing a couple of feet away. The gravitational attraction of Pluto is even less. It’s about the same as a marble 100 yards away from you. Which means that even the combined gravity of the two distant planets is far too small to cause a person to become lighter or float while jumping. It’s a good job that gravity is such a weak force, or the gravitational pull of Bob and Jim’s obstetrician would have caused the tide to go out in their mum’s cup of tea.

The problem

Jim and Bob were born at the same place in the same hour of the same day of the same month of the same year, and to the same mother. Yet they are not twins. How can this be?

Tap here for the solution.

Arms and the child

The mystery

Jenny Brown and Margaret Green are lifelong friends. They grew up together, they went to the same school together, and they graduated from teacher-training college together. Both of them applied for a teaching post at their local village primary and they were appointed at the same time, in the same September of the same year.

Jenny and Margaret now teach in that school, in adjacent classrooms. The school is a charming Victorian building with a steep tiled roof, and roses round the door. It smells, as many schools do, of shepherd’s pie and pine disinfectant. It has about 120 children each year and at the end of their four years most of them feed into the large secondary school in the town.

Jenny and Margaret’s school is a happy place, with a good head, good staff, generous playgrounds, a large sports field and plenty of trees. Not so long ago a local supermarket offered a great deal of money to buy the bottom end of the cricket pitch, but the headmistress, Miss Jean Piaget, had other ideas. The parents carried her in triumph on the day the supermarket abandoned its scheme (they carried her metaphorically, that is).

One day the two young teachers were sipping tea in the staffroom and discussing mathematics. They decided to teach their pupils that maths is not just for passing exams but is a useful and fascinating subject in the real world. They devised a lesson plan in which the children in their classes would measure the length of every child’s arms and deal with the numbers in different ways, to arrive at the three different sorts of average: the mean (got by adding up all the different lengths of the children’s arms and dividing this figure by the number of children in the class), the median (arrived at by listing in order the different lengths of the children’s arms and finding which arm length falls in the middle of the list) and the mode (found by seeing which arm length occurs most often).

On Monday morning Jenny and Margaret called their respective registers. There were 28 children present in each class, with no absences.

They then explained the task to their classes and allowed them to decide who would be in charge of the tape measure, who would take down all the measurements and who would check the figures before handing in the final calculations. The children got to work, and by lunchtime the numbers were all written down.

In the staffroom Jenny and Margaret compared lists and checked the maths. Miss Tijdelijk, a temporary supply teacher, was passing through with a sandwich and asked Margaret and Jenny what they were doing. They showed her the numbers and to her utter astonishment she discovered that, although everything had been done in exactly the same way in both classrooms, and although all the measurements were correct and all the mathematics properly done, the average (mean) arm length of the children in Jenny’s class was three inches greater than the mean arm length of the children in Margaret’s class.

The problem

The children in both classes are all physically normal, and nobody in either class has extraordinarily short or long arms. The arithmetic is correct and, in fact, accurately reflects the actual arm lengths of the children.

How is it that the children in Jenny’s class appear to have significantly longer arms than the children in Margaret’s class?

Tap here for the solution.

The window cleaner in the sky

The mystery

Tall buildings are nothing new. Blocks of high-rise flats were all the rage in Ancient Rome, where they rose to a height of ten or more storeys. Some Roman emperors took against them, though, getting their togas in a right tangle trying to set a height limit on the pesky things, but without much luck. If an emperor can’t get something like that done it makes you wonder about your own planning department down at the town hall.

It wasn’t just Rome, either. Twelfth-century Bologna had many high-rise apartment blocks too, something like 180 of them. It looked like an ancient New York. The tallest of these buildings – which hasn’t fallen down over the centuries – is the Asinelli Tower, one of the so-called Duo Torri (Two Towers) that together resemble the old World Trade Center. The Asinelli Tower is 319 feet high, and I can imagine the 12th-century Bolognese sitting down to eat their spaghetti at sunset, grumpily looking out over the red roofs of the city and writing endless letters to the council to complain about being overlooked.

But neither the Roman nor the Bolognese towers were really skyscrapers. This term was first used in the late 19th century to describe steel-frame buildings of ten storeys or more. Nowadays it can refer to any very tall multi-storey building, most often one covered in big windows.

