View all newsletters
Sign up to our newsletters

Support 110 years of independent journalism.

  1. Long reads
13 December 2007updated 27 Sep 2015 5:57am

Christmas Puzzles

Some diversions for the holiday season with Katamino Quotes, Games politicians play

By Staff Blogger

Katamino Quotes

Coiledspring’s bestselling games Katamino and Winomino use pentominoes, like the ones in this puzzle, which players race helter-skelter to put together in a series of rectangles. Here you have a bit of extra help – a quotation from Sir Francis Drake. If you can unravel it you may win a copy of Winomino.

Elections

Games politicians play:


Not everyone wanted to play, so we took away one letter from each line in turn, to leave a series of new words. Much more exciting – the game soon disappeared completely!
Can you work out the sequence of words
from ELECTIONS to O?

Beautiful Games

Gordon Brown and Dave Cameron like to keep in touch with sport. Did you notice each has 11 letters in his name? How good a football manager would they make? Take either name, discard a goalkeeper and then make 4,4,2 with the remaining letters. Try again with the other name. Win one of our brilliant strategy games by making the best formations 4,4,2 4,5,1 4,3,3 5,3,2 and 4,4,1,1 with each name.

Crackers

For this puzzle A=1, B=2, C=3 and so on.
We have taken a word, replaced each letter by its number and multiplied them together to get a total. If the word is CAT, then C=3, A=1 and T=20, so 3x1x20 = 60. This total of 60 is offered as the clue for CAT. Try the smaller totals first and work out what they can be divided by. Look for prime numbers such as 13 or 17.

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU

Across
1 13
3 7,866
7 125
9 123,120
10 68,040
11 165
12 15,000
13 20

Down
1 209
2 2,925
3 4,140
4 60
5 756
6 5,700
7 2,500
8 90

If you can get these answers right you may be just the person to win a Triolet!

Texting Traumas

We’ve had a bit of trouble with our text messages. We hit the right keys but not the right number of times, so PUZZLE came out as 789953. We listed a number of eminent people, and here they are in their texted disguises:

a 2253946
b 24262375246
c 248724455
d 288533
e 3336
f 622645526
g 3684527-4663
h 945766
i 43284
j 225524426
k 84282437
l 62567
m 25247
n 27696

If you can decode these clues and say what the people have in common you could win a copy of Coiledspring’s award-winning strategy game Pentago. Absolutely addictive – you are just about to complete a winning row when your opponent changes the shape of the board!

Send your answers for Katamino Quotes, Crackers, Beautiful Games or Texting Traumas to: Coiledspring Games Ltd, P O Box 175, Twickenham, Surrey TW1 4BR or newstatesman@coiledspringonline.co.uk
Closing date: 4 January 2008. You’ll find all the puzzle answers and winners in the 14 January issue of the New Statesman.

Content from our partners
The promise of prevention
How Labour hopes to make the UK a leader in green energy
Is now the time to rethink health and care for older people? With Age UK

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU