KK Challenge 16 - The Anchor

Each treasure hunt setter, otherwise commonly referred to as the Clerk-of-Course (CoC), has his or her peculiar style when setting questions. I have been known to set some tough questions, and I do realize that some hunters have not forgiven me for some of my diabolical ones up to now. Although tough, I would usually provide an escape route in my questions, something that I have been referring to as the "anchor".

Now take this question from last Sunday's KK Challenge 16 (KKC16):

Q2) Letter to look at?

MUSEE

In my opinion, looking at the riddle from the setter's point of view, it's not a very tough question, although of course I do realize that I may be accused of being bias. But more than half of the participating teams failed to solve it, including the first runner up of the hunt. The "escape route" that I speak of is that word "SEE" on the board, which in this case is a highly visible sign. That is the anchor that the solver can latch on to, thus narrowing the scope of search substantially. It is the anchor because SEE = LOOK AT. What remains then is the figure out the connection between MU and LETTER, and here, even if the solver does not know that MU is a Greek letter, that information can very easily be confirmed through Googling. Besides, even if the solver is so lazy to Google up information, he should at least choose this answer anyway, since that "SEE" is already connected to half of the question.

The following is another example from last Sunday:

Q5) Spirit from the east, and from a different world?

An intimidating-looking question which only 4 out of 16 teams were able to solve. Although the question is made up of a single sentence, I have inserted a comma in that sentence to indicate the boundary for the 2 different clues therein.

KARA KARA

The first challenge is to realize that the "Spirit" in the sentence is referring to alcoholic drink, and thinking in English and Malay, one should very quickly yield the Malay word ARAK. This is then to be reversed on account of the reversal indicator "from the east", to form the word KARA. I don't think that it is impossibly difficult to find at least that first KARA. That first KARA then becomes the anchor which the solver can use to narrow down his search. Beyond that point the only remaining task is therefore to discover the connection between "from a different world" and that second KARA. And here, my contention is that even if the solver does not know that Supergirl a.k.a KARA Zor-El is "from a different world", i.e. from a planet far, far away known as Krypton, the solver should at least opt for this answer anyway, because he has solved half of the clue. It's a promising answer and worth trying!

Finally, we come to one of the highlights of the day; a question that I'm expecting the hunters not to forgive me for a very long time to come, because nobody could solve it!

Q20) Blind saxophonist of the movie comes here?

SELAMAT DATANG

A seemingly boundless search for the name of a "blind saxophonist of the movie". I suppose if time is available, with enough patience, the solver can sift through the many hits from Google, and is bound to find the correct name anyway. But what about in the hunt setting where time resources is limited?

Well, the point is that the solver should have made the connection between COMES and DATANG in a jiffy. That is the escape route that the setter has provided to narrow down the search substantially, and the remaining task would then be to confirm if SELAMAT can be connected to "Blind saxophonist of the movie". Perhaps what follows then is to Google up, say, "Blind saxophonist SALAMAT", something like that, and Google will do the rest! Even if the solver can't find Kassim SELAMAT (Ibu Mertuakku, 1962), as a last resort, if there is nothing else looking promising within that sector, why not just opt for SELAMAT DATANG anyway on account of COMES = DATANG? 

The above answers were all highly visible signs and fairly easily spotted from the vehicle. As the setter, I feel like I have done my part to be fair in my questions. What remains is for the hunters to do their part to find the answers with the help of the anchor that I have provided them.