The oldest iron-frame building in the world, and the grandfather of the skyscraper, is the Maltings in Shrewsbury, which went up in 1797. However, as with the Roman tower blocks, there were complaints. And it was the same in 19th-century London, when a British empress took a leaf out of the Roman emperors’ book.

Queen Victoria, Empress of India, had a really good moan about tall buildings going up near Buckingham Palace, and to mollify the monarch height limits were introduced, which continued to be enforced until the 1950s. Prince Charles carries on the good fight today in an effort to prevent the building of ugly high-rise buildings in London, and pushing to have The Gherkin thatched. I’ve noticed that, rather like the Romans, he’s not having much luck.

Many office employees today work in skyscrapers, and one of the benefits is the fun of watching the guys who clean the windows from special cradles trying to cope with the high winds, and being stared at.

It was in 2012 that Horace Morris, an experienced 60-year-old window cleaner who was working on a window on the 40th floor of the 94-storey Alto Tower, near London Bridge, had a spot of trouble. Horace was smoking a cigarette and whistling along to the radio. He had cleaned the windows many times before and was not really paying proper attention to what he was doing.

As he was reaching across to get to a particularly dirty patch in a tricky corner, Horace slipped off his support and fell.

The problem

Horace was not wearing any kind of safety harness or other device, just his workwear. His clothes were not padded, he had no safety hat – or any hat – and there was nothing to slow his fall. Yet when he hit the ground Horace merely shook his head, rubbed his sore hands together, and stood up. He had broken no bones, and had only a slight scratch to his palm, a sore knuckle, a bent thumb and two very achy knees. How come?

Tap here for the solution.

The troublesome signpost

The mystery

Everybody who is old enough to remember the event recalls where he or she was when President Kennedy was shot, or when the World Trade Center was attacked. For those who witnessed its aftermath, the Great Storm of 1987 is another of those memorable events.

During the night of 15 October violent hurricane-force winds tore roofs off houses in London, demolished the seven oaks in Sevenoaks, and blew beach huts half a mile across the sea road in Hove. Roads and railways blocked by downed trees kept commuters at home, and fallen electricity lines left many without power. London, East Anglia and the Home Counties were particularly badly hit, being buffeted by winds the like of which will probably not be felt again for another 200 years. Gorleston in Norfolk chalked up a gust of 122 mph.

I remember this all as if it was yesterday. I was living in Muswell Hill, in North London. As I walked through the woods to the Tube station the next morning – I was meant to travel to Sussex – I had to step over branches and jump over whole trees. No trains were moving so I postponed my visit until the following week. When Monday arrived I set off on my journey.

I enjoy the countryside so I decided that I would walk the few miles from Brookbridge station to the home of my great friend Arthur Van Houghton, the famous opera tenor and popular siffleur, who I was going to see. I had never been to the area before but he’d told me it was a pleasant stroll from the station to Rotherborough High Street, where we were to meet.

This was in the days long before smartphones and digital maps, and Arthur had told me to get out at the station and walk past the Wheatsheaf pub and then along the bridleway that travels straight as an arrow through the pretty fields and woods towards Martinsbrook. I was to go as far as the fingerpost at the crossroads in the little village of Brookstead Heath. The signpost, he said, would point me in the direction of Rotherborough, once the hometown of the celebrated aviatrix Betty la Roche. Arthur was to meet me at the top of the high street, under the bronze sculpture of the famous airwoman.

The train journey was uneventful and I got out at the station, and set off as instructed. There were many indications of hurricane damage in the dappled autumn sunshine, but much of the fallen wood and bits of demolished fence had been tidied into piles.

It was indeed a lovely walk and I finally reached the crossroads where the signpost was. And that’s where the trouble started.

The sign was a charming black and white fingerpost of the old style, with four ‘fingers’ pointing from its central pillar. The problem was that the hurricane had blown the sign down and it was lying flat on the grass. I looked at it lying there uselessly for a moment, wondering what to do.

