Puzzles

The longer you look at the word, the stranger it seems. It's a sixteenth century word of unknown origin, the time period of words like pillicock and prat. But we're not interested in history here; we want some diversionary mental stimulation! Let's see what poor fare in currently on offer for those with exertion-starved brain cells...

• The Incredibly Difficult Bastard Quiz™: Sure, give it a go, but don't expect to be able to answer any of the questions.

• Maths Puzzles: Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough.

• Picture Puzzles: A completely new and original type of picture puzzle that I invented. Being, as they are, picture puzzles, the page is fairly graphics intensive, although there is a text-only page as well.

• Mistral's Crosswords: Some traditional word puzzles for those of you who are more inclined to the literate rather than the numerate.

• Lyrics: A prize winning quiz, where you have to name the artist and song title from a lyric triplet. Relatively straightforward.

• Wordsearch: A very simple wordsearch.

• the competition: A puzzle in the truest sense; you have little to start with, no reason to participate, and no defined objective. Why?