FULL RAINBOW - my kind of word game! It's here: www.fullrainbow.co.uk
On Christmas Day at midnight I’m launching a little puzzle on the world. You will find it at www.fullrainbow.co.uk - it’s easy (I think), it’s fun (I reckon), it’ll amuse you for a minute or two (I hope).
In fact, it can’t amuse you for more than three minutes - because 180 seconds is all the time I’m allowing you to solve the puzzle. You’re given 7 letters of the alphabet and just 3 minutes in which to use those 7 letters to spell out an everyday English word. Get the answer in 45 seconds or less and you’ve achieved FULL RAINBOW. That’s brilliant. Do it in under 90 seconds and that’s a RAINBOW. Great. Manage it in less than 135 seconds and you’ve scored HALF RAINBOW - not bad. If you do it within 180 seconds, before your time runs out, that’s okay: it’s QUARTER RAINBOW - you’ve solved the puzzle in the nick of time, so be pleased. But if you can’t find the word you’re after in 180 seconds, it’s RAIN-BOO! Bad luck, time’s up. Better luck tomorrow. I’ll post a new challenge at midnight.
The idea is simple: I will give you 7 letters in alphabetical order - A B I N O R W for example - and all you have to do is work out which one word in the English language those 7 letters can spell. You guessed it: the answer’s RAINBOW. Take the 7 letters from the top line and position them correctly on the bottom line - and press the arrow when you’re done to stop the clock.
If you need help while you’re playing, it’s at hand - at a price. Press the ? button and I’ll show you where one of the 7 letters should go. That helpful hint will cost you 30 seconds on the clock. I can show you where 2 more letters should go, too. Each of the 3 hints costs 30 seconds.
That’s it. 7 letters and 180 seconds to find 1 word. You’re against the clock - and you can be up against the world, too. Share your results with family and friends and see who is quickest off the mark.
It’s fun. It’s free. It’s just a little bit of wordplay that I conjured up with my son Benet and his wife, Kosha. And our brilliant friend Charles Dean from sequestos.com helped us put it all together. We have added a small TRAINING GROUND to the site, too, so if you want to practise playing before competing against family, friends and strangers, you can. There will be a new FULL RAINBOW challenge posted every day at midnight.
Tweet me at @GylesB1 to let me know if you like it. And A E F H N U V . . . HAVE FUN! (Except that wouldn’t count because it’s two words, not one. Which is why you can expect to find TOSSPOT as an answer, but not PISS-POT. In my dictionary, one is hyphenated and the other isn’t. This is my puzzle - and what I say goes.)
There’s a new FULL RAINBOW challenge every day at www.fullrainbow.co.uk
PS. As you can tell, I like rearranging letters of the alphabet and playing with words.
My wife says “I” has to be my favourite letter. Not sure about that. In my book I stands for INCOMPREHENSIBLE PROBLEM IN CHINESE
“Incomprehensible” is an anagram of “problem in Chinese”. An anagram is a rearrangement of the letters in a word or phrase to form another word or phrase. It’s the way you turn “scythe” into “chesty”, “roast mules” into “somersault” and “voices rant on” into “conversation”.
With anagrams the ingenuity lies in changing a word into a word or phrase that is spectacularly apt – or amusingly not. Here is my top team:
dictionary = indicatory
mummy = my mum
desperation = a rope ends it
punishment = nine thumps
endearments = tender names
prosecutors = court posers
twinges = we sting
softheartedness = often sheds tear
therapeutics = apt is the cure
degradedness = greed’s sad end
panties = a step-in
astronomers = moon starers = no more stars
postmaster = stamp Store
waitress = a stew, Sir?
semolina = is no meal
software = swear oft
dormitory = dirty room
schoolmaster = the classroom
butterfly = flutter by
listen = silent
The ingenuity becomes even greater when a whole phrase is turned into a different phrase with much the same meaning. I reckon eleven plus two = twelve plus one is unbeatable. Here are some more that come pretty close:
the United States of America = attaineth its cause: freedom!
a decimal point = I’m a dot in place
the countryside = no city dust here
the nudist colony = no untidy clothes
the detectives = detect thieves
a shoplifter = has to pilfer
one hug = enough
gold and silver = grand old evils
circumstantial evidence = can ruin a selected victim
one good turn deserves another = do rogues endorse that? No, never!
the centenarians = I can hear ten "tens"
I run to escape = a persecution
The Morse Code = here come dots
The Meaning of Life = the fine game of nil
a domesticated animal = docile, as a man tamed it
a telescope = to see place
the eyes = they see
the ears = hear set
the cockroach = cook, catch her
a sentence of death = faces one at the end
More anagrams soon. Meanwhile, go to www.fullrainbow.co.uk, find today’s 7 letters and see what you can make of them - and how C I K L U Q Y . . .