GCHQ unveils annual Christmas card puzzle - can you solve it?
Spy agency challenges ‘wise men and women’ to take on bauble brainteaser
As the UK nears the end of a year full of twists and surprise, the nation’s intelligence and security agency is keeping up tradition by releasing its annual Christmas card puzzle.
The GCHQ website says “the card is sent by our director Jeremy Fleming to colleagues and partners across the world”, but also invites members of the public to have a go at “one of our most fiendish puzzles to date”.
“Problem solving is at the heart of what we do,” said a spokesperson for the agency. “Taking on this Christmas cracker gives puzzlers an insight into the skills you need to be a GCHQ analyst.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Following last year’s snowflake sudoku, the 2020 challenge is in “the form of a bauble which contains a hidden message”, says The Telegraph. “Those attempting it will need to complete a series of letter sequences before plotting their answer from an enigmatic ‘frosty’ location.”
The only tip offered by GCHQ is to “bring together a mix of minds by sharing it with the wise men and women in your household to find the solution”.
But according to The Telegraph, “to find the solution, the wise will have to find the missing letter at the end of nine seemingly random sequences on the Christmas card, which shows a stylised bauble with an arrow running through it”.
The card instructs wannabe sleuths to: “Plot your single-letter answers in the corresponding golden nodes on the bauble. Follow the flow of arrows from somewhere frosty to unblock the message.”
The Telegraph has promised to reveal the answer on Saturday so that would-be sleuths can “see how close they have come to matching the code-cracking ability of Britain’s intelligence experts”.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Joe Evans is the world news editor at TheWeek.co.uk. He joined the team in 2019 and held roles including deputy news editor and acting news editor before moving into his current position in early 2021. He is a regular panellist on The Week Unwrapped podcast, discussing politics and foreign affairs.
Before joining The Week, he worked as a freelance journalist covering the UK and Ireland for German newspapers and magazines. A series of features on Brexit and the Irish border got him nominated for the Hostwriter Prize in 2019. Prior to settling down in London, he lived and worked in Cambodia, where he ran communications for a non-governmental organisation and worked as a journalist covering Southeast Asia. He has a master’s degree in journalism from City, University of London, and before that studied English Literature at the University of Manchester.
-
Magazine solutions - May 10, 2024
Puzzles and Quizzes Issue - May 10, 2024
By The Week US Published
-
Magazine printables - May 10, 2024
Puzzles and Quizzes Issue - May 10, 2024
By The Week US Published
-
'Box Trump in for real if he pulls another stunt. Put him behind bars.'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
Putin believes in Santa ‘like all decent people do’
feature And other stories from the stranger side of life
By The Week Staff Published
-
Is Henry Kissinger right about Ukraine?
Speed Read The US statesman made a controversial speech at a virtual Davos appearance last week
By The Week Staff Published
-
How the Taliban is rolling back the freedoms of the past 20 years
Speed Read Supreme leader has now announced that all women must cover their faces in public
By The Week Staff Published
-
Will Russia’s invasion of Ukraine usher in a new era of spying?
feature Moscow’s global intelligence network has been devastated by the ongoing conflict, experts claim
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Volodymyr Zelenskyy refused evacuation as Russian hitmen ‘parachuted’ into Kyiv
Speed Read Ukrainian president turned down opportunity to leave capital despite threat to life, adviser claims
By The Week Staff Published
-
Russia can still ‘win’ Ukraine war, Western officials warn
Speed Read Vladimir Putin adjusts tactics after ‘humiliation’ for second phase of invasion
By The Week Staff Published
-
Ukraine war: the atrocities unfolding out of sight
Speed Read Vladimir Putin’s strategy of ‘Russification’ is straight from Stalin’s playbook
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Can Vladimir Putin be toppled?
Speed Read Russia has become what political scientists call ‘a personalist dictatorship’
By The Week Staff Published