365-Lateral Thinking Puzzles
Futility Closet
Play along as we untangle eight strange-sounding situations using yes-or-no questions.
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364-Sidney Cotton's Aerial Reconnaissance
Futility Closet
Sidney Cotton risked his life to gather aerial photos during World War II.
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363-The Lambeth Poisoner
Futility Closet
In 1891, an unknown criminal began poisoning women in London.
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362-The Leatherman
Futility Closet
Between 1856 and 1889, a mysterious leather-clad man walked the roads of Connecticut and New York.
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361-A Fight Over Nutmeg
Futility Closet
Englishman Nathaniel Courthope spent four years defending a tiny island's nutmeg from the Dutch.
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360-Haggard's Dream
Futility Closet
One night in July 1904, H. Rider Haggard dreamed that his daughter's dog was dying.
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359-Stranded in Shangri-La
Futility Closet
In 1945, a U.S. Army transport plane crashed in the highlands of New Guinea.
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358-The Radium Girls
Futility Closet
In the 1920, painters of luminous watch dials began to fall mysteriously ill.
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357-Scenes From an Earthquake
Futility Closet
Stories from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
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356-A Strawberry's Journey
Futility Closet
A French spy, a transatlantic voyage, and the birth of the modern strawberry.
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For this final episode of the Futility Closet podcast we have eight new lateral thinking puzzles — play along with us as we try to untangle some perplexing situations using yes-or-no questions.
Intro:
Sears used to sell houses by mail.
Many of Lewis Carroll's characters were suggested by fireplace tiles in his Oxford study.
The sources for this week's puzzles are below. In some cases we've included links to further information -- these contain spoilers, so don't click until you've listened to the episode:
Puzzle #1 is from Greg. Here are two links.
Puzzle #2 is from listener Diccon Hyatt, who sent this link.
Puzzle #3 is from listener Derek Christie, who sent this link.
Puzzle #4 is from listener Reuben van Selm.
Puzzle #5 is from listener Andy Brice.
Puzzle #6 is from listener Anne Joroch, who sent this link.
Puzzle #7 is from listener Steve Carter and his wife, Ami, inspired by an item in Jim Steinmeyer's 2006 book The Glorious Deception.
Puzzle #8 is from Agnes Rogers' 1953 book How Come? A Book of Riddles, sent to us by listener Jon Jerome.
You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Google Podcasts, on Apple Podcasts, or via the RSS feed at https://futilitycloset.libsyn.com/rss.
Many thanks to Doug Ross for providing the music for this whole ridiculous enterprise, and for being my brother.
If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!