hal-an-tow

It was indeed Graculus the wise old bird from Noggin the Nog. I assumed he was a raven mind you ( I vaguely recall Odin may have been associated with ravens somehow so it fitted the viking theme) but that'sneither here nor there. Googling graculus got me this rather entertainingly appropriate academic paper So a ding to you MartyBartfast (and I guess your second choice of caching name had gone too and you had to be 'Marty' instead of 'Slarty' Over to you ...

Thanks for the ding, I know it often suprises folk that a desert is defined by precipitation, not temperature. On to the next question : The recent death of Gordon Murray, creator and puppeteer of the classic Trumpton TV series got me reminiscing - so, what UK reviewer has a link with a childrens TV show ? For the ding I want the reviewer name and the programme name please

I'll try the Antarctic !

6 Years ago I bought a smartphone ... well, I'd call it a slightly smart 'phone , a Nokia running the now defunct Symbian operating system.It had GPS capability, but no instructions on how to set up or use the facility . I searched online for information on how to navigate with it, and the first few links on the list included the word 'geocaching', which I'd never before heard. Intrigued I read up on it, and discovered there were quite a few caches not far from home. After a few dozen finds using the laborious and inaccurate device (I had to make waypoints and input co-ords myself through an annoying interface, and wrote hints , size and any other info. down in a notebook which I carried with me. 13m was as accurate as the 'phone got, and that was out in the open on a cloudless day) I decided this game was for me, and got my first GPS.

There are occasions when a cache is set and the owner is not sure what size to list it as : here's an example: A housebrick with holes in it, with a centrifuge tube jammed into one of those holes. Should they go with 'small' (for the size of the brick) or micro (for the little tube within)? Searchers are going to complain either way that they were looking for something bigger/smaller than they eventually found, so the easiest thing is to not tell them something which may mislead them. Quite often in my area size 'unknown' or the no longer available 'not given' on a listing can be a hint that you are looking for something like my example, a bit out of the ordinary run of pots and boxes. I've also seen 'unknown' used with ammo cans to avoid flagging their existance up to thieves. Or it can be a ploy to deliberately make the hide harder, which is a choice entirely up to the cache owner. And on a side note, as a cache owner, if I listed a cache without giving the size, and was queried by the reviewer and told to change it, I'd be politely refusing to do so, I don't see it as a reviewers concern .

+1 Same questions, same statements (especially the bolded). We've seen so many thinking they're gonna make something outta this hobby, and most simply degrade into spoiler videos. I'll add my +1 to that. I suspect the main reason here is that the OP wants to make videos and have a channel, and has decided caching would be a topic to pick on, rather than that a delight in (and deep knowledge of) caching has produced the urge to share the fun in film form. I'd suggest it would be better to pick a topic you know in depth. Carp fishing maybe ? Or, er, management ? Bet that'll get folks clicking through ...

KNotty Ash ... but only if it is a really small car ...

The problem is that nowhere in the the original post from Chris did it say these were guidelines, and the language used in that post was not the language of a guideline, it was the language of an absolute immutable rule. It's quite possible that this whole furore could have been avoided if the "guidelines" were worded better, and I suggest that they should be rewritten so that anyone reading them for the first time once all this has died down will understand that they are indeed guidelines and not absolute rules. But does it really matter? Obviously it matters to some of us, which is why we are adding our comments. Explanations of the intent behind the words are helpful, thank you La Lunatica (who is always a helpful and fair reviewer in my experience ... and I'll agree with bold to pop her head above the parapet here. Creepy grovel over ) I'd like to think that the thoughtful analysis of why that initial announcement went down so badly might perhaps inform how any future guideline codicil is worded and presented to us. I think that 20 miles (being of the metric persuasion myself, I'd say 32.18km)is too great a radius. Draw a 32.18km circle around any town in England or Wales and see what it encompasses: I just tried it with the location of the event after the reviewers meeting (Yaxley in the outskirts of Peterborough) The area is nothing like as densely populated as much of the south east of England, but here are just some of the towns and villages which would have been excluded from having events for 10 hours before or after: All of Peterborough and its suburbs obviously, then Ailsworth, Marholme, Glinton, Bourne, Thurlby, Spalding, Stamford, Market Deeping, Wandsford, Whittlesey, March, Corby, Oundle, Ramsey, Chateris, Thrapston, Fotheringhay, Raunds, Irthlingborough, Huntingdon, St. Ives and St. Neots.

You got the general idea, so the ding goes to Optimist on the run The amphibian was originally 'an ewt' which was run together and sort of re-divided to become 'a newt' Ditto for 'an ickname', whilst 'a nadder' lost the 'n' from 'nadder' to the a, making 'an adder' . As you guessed napron/apron did the same trick. That pretty much exhausts my knowledge of linguistics though, and I never could find out why flammable and inflammable mean the same thing. That one still bothers me. Isn't English strange !

Thanks for the ding - it just goes to show the random things lurking in the brain, I knew the name, and sort of thought it belonged to some kind of explorer. Right-o, total change of subject matter for the next question, something else from the dusty corners of my memory: How were newts and nicknames made bigger, while adders and aprons both shrank?

Just going on the initials the name Vivian Fuchs (spelling may well be wrong there !)pops into my mind.

