Fight for Inheritance

I had an interesting conversation with a friend about Lim Goh Tong's granddaughters as reported in this news article. They had apparently inherited RM900,000.00 and RM100,000.00 respectively, but are fighting for more of the RM1.6 billion estate. Perhaps there are many, many people out there who'd be happy — and thankful — to inherit that kind of money. But I dare say to these people whom were born wealthy, RM1 million is perhaps akin to loose change? 

My friend asked me an interesting question — he said, "Would you fight for a larger inheritance if you were in their shoes?"

That's a difficult question to answer, because I'm not them; I did not have their kind of upbringing, and perhaps there're other back stories that I'm unaware of. However, coincidentally I had a firsthand experience regarding inheritance from my dad, though the amount was a far cry smaller than the RM1 million that Lim's granddaughters got.

Before I talk about my inheritance, let me first give some context for my story. I'm the third child in the family, but I'm also the eldest son. Although I have many siblings, for over 3 decades I was the only one supporting my dad financially. I guess that's the price I had to pay for being the most successful amongst all my siblings. Dad had many siblings too, and he had a small share in a land that he inherited from his mother, i.e. my grandmother. A few years before his passing, he and his siblings decided to sell the land and then divided the proceeds according to the respective shares. He then gave me a portion of his share which I gladly accepted. 

I'm not sure if it was because he felt it was the only way he could repay me for all those years of financial support or because I'm the eldest son. But anyway, the amount in question was far from enough to "pay back". I suppose that was the best he could do, if "paying back" was indeed his intention. Bear in mind that I was the only child that got a portion of his share, and technically speaking, that wasn't really an "inheritance".

Meanwhile, he was also the co-owner of another piece of family property — again through an inheritance from his mother. However, there was no immediate plan to sell that property. A few years before his death, he decided to make a will, and before making that will, he gave me a surprise call to inform me of his intention. He started the conversation by telling me that he's decided to leave his share of that family property to one of my sisters, and nothing else for the rest of us siblings. He was about to explain his decision, but I stopped him. For there was no need to explanation — it was his property and it was entirely up to him what he wanted to do with it. I should not dream of contesting his will even if his estate was worth RM1.6 billion. As a matter of fact, even if no will was made, I would still not fight for the inheritance because my dad made it very clear to me who should get it. But if his intention was for me to inherit the property, then I would have fought tooth and nail for it!

As a matter of principle, I would not fight for something that's not mine to start with. That's because I don't equate being a son as an entitlement to my dad's property upon his demise. He might have given everything to charity, and I would respect his wishes!

Now in the case of Lim's granddaughters, I don't know if the mother had told them how she had planned to deal with her estate upon her death, but which was different from what's eventually content in her will? 

But to answer my friend's question, if the mother did not say anything that's different from what's in her will, then if I were the daughters, I would not contest that will.

Cruel & Unfair Justice

Imagine a man driving his car along a highway on an early Sunday morning. For some unknown reasons, whether because the car becomes faulty somehow or due to the road conditions, he suddenly loses control of his car, and then hitting a runner running at the roadside. She dies on the spot from the impact. Obviously, the man is responsible for the death of the woman although in this case the whole thing is accidental in nature. But how should he be punished?

Now consider an alternative scenario. Still back to the same basic facts above, except that the man is driving with an expired driving licence. His competency in handling the vehicle is still basically the same as in the first scenario, and whether he is driving with a valid or expired driving licence does not change the fact that he somehow loses control of the vehicle, leading to the death of the woman. The incident is still accidental in nature, although in this second scenario, he is driving with an expired licence. I think we can all agree that he deserves the punishment, as provided by the law, for "driving without a valid driving licence", or rather having a licence that has expired. But that is a separate matter and can well be considered in isolation from the fact that a woman lost her life because she was hit by the vehicle. Apart from the punishment for "driving without a valid licence", would you punish the man any differently for the part about the woman losing her life due to the impact of the car in the first scenario above?

Now imagine yet another possible scenario. Again, the same basic facts as in the first scenario above, but this time the man is driving while under the influence of alcohol. It is not known the level of intoxication, and it is unclear whether or not he would have been able to control his car any better if he were sober. I suppose this last issue depends on how drunk is the man. I'm not an alcohol drinker, so I'm not well versed in this, but I happen to know some people can drink gallons of alcohol and still won't loose their "driving skills" too much; whereas some people drink very little alcohol, and they would be knocked out for days. But anyway, in this third scenario, I think we can all agree that the man deserves the punishment, as provided by the law, for drunk driving. But bear in mind that as we have seen in the first scenario above, even a sober driver could not control the vehicle and ended up hitting the woman. So it does seem like the alcohol does not make any difference on the outcome of the incident.

The above three scenarios are very similar to one another, yet very different when the "expired driving licence" and "drunk driving" are included in the equation. What I know is that if it can be proven that the driver did not drive recklessly, and the incident was entirely accidental in nature, he would normally not be blamed. But of course he is still answerable for "driving without a valid licence" and "drunk driving". In other words, the punishment that the man deserves will therefore depend on the exact details of the case, because a slight change in those details will result in different responsibility.

Well, such was the case with a woman named Sue Lynn, an avid runner who was hit by a car during her morning jog on 29 January 2025. The man behind the steering wheel was found to be drunk. According to this news article, he was initially investigated under Section 44(1) of the Road Transport Act for drunken driving causing death. However, he was later charged under Section 45A, which covers drunk driving without causing harm or death. Immediately we ask ourselves, "Why?". The family is now urging the authorities to reinstate a more serious charge against the driver.

A family member of the victim contacted me privately recently and sought my support to spread the family's call for a "higher" charge against the driver. Being a parent myself, my heart goes out to the family. I can just imagine the pain of losing a loved one. If it had happened to me, I would be devastated.

But I'm rather reluctant to support in this case, because I have insufficient information about the case. I don't know, for example, if it was the "drunk driving" element that was the real cause of the accident. Apparently, the police, in the course of its investigation, had decided that it wasn't, although no explanation was given in the news article. I reckon there must be an explanation why the charge was framed under Section 45A instead of 44(1). Until I discover that explanation, I can't decide whether to support or not the call for the man to be charged under Section 44(1).

I do support, however, for justice to be served, bearing in mind that both the victim and the driver deserve justice. No amount of punishment to the driver will bring Sue Lynn back, of course, and it is in that sense that the romantic idea of "justice" is sometimes just so cruel and unfair! I'm of the view that if the driver is only guilty under the heading of "drunk driving" and not under the "accident" element, then he should only be punished for "drunk driving". That is to say, he should be given only what he deserves, nothing more. 

But like I said, I don't know what's the truth of the matter, and I'm reluctant to be influenced by my parental instinct and act emotionally, and then demand for a harsher punishment for someone who might possibly not deserve it. May I repeat, "justice", despite the glory and grandness of that word, is sometimes very cruel and unfair!

Beliefs

I commented on a friend's 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘 post recently, and it had something to do with religions. Then someone else replied to my comment. We went on to have a few more exchanges of replies to each other. He is not on my friend's list. In fact, he is a total stranger to me.

