Ken's blog

There was excitement again at the Happy Valley Card Club one Saturday afternoon. People were gathered around a table where a dealer was dealing three cards from a deck face down on the table, then, a bit later, three cards face up.

Jake was curious and approached the dealer.

“How’s this game work, Charlie?” asked Jake.

“Well, you bet five dollars, then I shuffle and lay three cards face down on the table, after which you guess what the suits of the cards are,” said Charlie.

“You mean like two clubs and a heart, or three spades, or two diamonds and a club, and so on?” asked Jake.

“That’s right, Jake. If you guess the suits correctly, then you win ten dollars,” said Charlie.

“If your guess is wrong, then I’ll shuffle and lay down three cards face up. If there are no aces among the three cards, then you get another chance to guess the next three cards I deal face down for free,” said Charlie.

“Hmm, sounds interesting. Let’s give it a go,” said Jake.

After 10 rounds of arriving at a win or ace face up in this game, how much money would you say Jake won or lost?

“What am I going to do with this entry, Sir,” moaned accountant Mortimer Squigg scratching the few hairs left on his bald head as his boss, Sir Algoquin Marshwiggin, entered his office, “we need it to complete the annual audit by tomorrow morning, or we shall incur a hefty fine from the Land Revenue Service.”

“What’s wrong with the entry, Mr. Squigg?” croaked Sir Algoquin Marshwiggin with a worried expression on his face.

“Someone spilled ink on the page and three digits have been blotted out, as well as the item price,” said Mortimer Squigg, wincing as he looked at the page so wantonly invaded by tiny ink blots.

“I say, what part of the entry can be read, Mr. Squigg,” demanded Sir Algoquin Marshwiggin.

“Sir, the only part somewhat legible is an amount of £*85*.6* paid for 264 packages of frozen haddock. The unit price is totally blacked out,” whimpered Mortimer Squigg with horror.

“Who is the bloody idiot guilty of such stupidity,” shrieked Sir Algoquin Marshwiggin, “we could be ruined if we are imposed another fine by the Land Revenue Service.”

“Well, ah… Sir, it was you, Sir, when you were, ah… making a very important point at the Friday morning staff meeting last week,” said Mortimer Squigg timidly, shrinking from a possible backlash.

“Poppycock and balderdash, how could that have occurred,” bellowed Sir Algoquin Marshwiggin with an ominous sound to his voice, smacking his swagger stick on the desk, paper flying.

“Well, Sir, you suddenly and forcefully swung your arm in a wide arc holding your new fountain pen between your fingers to make an important point, and a streak of black ink spurted out of the pen flying in a perfect curve, splatting onto the open page of the ledger I was carefully inspecting,” related Mortimer Squigg half triumphantly.

“Humbug, you’d better figure out what the missing amount is by morning, Mr. Squigg, or you can consider yourself dismissed for incompetence,” roared Sir Algoquin Marshwiggin and stamped his way out of the office, slamming the door.

Can you help the poor and unfortunate accountant Mortimer Squigg work out the missing entry amount and the item price for the frozen haddock packages so he won’t get the sack in the morning?

The Happy Valley Tennis Doubles Tournament was being sponsored by the Bronson Multi T-shirt Company, Inc. which was supplying free T-shirts in three colors, red, gold and blue, that were dispensed free at random by a machine in the lobby.

Having been informed of this, Calvin and Jude were discussing the various combinations of T-shirt colors the players could appear with.

“I’ll bet you 100 dollars that there will be at least two players among the four players with a red T-shirt on the court within three double team changes,” said Calvin, taking a large bite out of his hot dog.

“Well, I say that two players will show up with one T-shirt color and two players with a different T-shirt color within five double team changes,” said Jude, fishing out another potato chip.

“Ok,” said Calvin, “whichever of these occurs first, wins 100 dollars, plus pays the bill at the restaurant celebration later.”

“Hmm… Ok, deal,” said Jude and shook on it.

Who would you say is most likely to be paying the restaurant bill later?

Dr. Sam Edelstein, a homeopath, was deciding which of the items to select today. Before him, as always, were placed two toads, three plant roots, four beetles, three eggs and a dead snake.

Dr. Sam Edelstein’s task was to select none or more of any of the five different types of item, but at least one, which should be different from what he had selected yesterday – this was required for the magic potion to work.

If he could keep this up for a year without any error of duplication, they would let him go. Otherwise they would cook him.

The Gagawugu tribe lived isolated from more civilized tribes and Dr. Sam Edelstein had made the mistake of curing the chief’s daughter Lala, whom he had found lying unconscious with an arm turning black from septicemia, but having done so using incomprehensible means considered offensive to the guiding nature spirits by shamans – and, not least, without permission from the tribe’s head shaman Oloo.

Dr. Sam Edelstein had cured lovely Lala with a couple of Pyrogen 200C pills he took from his emergency remedy kit.

An inter-tribal committee of shamans had concurred with Oloo that an offense against the ruling nature spirits had been committed and must be punished. So, Dr. Sam Edelstein had been sentenced to the cooking pot.

However, Oloo needed someone to select ingredients for his potions, and after earnest supplications from the now cured Lala, who had taken a shine to Dr. Edelstein, the sentence had been mitigated to making daily ingredient selections for Oloo.

If Dr. Sam Edelstein could perform his task without error until the sun returned to the same annual place in the sky, he would be released – but fattened up in the meantime.

While picking the daily items, Dr. Sam Edelstein was fervently hoping that his assistant Jacques Devereaux, who had run off when the natives approached, would bring a rescue team.

Do you think it will be possible for Dr. Sam Edelstein to select different groups of ingredients for Oloo’s concoctions for an entire year, or will he wind up in the cooking pot?