Amundsen. I seem to recall that his expedition succeeded in part through the very un British action of ... eating the ponies. (Cue value lasagne joke) Now I've ventured an answer, I looked Amundsen up, and turns out it's even less British than I thought : what they killed and ate along the way was the dogs. They fed them to both the remaining dogs and the expedition members.

Amundsen. I seem to recall that his expedition succeeded in part through the very un British action of ... eating the ponies. (Cue value lasagne joke)

A speedy return ! Point to you , your serve !

Thank you. Playing the same game, and popping the ball back over the net,a gentle backhand to mid-table ,with hardly any spin ... Got, got, got, got, hero, hero, hero, hero, hero, hero, hero, hero, hero, hero.

PinG PonG

oops, double post

An interesting exercise, thanks for setting it . My guesses for some heights/distances/surface types from the image may be not what the O.P. intended, but assuming a short walk from parking, these would be my ratings, based on experience in the UK Midlands: 1. Looks like a little bit of a scramble after a long stride or short jump (or possibly a wet boot): 3.5 2. Only a very short way off the path, and just the water to deal with: 2 3. Can it be reached from the path by a person in a wheelchair ?If so, 1. If not, 1.5 4,5,6, and 7 all 1.5 (6 & 7 may be T1 if they can be reached from the path and 7 happens to be around 3' up ) 8. Hard to say, as I'm not sure about the container (or lowest branch for foothold) height, besides, I generally give tree climb caches a light ironic laugh and walk by ... I'd imagine this could be anywhere between 3.5 and 4.5, but probably not a 5 if, as it appears, the tree not very tall. It's all so subjective though, and depends on local customs and conditions, C.O. attitude and experience: I could name six cache setters in my local area whose T3.5 caches can scare me witless (and whose T5s are genuinely very tough) whilst I have ( as a trepidaceous solo caching wimp girly cacher) managed other setters T4.5 caches with no qualms.

Here's a good reason for paying attention to someone else's caching behaviour: next time I see they have a 'found it' log on a cache several others have DNF'd, I am unlikely to believe it and waste my time hunting for a missing cache. And another one: when I meet them at an event I will not be in awe of their astonishing caching record, and I will certainly not think of them as part of my circle of caching friends.I like to be around honest people. From what I've seen this foolishness is perpetrated by two main groups of cachers: first beginners who know no better, and second the 'all about the numbers' types who lose all sense of proportion as they pursue their found count/ streak / DT grid looping / whatever "glory".

Cache owners can delete 'found it' logs if they can back up their claim it is bogus. When I've done a maintenance walk of my caches I will usually take a photo of the log, especially if there have been dubious online ones. I've archived quite a few armchair logs that way, never with any complaint. If I am finding someone elses cache, and, say, it's a hard find, and when I eventually spot it I notice that the previous cacher ( whose online log I probably just looked at for a hint !) has not signed it, I may photograph the paper log and upload it with my online one. Then it's up to the cache owner to decide if they want to take action or not. This also reduces the natural irritation I feel when I spot a cheat. If you document the lack of a signature, and mention it in your log, and the CO acts appropriately, I can't see the need for a special report phony log. The phony log , er , log would, I imagine, simply require the CO do a maintenance visit and check the paper log then delete any no signature online logs. Practically speaking I can't imagine the frog paying anyone to administrate and arbitrate this from HQ, or passing on more responsibility and potential grief on to the volunteer reviewers, so it would have to be devolved to the CO anyway.

I'd never ignore a puzzle because there was no checker: some of the best puzzles I've solved have none because they are skillfully constructed to be unambiguous. I always check the location I've worked out on the map and see if it accords with any container size, accounts of the way to the hide in found it logs and any hint information. A checker tick makes me 100% confident, but it's not vital: I'm just as happy to use simple checksum on the cache page, or to contact the C.O. if I'm worried. Many puzzle setters round my area will use a checker as a matter of course when appropriate, so sometimes the absence of one can give a little clue to the puzzle type: maybe I'm looking at a cipher which will spell out the digits, or plain co-ordinates hidden in the HTML or something ... There's no guarantee I'll find the cache, even if it's there and I'm looking in the right place mind you ... but I will have enjoyed the puzzle and the hunt anyway, and that is the point of the game for me.

Random guess: If it doesn't sound biblical the usual suspect for having originated turns of phrase which become part of the language is Wm. Shakespeare ? Drat, beaten to it again !

Beach_hut (ah , we meet again ! My question puzzled you far less than your puzzle caches confounded me ) gets a very fast nerdtastic ding there. The actress Lalla Ward was a 4th Dr Who companion and later married Tom Baker who played that version of the character. Later on she was introduced to my hero Richard Dawkins by their mutual friend (and another hero) Douglas Adams. They got married

Thank you for that slightly muffled ding for being close , that was indeed the cache I'd looked at. New question then: Richard Dawkins and the 4th Dr Who (the long scarf & jelly baby one), who or what is the link ?

Ooh, ooh sir sir ( or possibly miss , miss !) At last, after dropping by here many many times and only ever seeing questions I can answer after someone else has got them ... I (vaguely) know this one ! Its a monument to Nelson I think, up a hill somewhere near Monmouth in Wales ... one of those things built from public subscriptions.Theres a cache around there and I looked at the listing when I was visiting the area a while ago, but never got to any outside Monmouth itself.