The gist of the "discussion" revolved around him trying to convince me the "truth" of Bible, and he furnished "evidence", saying that the original texts are from authentic manuscripts dating from thousands of years ago. In return, I did not accept that as "evidence", because to me, a history book is just that — a book written by someone who claims so-and-so, based on what they heard from someone else. Just that in this case, it's a history book from eons ago.

A couple of days after the comments and counter-comments between us, I was surprised to get a private message from him through 𝑀𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟. I mean "𝑀𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟" as in the app, not "𝑀𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟" as in Jesus as the "𝑀𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝐺𝑜𝑑". Apparently he had not given up on wanting to save this poor lost soul. He was not being rude or imposing, like most religious people are, so I did not mind to indulge in the private "discussion" with him.

The truth is that I am a Catholic. I'm given the religion by my parents, and I was even baptized and went through the so-called "confirmation" process when I was still in primary school. However, the biggest tragedy was that I am born with a brain, and I used that brain to 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 things out for a bit. Consequently, I have been a non-believer throughout my adult life. My wife, on the other hand, is a devout Christian and makes it a point to go to church every Sunday.

From a very young age, there's something about religions that I just can't accept. I mean 𝒂𝒍𝒍 religions, not just Christianity. Most religions are based on their respective "holy books". In them are supposedly God's messages to humankind. There are also numerous stories, some in parables, some in plain ordinary languages. I had on numerous occasions in the past, read some portions of the "holy book" in an attempt to get to know God.

Well, who is God? What have I discovered about him? He is said to be the supreme being who created everything — he created the universe, the planets, and all lifeforms including us humans. He is said to be "the loving father". But although he is "loving", he is liable to lose his temper and go on a killing rampage. He could suddenly flood the entire world and drown everyone in it, including infants and unborn children, except for one family and pairs of all the animals in the world. Time and time again over the eons, he killed many others through earthquakes, tsunamis, meteor strikes, hurricanes, and pandemics to name just a few.

Some contents of the "holy books" are reflections of human nature, and not that of a divine and loving being. For example, slavery was allowed. I sometimes try to imagine how would I react if someone orders me to kill my own child to prove my loyalty to him. Well, I would probably say, "𝑭*𝒄𝒌 𝒚𝒐𝒖!". I can't even begin to think of killing my own child for whatever reason. If it really comes to that, I might even be willing to sacrifice my own life to save my child.

However, having said all those, I keep an open mind. I've always said that I respect the beliefs of others. They all have the rights to believe in whatever they want to believe, as long as they don't try to impose their beliefs on me. Respect should be mutual; it is a two-way street. I don't judge them because of their beliefs; and I would expect them not to judge me because of my belief.

Gender Wage Gap

I find this article in The Star, dated 07 March 2025, on gender wage gap in Malaysia interesting, though perhaps not surprising. In a nutshell, Malaysian women are earning less than men, and the wage gap is widening. This is based on the calculations on the median monthly salaries reported by the Statistics Department.

It has been reported that the government is taking steps to narrow down the wage gap between men and women. But the way I see it, actually it is doing exactly the opposite! For example, the increase in the number of days for women under the heading of "maternity leave" from 60 days to 98 days. Mathematically, that is an increase of over 60%. 98 days is more than 3 months without doing any work for the employer, but receiving full salary nevertheless. In many cases, apart from paying an employee full salaries for over 3 months, the employer would also have to incur additional cost to hire temporary workers to do the job while its full-time employee is on maternity leave. Furthermore, in Malaysia, a fair number of women would have several children. So the 98 days of fully-paid leave is not a one-off business. Maternity leave is a very expensive thing for the employer!

I'm sure the government has a good reason for the increase in maternity leave up to 98 days — no doubt it's very good for the new mother — but as an "attempt to narrow down the wage gap between the genders" is definitely not one of those reasons.

For ages now, women have been complaining about equal wages; or rather unequal wages with their male counterparts, because they're only looking at the numbers that they see on their own pay cheques, and then compare those numbers with the numbers on their male counterparts' pay cheques. Hardly any of them would even consider seeing those numbers from the employers' point of view. Hardly any of them would remember that they're getting more than 3 months of free money, because obviously that money fell down from the sky and they're entitled to it somehow.

Incidentally I've noticed another interesting trend in Malaysia. From the top of my head, roughly two-thirds of university students are made up of girls, though admittedly I haven't conducted any serious research to determine the exact figure. Of course this is seeing the trend from the general point of view. Obviously, some university courses may be dominated by boys. The net result is that whenever there is a job vacancy, roughly two-thirds of the applicants would be made up of women. 

Mathematically speaking, there is a two-third chance that women would be hired rather than men. That is roughly the situation in my office right now! I think this is a sad trend in Malaysia, because in all honesty, if I have a choice, if all else remain the same, I would hire a male. It's not just about the maternity leave that I speak of above. There are numerous other reasons. For example, the job may involve inspections of plantations in rural areas which may extend into the evenings. Between men and women, which would you hire for such jobs? If I hired a woman and she gets stranded in the jungle at night, I seriously doubt that I can forgive myself as the employer, and I would have a lot of explaining to do to her family too. However, when I do eventually employ a female, I make it a point to pay her the same amount as what I would pay a male for the same job.

When we talk about job equality or wages equality between women and men, we shouldn't look at the figures on the pay cheques only. There are many other intangible factors to be taken into consideration too. I'm convinced that the job market adjusts itself based on all these factors — tangible and intangible — to arrive at a certain equilibrium. Whatever new policies that the government comes up with will have an impact on that equilibrium. The equilibrium may be such that the wage gap will narrow down or widen up, but yet if all the factors are taken into account, there is still equality.

The Ugliest Definition

The case of a 19-year old college student who was found guilty of raping an underage girl, and ordered by the Session Court to undergo 240 hours of community service within 12 months [The Star]. The victim was a 14-year old girl, three months shy of her 15th birthday. Apparently, there was something in the order of an outcry from the public — most people considered the punishment as too light for the crime of rape.

"Rape" is an ugly word, and most people see that word to mean one thing — and only one thing — which is the act of sex involving the use of force by the rapist on his victim. But actually, there may be different meanings of that word, at least in the eyes of the law. 

In Malaysia, the law is such that sex with an underage girl, even if it's consensual sex, i.e. no element of force in the act, falls under the definition of statutory rape. There is, therefore, no necessity to prove the element of force in the act. As long as the "victim" is an underage girl, it is rape. If, on the other hand, the man marries the underage girl, and then have consensual sex with her, then that is not rape. Of course there will be numerous legal requirements to be met in order to marry an underage girl, but the point is that it's entirely possible in Malaysia. So what we have here are two possible scenarios of sex with an underage girl, both consensual in nature, but one falls under the crime of rape in the eyes of the law.

However, the law may be different from one country to another. Such law may not be available in some other countries. Which means that in those other countries, if two minors have consensual sex, the issue of rape does not arise at all. No rape, therefore no punishment.

