Tim Dowling: I spend the morning waiting for Trump to wake up and say stupid things

‘I have to ration the number of new Trump anecdotes I pass on to my wife’

Several days into my Greek holiday, I am beginning to feel eerily relaxed. This is partly because our children aren’t with us – I can’t get used to the fact that when a restaurant lunch comes to €20 a head, I owe only €40 – but also because they aren’t at home, either: two of them are on their own separate travels abroad, so the house is comparatively safe.

This state of affairs leaves me with a lot of spare psychic space. When I am not swimming or reading or eating, I occupy myself by hating Donald Trump. It’s not just a holiday thing – I’ve been hating Donald Trump for years – but in my present untroubled state, it has become an obsession. I check my phone repeatedly to see if Donald Trump has said anything stupid, or untrue – or stupid and untrue – in the last half-hour. If he hasn’t, I feel crushed. But usually he has.

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Can you solve it? Can you outfox the desert island despot?

Your survival depends on a cunning plan

UPDATE: Solution is now up here.

Hello guzzlers,

Last week I was thrilled to win the 2016 science blog award from the Association of British Science Writers for Adventures in Numberland, which is part of the Guardian’s science blog network. I wrote my first mathematical puzzles on that blog, which led me to start this one, dedicated to puzzles. Thanks so much for reading - and commenting on - both blogs, please continue to do so!

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Tim Dowling: I’m in hospital, contemplating a pair of dignity shorts

My wife is here because I’m being sedated, and won’t be allowed home on my own

A friend once told me that while he was undergoing an embarrassing medical procedure, the fact that he knew me somehow came up in conversation. “So I’m lying there with a camera halfway up my arse,” he said, “having to answer questions about your sodding column.”

“Sorry,” I said. But I wasn’t sorry. I secretly considered it a career high point. You are being discussed, I told myself, in highly inappropriate settings.

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PODCAST EP.27 – BILL HADER

Hello there. Podcast 27 is a conversation with American comedian, actor and writer Bill Hader.

He recently starred alongside Amy Shumer in Trainwreck which he was excellent in, and alongside Kristen Wiig in a film called The Skeleton Twins which I urge you to seek out, and he’s popped up in films like Superbad, Paul and Tropic Thunder, but he’s probably best known certainly in the US, from an 8 year tenure (from 2005) at American comedy institution Saturday Night Live or SNL, a show which has previously fostered many of America’s biggest comedy talents from John Belushi, Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy to Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Jimmy Fallon and Amy Pohler and the aforementioned Kristen Wiig.

I spoke to Bill via a Skype link to Los Angeles California on July 13th 2016.

When I spoke with Bill I hadn’t seen this show he does with Fred Armisen called Documentary Now. Here’s the first one, a terrific homage to the legendary Grey Gardens by The Maysles Brothers.

OTHER WAYS TO GET THE PODCAST

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DOWNLOAD MP3 FROM SOUNDCLOUD

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Thanks to Matt Lamont for edit assistance and Seamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support.

I’m going now bye.

ABx

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Can you solve it? Are you a puzzle Olympian?

Get those neurons out the blocks

UPDATE: Solutions now posted here

Hello guzzlers,

Today, two puzzles inspired by the Olympics:

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Tim Dowling: we’re off on holiday without the children. What could possibly go wrong?

My wife’s phone rings. It’s the youngest one. ‘Hi,’ she says. ‘How’s Italy? What do you mean, you don’t have any money?’

I am already in a mild panic when the doorbell rings at 6 o’clock. I open the front door to find Constance there.

“Hey, handsome,” she says. I turn round to look at my wife.

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