HUNTING FOR FOOD #3 - THE COC'S STORY

PETALING JAYA, 12 Feb 2011: Edison once quoted that, "success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration". Nevertheless to set up a successful hunt in my opinion does not require a lot of work. Planning the route and identifying the targets should not take up more than one weekend's work. Inspiration, on the contrary is essential to craft quality riddles. I discovered that inspiration and ideas come unexpectedly - while waiting for the lift, reading the newspaper, driving to work, sitting on the toilet bowl, you name it. It's important to capture that idea instantly whether on a notepad or on the iPhone. It's equally important to give yourself time to engineer the riddles.

Time was on my side during the preparation for Hunting for Meals on Wheels, the 3rd edition of the Hunting for Food series. The decision to postpone the hunt (originally scheduled for the first weekend of January) was a blessing in disguise. Though most of the work had been done, I wasn't terribly satisfied with the end result. The additional time gave me opportunity to further tweak some of the riddles and to replace others with new inspirations.

The impending retirement of Edwin van der Sar which I found out while watching an MU vs Liverpool game had inspired this riddle. Having a United sign in the sector was the added sweetener.

Q12: Possibly what the Red Devils would be like without their Dutch 'net' man?

Ans: Seeri Authentic Thai Restaurant

Reading about the 2012 United States Presidential Election in the papers helped formulate this riddle:

Q8: Barrack put in office for another term perhaps.

Ans: Inspire Electronic Trading

And a bad dream had inspired this interesting riddle. I rubbed my hands with glee when I spotted the Amadeus sign in the same sector.

Q25: This monster's head was severed by Perseus for example. Identifying the film may help.

Ans: Kedai Gambar Eastman

These were three examples of five riddles I decided to bold because I felt that the themes employed would enhance the deception making it more difficult than it really is (and to encourage teams to attempt these riddles I decided to make the score from bold questions the first tie-break too). But my favourite from the lot has to be this very innocent looking riddle which was a non-bold:

Q26: Ask a beginner and this answer is what you will get.

Ans: SK Traditional & Reflexology (M) Sdn Bhd

Teams were given 4.5 hours for 30 riddles, 4 treasures and 5 food hunt challenges. Given that the distance to traverse was a mere 15 km, I initially felt that the 10 minutes per riddle allocation was rather generous, yet I decided to stick with this regulation hunting time to allow teams the opportunity to savour every single question. And I believe that I had achieved this objective seeing that the last 2 questions were perfectly answered by all 5 teams.

Being a CoC can be rewarding too sometimes (chuckles) when teams become rather generous from over analysis.

T4: This next treasure you should not have problems getting,

As it is freely distributed 'tis being the season for giving,

A shriek immediately following a sudden pain maybe telling,

The current centre of attention must be clearly showing.

Ans: Angpow with rabbit

  

After the winners were announced, we held a ballot to select the CoC for the 4th edition of Hunting for Food to ensure continuation of this enjoyable series. Hunters were asked to nominate from the winning team their candidate to helm the next edition. It was essentially a three horse race before Teoh ran away from the pack at the three quarter mark to become the eventual winner.

CoC for the 4th edition of the Hunting for Food series

And to wrap up, I hope that the lot of you who turned up in support enjoyed the hunt as much as I enjoyed setting the hunt, not to forget the Good Company, the Good Food and the Good Wine too, all ingredients of a Perfect Time!

I heard this series will be going to Ipoh next. Catch you there, folks!

Good Company

Good Food @ Restoran Thai My Elephant

Good Wine / Liquor

The Up-and-coming

Crouching Master Hidden Treasure

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Hunting for Meals on Wheels

Maximum Score: 125

1st: Alexander Hoh, Teoh Cheow Teong, Lim Say Chye, Loh Chee Kwan (87)

2nd: Venkateswaran Nagappan, Loo Wern Ching, Goh Teck Koon, Liong Chian Min (83)

3rd: Yeap Heng Boon, Jayaram Menon, Lim Soo Khian, Lim Ming Yang (76)

4th: Chai Koh Khai, Shandra Dass, Lily Loh, Margaret Sha (73)
5th: Ramesh Rajaratnam, Claire Chin, Lee Ling Fei, Tan Cheng Peng (72)