"Crime and punishment" is a difficult subject, but although I pay attention on the "crime" itself, I tend to pay a closer attention on the "intensions" of the parties. I'm thinking, the circumstances of the "crime" are totally different, depending on whether the girl was forced into having sex, and whether she's a willing party. To me, the extent of the punishment shall reflect the nature of the "crime" and where exactly does it sit on the scale of  the victim is "forced into doing it" and "willing to do it". Unfortunately, most people only see that word "rape", and then take the ugliest definition of that word, and would therefore expect the heaviest punishment for the "crime". Hence the outcry.

The reality is that most people don't really care about the micro aspect of the case; they only see it from the macro perspective. In fact, it's also possible that they only read the headline and the first paragraph, and then comment on the subject. They see that ugly word "rape" and then become overwhelmed by the kneejerk reaction!

On the other hand, journalists, when reporting on the case, also made it a point to omit the justifications for the punishment. Whatever justification given by the judge — I'm sure there must have been at least some justifications for the punishment — is carefully left out, because the papers are only seeking to sell papers, and to attract as many eyeballs as possible to the article. They're seeking the kneejerk reaction that I speak of above from the public, because they knew that the article will be shared like wild fire.

I've delayed posting this article for a few days in the hope that the papers will follow up with another piece, perhaps that of the judge's justifications for the punishment. Maybe that report will come soon, but so far I have not seen any. Because I only know the macro of the case, and not the micro, I can't comment on whether the punishment is sufficient or justifiable for the crime.

Alien—Something From Nothing

 

I saw Alien: Romulus while I was on vacation in Melbourne recently. I used to have frequent movie dates with my daughter when she was younger. But she's been pursuing her studies in Melbourne for some years now, and I haven't had a chance to do the movie thing with her for such a long time already. So when Alien: Romulus opened in a nearby cinema, I seized the opportunity to spend the afternoon with her at the cinema.

I've been a big fan of the Aliens franchise for so long now—in fact since I was a teenager. There've been so many movies spanning a few decades, and some of them crossed over with the Predator franchise, which is also another of my favourite. But this post is not a movie review. So if you haven't seen Romulus, fear not, there is no worries of spoilers here.

For some years now, I've been meaning to comment about the premise of this interesting creature. It is referred to as a "Xenomorph". The basic idea of its life cycle is quite similar to most insects—that is to say starting from an egg which then hatches into some sort of "larva". The latter then develops into a pre-adult form, and may have to change its exoskeleton several times before reaching adulthood. At least that's the general life cycle of most insects.

The life cycle of the Xenomorph is slightly different from that of the typical insect. An adult queen xenomorph lays the eggs. Each egg produces a spidery creature with a long tail, which requires a host to perform a second stage of egg-laying process. If it can find a host, it will lay its egg through the mouth. That egg will then "incubate" in that host and when it's ready for the next stage of development, it will burst out of the host, thus killing the latter. But after leaving the host, it has never been shown in detail how the creature would develop into its adult form. The only thing that the audience is shown is that the creature will go through at least one stage of cocoon, where it will form some sort of protective layer within which it will lay dormant while developing into its adult form. In the case of insects and crustaceans in general, there will be several stages of changing the exoskeleton, but I'm not sure if it's the same with the Xenomorph. In my mind, it is entirely possible that the Xenomorph may have to go through several stages of changing its exoskeleton before reaching full maturity, but I can find no source to confirm this.

Life finds a way, and although the Xenomorph is a fictional creature, I can accept the basic notion of its life cycle. In fact, I'm very impressed with the original story teller for his creativity in conjuring up such a process. I think such a life cycle is at least possible—it's not an idea that I would simply dismiss just because there is no such creature in the world. However, I've never been able to accept the developmental stages beyond the first host. I think there is simply no logic in it!

Science and common sense dictate that we need to have something to make something. The caterpillar, for example would need to find a source of materials or nutrients, say by feeding on leaves, before forming a cocoon to develop into the next stage of its life. Similarly, maggots would feed on rotten food source for its nutrients before developing into their next stage of life. These creatures need to have the "bricks and mortar to build bigger, stronger and more sophisticated structures".

The Xenomorph, however, consumes nothing after bursting out of its host. There is to my mind no nutrients to be used to grow, build exoskeleton, muscles, and other more sophisticated body parts. When bursting out of its host, it is very tiny. But it can grow so much larger (perhaps 50 times larger), stronger, and heavier into its adult form without requiring any material/nutrient for the process. It is no more, no less, a case of building something from nothing!

After so many movies featuring the Xenomorphs in a span of over 4 decades, no one has yet been able to explain satisfactorily this particular point regarding its life cycle. I said earlier that I'm impressed with the story teller for coming up with the idea of the fascinating life cycle. But I would be even more impressed if he can explain once and for all, how the Xenomorph can build something from nothing.

KK Challenge 16 - A Different Way

If you have been hunting for a long time, you're bound to notice that there are recurring tricks in the questions. The setters have the tendency to repeat some words as clues for specific answers. For example, the expression, "The French" has been used many, many times to point to the words "LE" or "LA"; "Love" to point to the digit "ZERO"; letters of the alphabet used to represent numbers in the form of the roman numerals. 

The inclusion of the word "way" in the question very frequently refers to road signs, and it covers quite a wide range of possible words, such as ROAD (RD), JALAN (JLN), LORONG (LRG), PATH, LANE, AVENUE (AVE) etc. Yes, abbreviations are commonly included, and the setter owes no duty of informing the solver that abbreviations are involved in the riddle!

For example, the following is a question that I set some 16 years ago during my early days as the Clerk-of-Course (CoC):

Q) Follow this way to get the answer, 8 of which results in a gross outcome!

A) JLN LAPAN BELAS

Now let's anaylse the question. It says, follow this "WAY", meaning that whatever is the answer that we're looking for, it follows the word "WAY" on the signboard. In this case, "WAY" = "JLN" (abbreviation for JALAN). But now the solver has to solve "8 of which results in a gross outcome".

As you can see, 8 of LAPAN BELAS = 8 X 18 = 144; and 144 is equivalent to a GROSS. That is why the required answer is: JLN LAPAN BELAS.

In July last year, when I organized the KK Challenge 15, I set the following question:

Q) Seen at the end of 4 months, it's one way to get the answer

A) BERI LALUAN

The explanation is like this. Those 3 letters, "BER" are seen at the end of 4 months, i.e. SeptemBER, OctoBER, NovemBER and DecemBER. Then what about that letter "i"? Well, it's ONE, as a roman numeral. And then we come to that word "WAY" again, and again it's referring to a road sign. In this case, that "WAY" is equated to the word "LALUAN" on the board.

Many of the hunters that have joined my previous hunts would know that I'm obsessed with psychology, and I have the tendency to experiment with hunters on account of psychology! Humans are after all quite similar with most other mammals - they are essentially creatures of habit. When they are used to seeing that word "WAY" in hunt questions as indicating road signs, they will program their minds to automatically narrow down their search to mainly road signs only.