One of the signpost’s fingers pointed to Martinsbrook and Coppesfield, a second, at right angles to that one and stuck in the mud, pointed to High Woodhurst and Rotherborough (my destination), a third, pointing in the opposite direction to the one to Coppesfield, pointed to Brookbridge, and a fourth, opposite the Rotherborough one, pointed to Buxfield Cross, a place I’d never heard of.

And then a thought struck me. I realised that I could easily discover which way I needed to go by using the sign, even as it lay there on the ground.

The problem

How did I discover from the blown-down signpost the proper direction to take in order to reach my destination?

Tap here for the solution.

The Knightsbridge barber

The mystery

Nowadays, Knightsbridge is an exclusive shopping district in London, but it began as a little hamlet that extended into the parishes of Kensington and Chelsea. Its ancient name comes from the Knight’s Bridge that once crossed over the River Westbourne, which still flows through the city, but now underground.

One of Knightsbridge’s most celebrated residents was Raymond Bessone, Britain’s first celebrity hairdresser. Born in Soho in 1911, Bessone anglicised his name to the more palatable Peter Raymond, but was known to everybody as Mr Teasy-Weasy.

Mr Teasy-Weasy was always impeccably coiffed and turned out, swooshing around Mayfair in bow ties, buttonholes and an expensive overcoat, which he wore without putting his arms in the sleeves. His Italianate looks were enhanced by his pencil moustache, but undermined by his entirely fake French accent.

Building his business and developing an exclusive clientele over the years was second nature to Mr Teasy-Weasy. Mixing as he did with the most fashionable people, he was always popping up in the news. Once, in 1956, the blonde bombshell Diana Dors flew him to the States to shampoo her hair. This reportedly cost £2,500, about £59,000 in today’s money.

Mr Teasy-Weasy was never short of an opinion. He claimed that women over the age of twenty should avoid wearing long hair because it was ageing. If he was interrupted while doing nothing he would announce, ‘Madam! Can you not see that I am meditating?’

One of Mr Teasy-Weasy’s most famous reported remarks concerned the backgrounds of those whose hair he was styling. He said, ‘I would rather cut the hair of three Cockney women than that of one Yorkshirewoman.’ This, as you might imagine, caused quite a stir among his northern clientele, of whom, admittedly, there weren’t hundreds.

The problem

Why did Mr Teasy-Weasy say that he would rather cut the hair of three Cockney women than one Yorkshirewoman?

Tap here for the solution.

The fastest beard in the world

The mystery

In 1963 Sean Horn was seventeen and living at home with his parents in the USA. He was a precocious child and had a particular knack for the church organ, which he had learned from his father, a sober black-suited minister, who was himself proficient on the instrument.

Sean was also precocious in the matter of facial hair. His beard had begun growing at the age of sixteen and would by now have been long and bushy if his parents had not insisted on him shaving it off. They refused to allow men with long hair or beards to enter the house, on old-fashioned ‘moral’ grounds that were a mystery to Sean’s normal, Beatles-loving friends. ‘When you are eighteen, My Son, and have come of age,’ said his mother one day, ‘only then may you grow a beard. If you must.’ Sean was an obedient boy so he shaved his face every day without fail.

Sean’s friend Olivia Carlson had invited him to her all-night Christmas party on 18 December, in the centre of the city, so he asked his parents’ permission. They were already trying their best to accommodate themselves to the galloping changes taking place in the USA at that time. Boys with long hair, girlfriends staying over, jeans, drugs, swearing and pop music all seemed so alien to their world. But, though old-fashioned and strict, they realised that their son was nearly a man so they agreed that he could go to the party if he was back before sunrise. He promised he would be. ‘Make sure to shave before you go, Son, and don’t forget to take along a posy of flowers,’ said his mother.

On the night of the party, Sean put on his best clothes and had a close shave. His parents approved. He waved them goodbye as he jumped on the evening bus into town.

When he returned home just before the following sunrise his parents were astonished to see that he had a bushy black beard. They pulled it in disbelief but it didn’t come off. It was a real beard.

The problem

Sean’s hair grows at a normal rate. His beard is his own real hair, and there’s nothing wrong with him. So how did he manage to grow a proper bushy black beard before sunrise?

