“A lie, Watson – a great, big, thumping, obtrusive, uncompromising lie”
(VALL, 800)
Dear fellow Watsonians, I must confess to a heinous crime.
In giving the answers to the Annual Treasure Hunt, I lied. Shamelessly. But I did it for a good cause.
Let me explain. Among the questions for the Hunt, I devised one that, in my mind, had to be the most difficult of the lot. Unfortunately, I had totally overlooked the fact that there was a simple, straightforward and perfectly Canonical answer to that question. When the answers arrived, I found out that all participants had given that correct alternative answer. So much for the so-called ingenuity and deviousness of the Quiz Master.
And so I lied. I changed the list of the answers that I had already prepared and put the alternative answer in the place of that which I had originally conceived. The purpose was to avoid spoiling the original answer and to provide the contestants with a new challenge.
Here it is. Question # 4 in the Hunt, you will recall, was the following: The subject of this question won a blue award twice. Who or what?
You all answered “Gilchrist”, who had won the Blue for the hurdles and the long jump. But there is another answer to that question, a most difficult and complex one.
So the sequel to the Annual Treasure Hunt is: find another answer to question #4, the answer that I had originally in mind.
Hints: this question requires a little digging in external sources, such as an encyclopaedia and/or Internet search engines. The subject of the question can be a person, an animal, a company, a government or any other entity. The subject is mentioned in the Canon, but the award is not (so it is useless to search for, say, all occurrences of the word “blue”).
Since this is a hard question, you have one month to submit the answer (by e-mail to treasurehunt (AT) johnhwatsonsociety.com). The answer will be posted on October 21.
I hope you will enjoy this quiz. Happy Hunting!