I was wondering to myself, what if I can set a question with the involvement of the word "WAY", but not referring to a road sign? How difficult would it be to extract oneself from the notion of focusing on the road signs in the sector?

That was my thought process when I set this question:

Q33) The way to take a break?

The question itself isn't very sophisticated, and when I set it, I had intended it to be of par difficulty and perhaps solvable by even a new hunter. That is why I was surprised when only one team was able to solve it during the hunt! Another team got the answer, but they did not actually solve it.

REFLEXOLOGY AVEREST

As you can see, that word "WAY" in the question is still referring to the kind of way commonly used in cryptic questions, but here is it not referring to a road sign! In this case, "WAY" = "AVE" (abbreviation for AVENUE); and then the expression "TAKE A BREAK" is of course "REST". Joining the 2 components together by the charade operation would yield the word "AVEREST". As I said, not a very sophisticated riddle, but when the mind keeps trying to make the connection with road signs, it can be a challenging question anyway!

The use of the word "WAY" in this case is still the same as the many "ways" that have been used in past hunt questions, but it is a different way here because it does not refer to the road sign!

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.

KK Challenge 16 - The Central Significance

I have toned down the difficulty level of the questions in my KK Challenge 16 treasure hunt last Sunday. But of course there were still a few notably tough ones that I suspect would enter into the history books! One of them was this question which caused many teams to burn substantial amount of time under the hot sun, and yet ended up unsolved!

Q15) 11 or 45 degrees clockwise from the north?

Looking back at the question now, perhaps it's more appropriate for a classroom exam setting, rather than a field exercise where hunters had to endure the brutally hot day amidst horrifying traffic jam. This was especially so when most teams were bleeding away precious time, with a couple more sectors yet to cover!

If one were nicely seated in an exam hall, in the comfort of an air-conditioned room, and indefinite amount of time to think in a calmly manner, maybe - just maybe - there is a higher chance to figure out the answer. But even then, it would have required a very strong hunter having a good day, and who's unwilling to surrender very quickly!

Anticipating such an uphill task for the hunters, I dropped a big hint to the hunters a few weeks before the hunt, practically informing them that there will be a Double Jeopardy (DJ) question for the KK Challenge 16. The DJ is a type of treasure hunt question that is unique in the sense that what's provided to the hunters on paper is actually the answer to a question; and the hunters will then have to find the question on the signboard within the specified hunt sector. This is of course the reverse scenario of the norm.

What makes this DJ even tougher is that even the clues in the question are indirect and require a bit of figuring out. In this particular case, the best place to start is the "45 degrees clockwise from the north", which is of course northeast or simply NE as its abbreviation. Only that part of the clue has a reasonable degree of certainty that the hunters can latch on to. The "11" at the start of the sentence is a little harder to deal with.

Now the trouble with the DJ is that it's almost impossible to solve the riddle on paper even if the solver is aware that he's dealing with a DJ. The solver must be in the hunt sector to start with, and then scan through all the possible candidates there, and hopefully can reverse engineer to make the connection with what he has on paper! If he's lucky, he will notice this signboard:

A) THE ONE-STOP CENTRE @ GRAFIK STUDIO

If you have some basic knowledge of cryptic clueing, then you would know that that word CENTRE is a cryptic indicator that points to the central portion of the fodder (the target of the indicator). In this particular case, the fodder is: THE ONE-STOP, 3 words taken together as a whole, as if to form a long single word! And the centre of that resulting long word are the letters NE. And then, as a confirmation, if that central NE is extended a bit more, then instead of 2 letters, you just add 2 more to become 4 letters, one each on the left and right, and you will get ONES. Now you can see that ONES (not eleven as what it seemingly is) agrees with the "11" at the beginning of the sentence to confirm the solution to the riddle. So now you can see that the centre for THE ONE-STOP are either ONES or NE.

Questions such as this may look easy and straightforward to the very strong hunter when seen on paper, together with the answer nicely cut and dried. But when one is out there in the field subject to the elements, it's a totally different story.

Late Arrival at the Departure Gate

I used to be a loyal supporter of Air Asia. But the reason for that support was not because of its service; rather it's simply because of its status as a no-frills budget airline. You see, I'm not one who's after luxury when I travel, nor top-notch service. I always travel economy. However, since last year I've boycotted Air Asia. The reason is because it has become an unreliable airline. It's bound to change flight schedules at a moment's notice; and there's bound to be delays at the airport. Whenever I travel, I'd like to have a certain degree of certainty on the timings of flights, i.e. the times of departures and arrivals. To me, time is very important.

However, over the years of travelling on Air Asia, I've missed flights on several occasions for numerous reasons. At least twice, I think, were because I wrongly read the ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) as ETD (Estimated Time of Departure) somehow, thus arriving at the airport when the plane had landed at the destination. How I made that sort of mistake, let alone making it twice, I have no explanation! But apart from silly mistakes like those, I'm always on time whenever I fly. As I said, time is very important to me.

Even my wife, a notoriously bad time manager, is always on time when it comes to flying. She is almost always late for everything else in life. Over 30 years of sharing my life with her, I've gone through many, many occasions of frustrations, annoyances, even anger when I'm put into a situation where I'm late because I was held back by her tardiness. I've come to get used to it and perhaps have even accepted it by now. After all - seriously now - how many lawyers that you know of are ever on time for appointments? I'd say maybe one in a million? The only time that I was very happy when my wife told me that she's "late" was when we were trying so hard to have a baby after 10 years of marriage.

I get annoyed when there is any delay in plane departures, but I can usually tolerate them because I give the airline the benefit of the doubt by reasoning to myself that it's all because of the safety of the passengers. That is of course not always the reason for delays. On many occasions, it's because some passengers are late and the captain is lenient on them. Filipino passengers, for example, have a curious habit of making sure that they're late to board the plane. Even if they can arrive early, they won't. They will see to it that they're the last persons to board the plane!

But anyway, I always make it a point to be punctual for my flights because I don't want to be the reason for flight delays, even if it's going to eat up just a few minutes of other passengers' time. That is why I have no pity for this traveller and his family for missing his flight because he arrived at the departure gate a few minutes late. 

His demand for a refund was rejected, and I fully support Air Asia for that decision. Before the Covid pandemic struck, I actually bought flights on Air Asia. But because of the ensuing total lockdown during the height of the pandemic, the flights were cancelled, and I was unable to get a refund from the online app. I've never forgiven Air Asia for that up to now! But my demand for a refund was for a totally different reason, and I'm still of the view that I deserve that refund! 

But anyway, the lesson to be learnt here is "DON'T BE LATE"! You have plenty of time to plan the journey to the airport. There should be no excuse whatsoever. And if some unforeseen circumstances arise, causing late arrival at the airport, that is not the airline's fault. Too bad, get over it!

The Head vs The Hate

I read with great interest the case of a caregiver in a childcare centre who was caught on CCTV abusing a 4-year-old boy [New Straits Times]. Apparently, the video clip of that incident had gone viral, but I find it strange that nobody had shared it with me yet. Perhaps that's because my friends knew that I would very rarely entertain video clips shared by friends. Although I did not see the video clip of the abuse, I can imagine what had happened based on the news article.