Tap here for the solution.

The high window

The mystery

The sloping walls at the foot of the newish-looking Leeds Combined Court Centre are no doubt designed to prevent people from standing around smoking or relieving themselves against the building. They add an extra element of charmlessness to an edifice that, in its orange-brick brutalism, is already a bit short on good looks.

Not so long ago this was the scene of an interesting dispute, which sprang up during the trial of Mr Joe Slepkava, who was being tried for the crime of murder.

The story was that a man had been stabbed outside a pub overlooking the River Aire, which flows through Leeds city centre. Along the river’s banks stand many renovated industrial buildings. Some are businesses, others hotels, and some are tall private dwellings. It was from a high window in one of these skinny 19th-century conversions that the witness for the prosecution, structural engineer Marmaduke Snarbes, claimed to have seen Slepkava arguing with the victim before stabbing him and heaving him over the side into the water. Here is an extract from the trial records.

MR CUMMING (PROSECUTION): ‘Just tell us, Mr Snarbes, what it was you saw from the house in Chandler’s Walk.’

MR SNARBES (PROSECUTION WITNESS): ‘Well, I was in this small room at the top of number 69, inspecting it for my client. The main beam, which functions as a drag strut in the lateral-load-resisting system, seemed to have a problem with its acquired axial loading.’

CUMMING: ‘Just tell us what you saw, thank you, Mr Snarbes.’

SNARBES: ‘Oh yes, well it’s an unused room on the third floor. Dark and dusty. Unfurnished …’

CUMMING: ‘Was it locked?’

SNARBES: ‘No. It was jammed closed from outside with an old chair, under the handle. The wind whistles through any open doors up there. There is one very small square window in the room. It’s got bars on it. No furniture, no chimney or anything in the room. Nothing – it’s completely bare. Peeling wallpaper, bare floorboards, very dirty. Now, in the course of taking notes I heard raised voices, so I looked out of the window and I noticed a big fat man down beside the river. He had a spider web tattoo on his face. I saw him stab this other man in the chest and lift the body over the side, into the water. He threw the knife in afterwards.’

CUMMING: ‘You say you got a good look at this man. If you see him in court today would you please point him out to the jury? Thank you. For the record, the witness has pointed at Mr Slepkava.’

HIS HONOUR JUDGE QUATERMASS: ‘You are certain, are you, that this is the man you saw?’

SNARBES: ‘Yes Sir. The missing ear and the facial tattoo are distinctive.’

JUDGE QUATERMASS: ‘Thank you.’

CUMMING: ‘No more questions, Your Honour.’

JUDGE QUATERMASS: ‘Ms Scrunt?’

MS SCRUNT (DEFENCE): ‘Thank you, Your Honour. Mr Snarbes, you told the police when they took your statement that – now this is important – that you had seen this event by looking out of the window.’

SNARBES: ‘That’s right. I looked out of the window and saw that man stab the other one and push him in the river. I told the police that.’

SCRUNT: ‘Mr Snarbes, you are a professional surveyor, a man used to dealing in numbers and space. How high is the window that you claim to have looked through?’

SNARBES: ‘I didn’t measure it.’

SCRUNT: ‘Well, roughly – as well as you can remember.’

SNARBES: ‘I should say, about … I suppose about eight feet off the floor. It’s a tall room and it’s a small square window.’

SCRUNT: ‘Eight feet? That is indeed a high window. It’s about the height of a single-decker bus, isn’t it? How tall are you, Mr Snarbes? In feet and inches if you prefer.’

SNARBES: ‘I’m five feet ten.’

SCRUNT: ‘Could you look over the top of a bus?’

SNARBES: ‘No.’

SCRUNT: ‘Yet you claim that you looked through a tiny, dirty window obstructed by bars, eight feet off the floor.’

SNARBES: ‘Yes.’

SCRUNT: ‘It’s a smooth wall, isn’t it? Or is there a projecting window sill or anything to grab hold of?’

SNARBES: ‘Nothing to get hold of, no.’

SCRUNT: ‘You didn’t use rope of any sort?’

SNARBES: ‘Rope? No, I didn’t use rope or anything like that.’