Column Chronicles: Brain Scrambler challenges

Brain Scrambler challenges

Frank Cotolo
March 9, 2023

Everyone loves a good riddle, so this year we continue to host perplexing tests of our readers' mental abilities with old-fashioned brain scramblers. We warn you, these are tough. Write to us for the answers.

I am perfect in a pinch and yet you need at least an ounce for me to work. There are no sides to my shape but often I look like an everything bagel. The queen of England in the 1700s used me daily but I am more popular with peasants that howl at the moon. What am I?

You see me on a wintry day, sometimes close or far away. I squat on round things with joy and can turn my tongue upside down. I sleep by day and hunt by night but eat little of anything in sight. What am I?

Take the numbers in your age and switch them. Divide that number by half of any four digit number beginning with six. Then add two zeroes and rewrite that number backwards. If the answer does not read 75, you did it incorrectly. Keep trying.

If a hill becomes too steep for gravity to allow climbing with no tools to do so, how far over does someone have to bend to walk to the top without tumbling back to the bottom?

Once like a toad, twice like a goat, I can rally a herd of my kind through fiery hedges, clouds of smoke and sheets of locust. What am I?

A train leaves a station, any train station (it doesn't matter where) at 5:56 a.m. while listening to a classical music piece on a radio channel broadcasting on FM. Sixteen miles after leaving any train station (it doesn't matter where), the FM radio signal fades. If the classical music piece is Symphony No. 1, The Gothic, by Brian Havergal, at what movement does the FM signal disappear?

If Noah built an arc with wheels, at what level would the rain have to accumulate for Noah to regret not making the arc a ship?

There is a rotund bottom to my frame. I have six legs but only two can function at a time. My eyes are orange and my knees bend both ways when I dance the Mambo. You can see me when you wake in the morning but if you work nights and sleep during the day you miss me. What am I?

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.