Then while checking out facebook last night, I stumbled upon video clips shared by some friends - this time of the parents of the boy at the childcare centre beating up the caregiver. This was apparently after they had discovered the identity of the person who abused their son, and then beating her up in retaliation. What's interesting to note was that the vast majority of those who commented on that post supported the aggression of the parents.

This reminds me of an old movie entitled Seven, starring Brat Pitt and Morgan Freeman.

That movie had nothing to do with child abuse, of course, but it demonstrated how a man in the profession of upholding the law can suddenly act against the law because of the hate in his heart. It's a very powerful movie to me, not just because it reflected how we humans have the tendency to act with the hate instead of with the head, when provoked, but also because at the end of that movie, I found myself saying that if I were in his shoes I might have done exactly the same thing!

In the same way, I find it a little disturbing that although what the parents did to the caregiver was legally wrong, I can totally understand why they did it. Again, what's even scarier is that if I were in their shoes, I might have done exactly the same thing! 

It takes a strong person to accept the reality that they are many bad people out there, but it takes an even stronger person not to become bad himself in retaliation to the wrongful act by others. On most days we can all be morally principled, calm and collected, and we will behave in a civilized manner. But there will be the last straw that breaks the camel's back, when all hell breaks loose. Every one has his limit to patience and calmness.

I can totally understand why the parents did what they did, but it's still legally wrong to act in such a manner. It is very easy for me to comment from the sideline that they shouldn't have done what they did. But if I were the father of the child, it's entirely possible that the caregiver may be bed-ridden in the intensive care unit right now. Therefore, I shall carefully refrain from saying what the parents should or should not have done. This whole incident is just an unfortunate event that could bring about either the best or the worst in a good person.

Education as an Investment

Almost 40 years ago, my younger brother obtained his Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) results. It was a weak pass and nothing to shout about, but he still had the option to proceed to form six. However, he decided not to continue his studies because according to him there were many jobless university graduates. So there's very little point to pursue higher education because he'd end up jobless anyway. I debated that decision with him for a bit, but was unable to convince him otherwise. 

That was one of my biggest regrets in life. If I had in me, I would have dragged him by his hair to the school to register for form six. But then again, it's quite an uphill task to force anyone when it comes to pursuing higher education. When the heart is not there, the mind won't cooperate, and that is apt to end in failure anyway. As a result of  his decision, his life has been for the most part a huge struggle. Although he's sometimes gullible in nature, I consider him quite a bright chap, and had the brains to excel in his studies, and thereafter in life, if he had only put in the efforts.

In contrast, when I finished my Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia (STPM), although I was able to secure places in both local and foreign universities to further my education, I had no financial means to continue. In the end, I had to reluctantly enter the job market. I started saving, however, and after a few years, had barely enough to bear the cost for a distance-learning programme, leading to a degree. It was a huge struggle for those few years of my life because I had to work during the days, and then study in the evenings. My weekends were also mostly spent on my studies, especially when I was lagging in my assignments. In the few months leading to the exams in each semester, I had to wake up in the wee hours of the morning for the extra study hours, thus resulting in getting as little as 3 hours of sleep per night. When one is struggling and doing something unpleasant, time would seem stagnant. A few years may seem like eternity. It's very tempting to take the easy way out, which was to give up.

In the front page of a local paper today, it's reported that "only 34,461 students out of 40,147 who registered in Sabah sat for the SPM 2022 examination." The Chief Minister of Sabah wanted to know why. I suppose the State Education Department will embark on investigating the case shortly, but I will venture a possible reason. There are numerous reasons, of course, but it is possible that one of the major reasons is the one given by my brother all those years ago.

Investment in education may seem like a bad plan to many people. The cost of education has been rising steadily over the years. Comparing to the cost of 3 decades ago, the cost of education now has gone up by roughly three-folds, and it may be even higher than that depending on the field of specialization. Yet the salaries of university graduates, though have also gone up, are a far cry from the substantial increase in education cost. And that's not even taking into consideration that jobs are very hard to find to start with. Many graduates may be stuck in a limbo for a few years, hunting for a job that may never come. Many of them may also end up doing something that has nothing to do with whatever knowledge that they've gained from the universities. 

Perhaps my brother had a good point after all? If I could turn back the clock, would I decide on education any differently than how I decided almost 40 years ago? No, not really. I would still do it all over again exactly the same way!

What people should realize is that the thing about education, and university degrees in particular, is that that's not the finish line. Instead, that's just the start line. Having a diploma or degree does not automatically entitle the graduate to the higher-ranking jobs and lucrative salaries. Far from it, he must still work hard - and smart - to give the boss the reason why he deserves the big money. Way too many people, when seeking employment, assess their self-worth based on what they've spent for the education, instead of what they can contribute to the workplace. 

As far as the employers are concerned, the diploma and degree means very little if the employee can't measure up to the worth of those certificates by contributing to the company. In other words, the diploma or degree does not guarantee anything - they just open doors. What happens once the graduate steps out of those doors is entirely up to that graduate. The job market and the workplace are a competitive place. The competition does not end upon obtaining the degree.

Whether one's investment in education can generate high returns or not depends a lot on the graduate in the job market. If he enters the job market with the wrong mindset, then his career may quickly become stagnant. But if he has the right mindset and right attitude, he will find that the returns from investing in education can be very good. Either way, having the education is still better than having none. However, to repeat, like all other things in life, there is no guarantee.

Stepping Out of the Door

My daughter, JJ, turned 21 a few weeks ago. She will be embarking on the final semester of her IT degree in Melbourne soon. I'm not sure how exactly the education system is these days, but if I understood her correctly, most of the written exams are already over by now. The final semester will mainly comprise continuation of assignments or projects and perhaps some sort of internship. Once that is over, she will get her degree. To me, that sounds a lot like her degree is almost a certainty at this stage.

How time flies, and it feels like it was just a few years ago when I was taking turns with he mommy to bathe her, and waking up in the middle of the night to prepare her formula and feed her. My relationship with JJ is so very different with the relationship that I had with my own father. And from the time when JJ was still quite young, my conversations with her were also far different from the kind of conversations that I used to have with my father. I've shared one of those conversations in this blog here.

Well, JJ has been edging closer and closer to the front door, and has now arrived at the threshold, just about to step out into the world. And this daddy is suddenly feeling a little emotional. She has so much to experience out there. I hope mom and dad have instilled in her all the good qualities to be a good and respectable person. Hopefully she can contribute in her small ways to make the world a better place for everybody.

I have no idea where JJ is heading to once she steps out of the front door. There will be a whole world to explore and many adventures awaiting her. But mom and dad will always be watching from afar. We will be watching with pride and hope, but at the same time feeling excited for her. 

Go, JJ, go!

KK Challenge 15 - Return to the Rare Dimension

During the early days of my role as a Clerk-of-Course (CoC), I was a very enthusiastic pupil, eager to learn the ins and outs of treasure hunting. For the most part, I consider myself a creative chap and somewhat artistic in nature. I had the habit - and I still do - of wanting to explore new frontiers in anything that I do. In one of the hunts that I set, I experimented with the vertical dimension as reported in this post.

