MAH Hunt: Peril of Excavation

In my opinion, some of the questions in the MAH Hunt had room for improvements. I'd like to elaborate some of them here. Let me hasten to stress that these are strictly my own opinion from a novice's point of view. Therefore, the masters may disagree with me!

Q1) Love story value in a lost shoe after midnight is part of this tale.

A1) Cinderella Bridal Palace.

I was told that the Clerk-of-Course (CoC) had been clerking hunts for many years. But in my opinion, those years were not reflected in this particular question.

To start with, the surface reading isn't smooth. The first 3 words—"Love story value"—are ambiguous, to say the least. Why "value"? That word plays no role in leading the solver to the solution. Another point of interest is in connection with the word "shoe". As Kok Seng correctly pointed out, the accurate item in the tale is "slipper". Here is the cover of a book I downloaded from the internet. I suppose some people don't really care—shoe and slipper both fit the tale, so why bother?

Q16) Play thing created from place to satisfy your tummy.

A16) Kedai Makanan dan Minuman MAGE.

I am OK with this question, but I don't agree to "play thing" as a GAME. To me, "play thing" refers more to a toy and the likes.

Q24) Oil company states something that should not be done. What is that forbidden action?

And this, folks, is the RM1,000-question for our team. It looks so straightforward, huh? Now let us analyse in detail. The "oil company" tells the solver that he is probably required to search for a signboard by an oil company, forbidding something. That should be easy enough, right? Then the next step would be to copy that forbidden action. Unfortunately, within that sector, we didn't see anything that would fit. However, one possible answer would be this:

This was how this board was seen from the car. On the white board at the bottom, there was a mention of "hydrocarbon pipelines", so it was a promising candidate. But there was no mention of any specific oil company on these boards. So what now?

Then suddenly, Margaret demonstrated her observation skill. With her eagle eyes, she spotted this sign across the other side of the road:

This sign was more promising because most oil companies would have this sign almost everywhere. But again, it didn't contain the name of an "oil company".

So now we had to make a choice. There were no other signs forbidding any actions within the sector, so hunters were basically forced to one of the above boards. Which one do you think is a better fit to the question? Well, we ended up with the "No Smoking" sign, because that's obviously a more convincing choice.

BUT! little did we know, that this question wasn't about a sign board that was visible from the car. No—the hunter was required to get down from the car and stand right in front of the board to be able to see this:

At the bottom of the white board, there was the "ESSO MALAYSIA BERHAD". It was impossible to see it from the car, but it was there alright! Notice that the logo of Esso is also no longer there—well, except for a very faint shadow of it. But to be honest, I didn't see this "excavation" signboard. Nonetheless, had I seen it, I might still have chosen the "No Smoking" signboard anyway, because I just couldn't see the "Esso"—certainly not from the car.

In the end, the CoC wanted the "No Excavation" board as the answer. However, up to now I still think it doesn't fit. The answer should've been "Excavation @ No Excavation", because after all, the question asked for the forbidden action. So the forbidden action should be "excavation".

Q26) Perhaps our angkasawan got his clothing here.

A26) Apollo Fashion.

The last time I checked, our angkasawan went to space in the Soyuz. But who knows, maybe the next one will be flying in an Apollo.

Q29) Supermarket invoice for the jungle king?

A29) PASARAYA BILLION.

I don't blame the CoC for this particular question. But I'd like to bring it up anyway. I must agree with Vincent that Lions don't live in the jungles, but more in the deserts—or more accurately, the savanna and grassland. So strictly speaking, the tigers are the kings of the jungles.

And now we turn to the walk hunt questions:

Q5) No longer needed when under goes in without hesitation.

A5) Red Ant.

I think it's more accurate to say, "No longer needed when under without hesitation goes in."

Q12) Oily little imps?

A12) Elf Lubricants.

Quite straightforward, but I am sad to note the defect on grammatical grounds. I think it is a sloppy job. Notice that the "imps" is plural, but the answer "elf" is singular. It made me pause and consider other signs for fear that this board was a deliberate decoy.

I am also not impressed with the timeframe given to hunters for Leg 2 of the hunt. I think it was wreckless to force the hunters to drive so fast like that. Thank goodness, all teams arrived safely at Bayview Hotel.

Finally, Mission 3 was quite a shame. It wasn't very difficult. One had to buy a key-chain from a guy named Rahman. His name must be found at the back of the key-chain. To the unwary, there were others lingering around with key-chains too, but without the "Rahman". And here the CoC failed again in my opinion. The guy named Rahman ran out of his key-chains, resulting in the CoC accepting any key-chains. Therefore those prudent hunters who took the trouble to ensure that they had the "Rahman" on their key-chains ended up with no advantage at all.

Overall, I must say that the standard of this particular Clerk-of-Course is far from good; unless of course if all KL CoCs are like that. In that sense I am not very satisfied. I am therefore looking forward to the Beautiful Gate and AMC hunts. Let's see if those hunts are any different.