At Wits End.....

SUBJECTIVE POST!!!

....a little light relief.

When a bright and breezy youngster, I would sometimes let my sense of humor get the better of me.

For example, this true story was laughed about for years afterwards.

One of my hobbies is doing this puzzle, the Rubik's Cube.

I solved it myself when I was 13 in 1995. I had no instructions, I chose to actually "solve" it. I first got it about 6 months later, having no idea how. After another 2 months, I had it again, with a slight insight as to how. It soon became apparent that the corners were the real problem. It took me a whole 4 months just to work out how to do just the 8 corners. I used a 7-move operation called a "swashbuckle", which moved 2 of the corners around an axis, leaving everything else the same. However, I needed 4 of these to complete the 8 corners (28 moves). Furthermore, I needed 3 right-handed swashbuckles followed by a left-handed swashbuckle.

The third time I got the puzzle correct I knew exactly how I did it. After that, it was a matter of refinement and my quickest time was about 2.5 minutes.

Then I found out I could do it without looking at the actual moves, just the positions.

Finally, the showbiz touch came - I was able to make all the moves behind my back, only having a look at maybe 10 positions in all. Time to do this, about 7 minutes.

So I usually say " can do the Rubik's Cube behind my back". Now, I fool everyone by just saying "can do the Rubik's Cube backwards".

But I digress. I was at a party organised by our local Church Group in London. It happened to be a Fancy Dress affair, and I decided to enter.

But being me, I wasn't going to be a Morticia or Elvira ( I was only 15 anyway!), but something a little more original.

The youth club had a pool table, and I took with me only a bush hat. At the time I was really interested in science. The hat had a zipper pocket on it, and I stuffed some tissue into it to make it look like I had a huge lump on my head. On the pocket I wrote in big black letters, the single word "POP!"

I then took a pool cue and wrote a girls name on it. Her name was the same as a valuable red gemstone. I wore the hat, picked up the cue and lined up with everyone else.

There was Alice in Wonderland, the Tin Man, the Snowman, Mickey Mouse, Snow White, and Kylie Minogue. They were all obvious to guess, but who was I?

I was asked.

I told them.

" A Fizzy Cyst with Ruby's Cue".