Well 15 years has since elapsed, and we haven't progressed much as far as the vertical dimension is concerned. Several local CoCs in KK have tried, but with limited success. Consequently, exploration and exploitation of the vertical dimension has not progressed much since 15 years ago.

A few weeks ago, while I was going around the sectors, searching for suitable signboards for the KK Challenge 15, I came upon the same signboard, and then nostalgia - it brought back memories of the good old days. That signboard has survived many years of economic ups and downs, of the SARS, of the Covid pandemic. It was then that I decided to use it, and what better way to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the vertical dimension than to reenact the feat?

Q33) A task after final tasks?

When I set this question, I had expected some sort of controversy. After all, when there is a change of wind, it's bound to cause some ripples in the waters. Sometimes it may escalate to a tidal wave, sometimes it will subside swiftly, and sometimes still that change will quickly become the norm. Whatever happens in the end, the initial phase of its introduction will cause something of a stir one way or another. 

A grandmaster hunter friend, having discussed some of the key questions in this hunt with me, remarked: 

"The CoC is still very good - there will, of course, be some differences of opinion when boundaries are stretched, but there is nothing blatantly wrong.".

But before we investigate those "stretched boundaries", let us now have a look at the riddle and try to make some sense of it.

That word "final" is the ending indicator, and "tasks" is its fodder. It means that on account of that indicator, the solver is to take the final letter of the word "tasks". Meaning the letter S. Therefore, after the question is cryptically analysed, it can be simplified to this:

A task after S

The next step is just to rearrange those words as per the "instruction" of the sentence to become:

S A task

Because we want that "A task" to be after "S".

And that is apparently the end of the simplification process. I'm inclined to say that it shouldn't be very difficult for an average solver to arrive at this point. Ordinarily, upon reaching this stage, the solver would embark on his quest to search for "S A TASK" in the sector. If he can spot any signboard bearing those letters in that exact order, even if the locations of the gaps between those letters are different, that sign should be a valid answer. Space deception has long been the norm in the cryptic world. However, what happens if there is no such sign in the sector?

Well, the solver can try to replace that word "task" with its synonyms one by one, and then try to search the sector again and again on trial and error to see if there is anything there that can match. Obviously, this procedure can be quite daunting and time-consuming, although the scope of search would have been narrowed down substantially because we only need to focus on answers starting with the letter S. But what if the search is still in vain? What then? This is where the solver is expected to think out of the box and find something in the sector that can fit that "S A TASK" somehow. That is when he is expected to find this board: 

And then put two and two together, so that, thinking out of the box, he reads "S A TASK" as "S atas K" in his mind! If he sees that "S atas K" in his mind, then the rest is smooth sailing. He simply writes down the answer, which is the smaller signboard on the right, where the letter S is positioned above K. That is to say, S atas K.

S

K

TRADING CO.

If he writes the answer horizontally like what he sees on the left signboard, then that answer is wrong, because it does not obey the significance of "ATAS".

But now we come to the discussion on technical issues, and in order to appreciate the complexity of the matter thoroughly, we need to cover a lot of grounds with plenty of long-drawn analysis and examples. If you're not keen to confuse yourselves with technical issues, this is the end of the post! But if you are brave enough for the challenge, then pray proceed. However, please be warned that it can be mentally exhausting, and I would strongly suggest that you take a short break here before you continue further!

INTERMISSION

Insert advertisements here. Go grab an expresso and perhaps some donuts. Chill, and then come back to torture your brain...

Welcome back! We have 3 main issues worth discussing:

1) Grammar

The sentence says "final tasks". However, normally when we use that word "final" we would be referring to the final ONE, meaning a singular noun. For example, we say final COUNTDOWN; final TRY, final MISSION. These are all singular nouns, you see. Therefore, you can see why "final TASKS" sticks out like a sore thumb! A grammar purist would immediately zoom in on that word "TASKS". The setter can try to use the excuse of saying the "TASK" that he has in mind comprises a chain of several taskS to be performed one after another to complete a process. But that is still a weak justification in my opinion! Actually, I could have used other singular nouns that is spelt with the letter S at the end. But I was adamant to use that word TASK somehow because I couldn't resist the inclination to repeat that word in this sentence! So in the end, I committed the grammatical sin! That, however, did not affect the accuracy of the answer anyway. I opted to sacrifice grammar for the sake of a surface reading that appears intimidatingly cryptic!

2) Space Deception

Master Edgar Dabbi set an interesting question in one of his hunts. It was like this:

Q) Fuzzy

A) COPY

The explanation was that although he expressed that question as a single word - FUZZY - he had intended the solver to separate it into 2 parts, i.e. "FUZZ" and "Y". There's nothing in the question that would suggest such a maneuver. The task was then to find the synonym for "FUZZ" which was the word "COP", which was then reconnected to that "Y" to form the answer, "COPY". I objected to this abomination on grounds of fairness, or rather the lack of it! To me, when the setter expresses something that appears like a noun, and the solver sees that word as a noun, but actually the setter means it as a verb, that is OK. The setter has expressed what he means. It's just too bad if the solver is mislead into believing that that word is a noun! However, if the setter says "FUZZY", he can't then claim to say that he means to say "FUZZ & Y", because there is nothing there in the clue that would even suggest such a separation. At best, he can expect the solver to find the synonyms for "FUZZY" as a single word, and only as a single word! He can't claim immunity on account of "space deception" in his question!

Now compare that with this question in the KK Challenge 15 last Sunday:

Q18) It's alike when partially translated

A18) ASUKA

The explanation is that we need to find something on the board that can be equated to that word ALIKE when translated. But notice that we only translate "SUKA" to "LIKE", and that letter "A" is undisturbed in both the question and answer. The basic premise seems a lot like Edgar's riddle above; it seems like I'm slapping my own face! But am I? Well, not really, because in my question, I've instructed the solver that we want to translate only partially. That word "partially" makes all the difference! The setter has done his part, and it is unfortunate if the solver does not heed that word "partially". So space deception is allowed in the question, but only if there is sufficient information therein to warn the solver of such requirement. There are some exceptions, under very special circumstances, to this rule which I won't discuss here.

But what about space deception in the answer? It has long been an established rule that space deception is allowed in answers. This is because the letters found in the answers are written in the grids of the crosswords without regard to the spaces between words. So spaces between words are ignored. This rule has long been applied in treasure hunt riddles too.

Let us now see how this is done in a treasure hunt scenario.

Q) Goatee's locations in here

A) CHIN SIN ENTERPRISE

"here" means on the signboard.

Goatee's locations = CHINS

CHINS + IN = CHIN SIN

Note the plural of "locations" which results in plural for CHINS. However, when the answer is written, it is written as "CHIN SIN ENTERPRISE", where the "S" is separated from the "CHIN", and it is instead combined together with "IN", which is a word retained from the question. The reason for this separation is because that's how the answer appears on the signboard, on account of the requirement that "answers must be written as seen on the board".

