I have been searching for an answer for this for weeks.

Heres the setup. there are two guys. both of them are in on it and know the "code" basically, you feed one guy any city in america, but not the other. then the first spins out an itinerary based on the city they've been given. I.E. I first went to minneapolis stayed 2 nights, then flew to houston, the traveled to louisville.

I cannot get it. at first i thought it was a number system, but they don't always say how many nights they stayed. i tried giving them a city with a short name they would give an itinerary with 15 stops. then i gave them a city with a long name, they gave 7 stops. they also said the larger the population of the city, the easier it'll be for us to understand.

they claim its some deep riddle handed down by their brotherhood. i personally think thats baloney.

I know this is ridiculous vague, but i sincery hope someone has heard of this trick and can point me in the right direction.

I have definitly read about this trick, I think in a novel. Now I just need to try to remember where.

I know in this particular novel one person left the room and the people in the room chose, in this instance a person's name, when the person returned to the room the partner gave the itinary and the returning person could work out the name. In this instance it was his own name. They gave an explanation as to how it was done. I think it is to do with the number of days they spent in each place. One example I think they gave was Princess Margaret.

Do you have an exact example rather than a general idea?

With hindsight I think it wasn't in a novel, I am pretty sure it is in a book by Maureen Lipman; I will just have to try to find our which one.

Found it! It is explained in Maureen Lipman's book "How Was It For You?"

The numbers of the days, weeks, months, years equal vowels. A=1, E=2, I=3, O=4 and U=5.

The intials of the place names are the consonants.

'And then' means a new word. You normally spell a clue rather than the name but I guess you could do either.

Examples...

One day in London and stayed three = Ali, as in Mohammed Ali the boxer.

Yugoslavia for 4 weeks and 5 days = You.

Quebec for five months 2 weeks 2 days Niagra and Seattle 'and then' Saratoga for 3 days and Seattle = Queen's Sis, ie Princess Margaret.

I hope that helps.

thats brilliant. i have to get them to do a couple more examples to cross check, but that sounds like the most plausible answer.


you rock!!

I'm lucky to have read this thread after the answer was already found. I love codes, and this one is very interesting, for sure!