Thank you and congratulations to the long-suffering readers who took part in Spurtle’s recent Christmas Puzzle. Special congratulations go to Sam Murray and Richard Patterson who correctly solved all the clues. Commiserations to David Sterratt who missed out by one.
The letters in each clue referred to Edinburgh locations, and the numbers to how many steps lead to or from them. For the last five days of the puzzle, Murray, Patterson and Sterratt also correctly identified how many steps were present in each case.
They (and the setter of this challenge) are now considerably fitter than they were in November.
Below are the solutions, with a few explanations for some of the more obscure images. Links will take you to the relevant page on our website.
Day 1: PS – Playfair Steps
Day 2: AC – Advocates Close
Day 3: GGS – Granny’s Green Steps
Day 4: SS – Scotsman Steps
Day 5: CC –Craig’s Close (close-up of actor Daniel Craig)
Day 6: NS – The News Steps
Day 7: SS – Shoemakers Square
Day 8: AC – Anchor Close
Day 9: FC – Fleshmarket Close (Oscar outside the Scotsman Cinema)
Day 10: WS – Waverley Steps (John Pettie’s illustration for the Scott novel)
Day 11: MC – Milne’s Court (location detail)
Day 12: CWN – Castle Wynd North (cannonball in gable end of Cannonball House)
Day 13: CC – Chalmers’ Close (location detail – sign pointing to Museum of Magic, Fortune-telling and Witchcraft)
Day 14: VT — Victoria Terrace
Day 15: PGS – Patrick Geddes Steps (bust, confusingly located in Sandeman House Garden)
Day 16: UGL – Upper Greenside Lane
Day 17: IS – India Street
Day 18: GR – Greenside Row (location detail at top of one of two sets of steps behind the OMNi)
Day 19: RS – Rodney Street (location detail, Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative in the background)
Day 20: BT – Brandon Terrace (location detail at steps down to the Water of Leith)
Day 21: CH – Calton Hill (location detail at Regent Road)
Day 22: LS – Leith Street (at the Black Bull bar)
Day 23: JL – Jacob’s Ladder (William Blake’s 1805 image of stairway to Heaven)
Day 24: CP – Cornwallis Place (18th-century admiral)
Day 25: GL – Greenside Lane (location detail).
[Image top-right: Wikipedia, screenshot from Walt Disney’s Cinderella.]