3) Second-Layer Process

Now we come to a more interesting issue. The premise of the riddle is that after solving the original sentence of the question, we arrive at "S A TASK", but is it reasonable and correct to then expect the solver to read that in his mind as "S atas K", meaning "S" on top of "K"? 

A loaded question that is very difficult and complicated to answer! As we have seen from the discussion in (2) above, space deception is allowed in the answer. However, strictly speaking, "S A TASK" is not the answer yet. We still need to go through a second-layer process in which we need to rearrange the gaps between the letters in "S A TASK" to become "S atas K", and only after that rearrangement can we then connect to that vertically-orientated S and K on the board. 

Grandmaster Hunter VK Chong, a participant of the hunt, objects to this trick! He likens it to giving a question involving 2 separate components which are independent of each other, but after these components have been "solved" they're then expected to be combined for a second-layer process. Let me now conjure up an example to illustrate his point.

Q) Mislead to join relation?

A) ORIENTAL

Where the solver must first find the synonyms for:

Mislead = CON

join = FUSE

So that the question can be simplified to become:

CON FUSE relation

And then here comes the shocker. The setter then expects the solver to join the CON to FUSE, to become CONFUSE (a single word) and then that resultant single word adopted as an anagram indicator to rearrange the letters in the fodder, "RELATION" to become "ORIENTAL". He said to connect CON and FUSE to become a single word CONFUSE (meaning rearranged by deleting the space between them) is essentially the same as rearranging the gaps in "S A TASK" to become "S atas K", because in both cases CONFUSE and ATAS are second-layer processes that must be executed in order to derive the respective answers.

GM Chong has a very good point. But I see it slightly differently. CONFUSE, to me, is adopted as a cryptic indicator for the process of rearrangement of letters in a fodder. Whereas ATAS, although also a process, is a direct instruction of how to deal with the S and K.

I myself have, on numerous occasions, objected to a second-layer manipulation to get a cryptic indicator which is then to be used in that second-layer cryptic process to derive an answer. But there is nothing cryptic about ATAS. I see it as a direct instruction.

Compare that to this treasure clue in the same hunt:

Leading shopping package

Final shopping package

Which, when cryptically analysed will result in:

SP

GE

Which the solver has to "see" in his mind as SP on GE to get SPONGE. I see this as a similar idea with that of S atas K, except that it is the other way round. 

In S atas K, we're approaching the riddle from the question to the answer on the board with the provision of ATAS indirectly. In the case of SPONGE, we're approaching the riddle from the answer by looking at the positions of SP and GE post analysis, and then conjuring up the process, i.e. "on" in the mind.

While I see and respect GM Chong's point, in the end we arrived at a stalemate. This is bound to happen when boundaries are stretched, but on the whole, we are all guided by the same fundamentals of cryptic rules.

To end this discussion, may I repeat the comment by that other GM Hunter, thus:

"... there will, of course, be some differences of opinion when boundaries are stretched, but there is nothing blatantly wrong."

KK Challenge 15 - A Riddle that is Grammatically Wrong

I have, on many occasions, been criticized for my obsession in grammar. Whenever I set hunt questions, I've been known to use grammar as one of my weapons to trick or deceive the hunters. And all too often they would fall right into my many traps. I've said that many Malaysians are not very particular about grammar, even amongst the English educated folks. When they hear people speak or write in English, most of them are very forgiving when they witness grammatical errors.

Grammar can make a lot of difference when it comes to accuracy in hunt questions. Check out the following example from a hunt in KK eons ago:

Q) Came and get entangled

A) MEGATEC

A simple anagram riddle where "entangled" is the anagram indicator, and the fodder is "came" and "get". It means that we need to rearrange those letters in the fodder to form a new word, which is then spotted on the signboard. As you can see, when you rearrange the letters in the fodder, you can get MEGATEC.

The solution is airtight in that all the letters found in the fodder are used to form the new word, which is the required answer, MEGATEC. However, when reading the question, that sentence appears strange in the grammatical sense. The word "came" is in past tense, whereas "get" in present tense. So although the solution to the riddle is cryptically perfect, the question itself is not so impressive in the grammatical sense.

Ideally, we as setters should try very hard to ensure that both the question and the solution be grammatically perfect. However, sometimes it is not possible to have grammatical accuracy in both the question and the solution for numerous reasons. In the above example, grammar has been sacrificed in the question because the setter's hands were tied by the letters that he had at his disposal to form the word MEGATEC. In such a case, then the sacrifice should be made in the question. Under no circumstances should the solution be plagued with grammatical errors - or in fact of any kind of errors!

Q) Seen at the end of 4 months, it's one way to get the answer

A question that I spent perhaps up to 15 minutes to set for the KK Challenge 15. I would usually take much lesser time to set a cryptic question. But the unusually long time spent in crafting this question was because I was trying very hard to find a way to make it grammatically perfect in both the question and solution. In the end, however, having considered the nature of the riddle, I found no way out, and was therefore forced to sacrifice grammar in the question.

This type of question can be solved partially on paper, but it is almost impossible to solve fully unless the hunter is in the hunt sector and has spotted the signboard. Only when he has spotted the signboard can he then solve the question fully and confirm its accuracy.

So what can be solved on paper? Well, "it's one" can point to the letter "i", because "i" is ONE as a roman numeral. What else? That word "way" can also be connected to other words like "Jalan", "Lorong", "Road", "Avenue" etc. But it's not so easy to solve "Seen at the end of 4 months". 

The solver must scan the hunt sector until he finds this board, and hopefully he can then make the connection between "Seen at the end of 4 months" and those letters "BER" on the board, since the "I" and "LALUAN" are already covered by "it's one" and "way" respectively.

Well, to make the long story short, "BER" can be seen at the ends of SeptemBER, OctoBER, NovemBER and DecemBER. So that's fine. However, although this is a perfect fit for the solution, it would mean that the question is grammatically inaccurate! The question says, "Seen at the end of 4 months...", when it should have been "Seen at the ends of 4 months...". The only difference is that letter "s" at the end of that word "end".

Most Malaysians when reading the question would not even realize the difference anyway. But as a setter who's obsessed with grammar, it pains me immensely to see an imperfect sentence like that! The error, though unspectacular to the extent that would warrant severe criticisms, is still worth noting anyway. After the hunt, I discussed in private this issue with several master hunters, and thankfully they all seemed very forgiving. The discussion even went up to Grandmaster Hunter Jayaram Menon who was kind enough to give his opinion. He said, "Yes, it does stick out - but not to the extent of raising eyebrows...I would also disregarded the plural with the same phrasing of the question".

There are other examples, of course, when grammatical inaccuracies are allowable, or at least tolerable, in cryptic questions, but that's for a separate discussion in a different post.

KK Challenge 15 - Without Label

A few weeks ago, after procrastinating for a long time, I finally embarked on setting the questions for the KK Challenge 15. Setting hunt questions wasn't very difficult for me, but the laziness to do it was something to be reckoned with. But one weekend, I finally made it a point to go around to select suitable signboards and I spent perhaps half a day to set the 35 questions for the hunt. Since about 10 years ago, I had the reputation of setting what is commonly known as the red herring in treasure hunts. These are the type of questions where they seem to point to a specific answer on the board, but actually there is another answer which is the intended one!

In the Lintas Square sector, there was this board:

And just beside this board there was this sign:

And then I set this question:

Q9) Without union is without effect!

The reason why that word "union" was in the question was of course because of that neighbouring sign that had the "UNION" on it.

So that was that, and I proceeded to prepare the question paper and the answer presentation slides. Then last Friday, 2 days before the hunt, I decided to make one last visit to all the hunt sectors. I was horrified to find that the UNISET board was missing! At first, I wanted to just cancel that question and just proceed with the remaining questions. But then I felt dissatisfied to have a cancelled question in my hunt. So I spent an extra few minutes in that sector to decide which board to take as the replacement. 10 minutes later, I decided on this board, which was located almost immediately after the former UNISET board:

When I arrived home, I made the amendments in the question paper, the answer slides, and set this replacement question:

Q9) Its answer is the same with the answer for without label

And it proved to be a very challenging question to the hunters. When I was explaining the answer for this question, I bet it must have felt like it was such a complicated riddle which involved too many steps to get to the answer. But actually it's quite brief. Now in order to solve any problem at all, there is always a need to know where to start. In this case, one needs to read the question and appreciate its structure and then logically deduce what this riddle is all about.

The first 3 words of the question, i.e. "Its answer is..." are significant. What do they tell the solver? Well, "It's" must be referring to that something that is found on the signboard. And "Its answer is..." is an indirect way for the setter to tell the solver that that something that we're looking for on the board must be the question, because only if it's a question can we then say "Its answer is...". Therefore, logically speaking, if that something on the signboard is the question for the riddle, then it follows that what we have on the paper must be the answer! You follow the logic so far? Fine, we progress!

So what is the answer? Well, unfortunately, the answer is given indirectly, and it is here that the real challenge lies! In order to find that something that is on the signboard, i.e. the question, we need to know what is the answer on the paper first. And since that answer is given indirectly, we must therefore solve that first. So the real challenge is to discover what is "without label"?

Now "without" is commonly employed as the deletion indicator in cryptic clues, because of its meaning "in absence of". However, "without" has a very uncommon meaning which is the opposite meaning for the word "within", i.e. "on the outside"; and taking that uncommon definition, I used it here to point to the outside letters of the fodder.

Therefore,

"without" LABEL = LL (taking the outside letters of LABEL)

Once the answer has been discovered, the original question can be simplified to become:

Its answer is LL

Because that answer is the same with the answer for "without label", which is LL.

We also know that this riddle is the Double Jeopardy, which means we need to find the question on the signboard, because what we have on paper is the answer.

That is why that something that we need to find on the signboard is:

CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE

Because the CENTRE of that word EXCELLENCE are the LL.

So now, you can appreciate why the answer for the cancelled question is UNISET. It's because of the same explanation, that is to say I'm employing the word "without" to point to the flanks of the fodder.

"without" UNION = UN

"without" EFFECT = ET

Theerefore, 

Without UNION is without EFFECT = UN is ET

This is a very peculiar use of the word "without" as the flanks indicator, but I'm introducing it in this hunt, because on account of its definition - on the outside, I see no reason why it can't be employed for such purpose! Perhaps it has never been done this way before? But that, to me does not mean that it can't be done!

KK Challenge 15 - Underneath!

All the questions in the last few of my KK Challenge hunts were successfully answered. Even what seemed to be extremely tough questions were answered by at least one team. When I was setting the questions for the KK Challenge 15 last Sunday, I was also confident that all my questions would be answered as well. But alas, one question was unanswered, and it broke that streak of "all questions answered". That question is the subject matter of this post.

Q7) On the board, it's underneath! It's underneath!

A7) 11 @ AGENSI NOMBOR RAMALAN SPORTS TOTO

When the riddle is seen from the perspective of the reader with the benefit of seeing it together with the required answer, it may seem like an easy question. That's because one can work his way backwards, without the distractions of other signboards, from the answer to the question. The task is then just to discover the explanation for that answer. However, during the hunt, there is no such benefit. The required answer is out there with hundreds of other potential candidates, and it would be quite an uphill task to try to work one's way backwards on trial and error without at least something as a guide or starting point.

That word "board" in the question is a double-edged sword of sort. On the one hand, it can be of assistance in drawing the hunter's attention to focus only on "board". But on the other hand, it can also be a source of confusion that can mislead the hunter to search at the wrong place!

The "board" in this case is not referring to signboards in the sector; rather it is referring to other boards, such as chess board, dart board and many other games where "boards" are involved. So, that is still quite a wide range of possibilities to sift through! 

After the hunt, a participant, having been given the answer, said that all the other questions in this hunt were "fair play" except this Q7 because of the seemingly very wide range of possibilities for "board". However, as the setter, I feel that I have been fair, because the hunter should read the question in its entirety, not just focus on that word "board". The biggest challenge is that the hunter, when reading this question, while taking note of that word "board", must also realize the significance of the exclamation marks "!" at the ends of those repeated sentences. If he knows that those "!" are important, he will then be able to combine the hints in "board" and those "!", and perhaps that can then be the launching pad in his journey in the direction of the required solution.

At this juncture, I am reminded of a question set by Master Alvin Wong, a team member of Main Tembak in his hunt many years ago, which absolutely beat all the masters in the field including me! I thought that was an exceptional question, but perhaps it was not intended to be solvable? It was like this:

Q) LESS THAN ABOVE, ANSWER BELOW

A) COMMA

As you can see, the idea behind this riddle is quite similar with mine above. But the major difference is that in Alvin's question, there was no mention of "board" at all. It would require quite a magnificent leap of imagination, perhaps almost divine in nature, to think of the computer keyboard specifically! But it is still an impressive question nonetheless. I kept that knowledge somewhere in my brain and waited patiently for so many years until I judged it time for revenge. Thus Q7 of the KK Challenge 15.

Apart from the above, another hunter suggested that I should have allowed a gap between "underneath" and the "!", and even throw in a comma (,) and fullstop (.) at the end to help the hunters realize the significance of those "!". I found this suggestion somewhat silly because the gist of the Q is the challenge of realizing the significance of those "!". If I had to point out the significance of those "!" to the hunters, then I might as well tell them the answer to the question!

The point is that in the cryptic world, the setter is allowed to use punctuations as his weapon to mislead the solvers. To take another example of Alvin's question from a past hunt (yes, I don't want to be accused of promoting only my own riddles all the time!), check out this question which illustrates the use of punctuations to mislead:

Q) E - NAME = NAM

A) 66

A very simple illustration of how punctuations could be employed in hunt questions. The only thing that I would do differently in the above example is I would perhaps add a "?" at the end of that question.

So, if the trend is to be repeated, perhaps Alvin will strike back with his revenge in another 14 years from now! I just hope that I'm still alive to join the hunt and have not gone senile!