A weblog

At the behest of Monica Smith at the DANA Centre (and with the help of my grandson Richard), I have, as of this sentence, started a blog. I have learned that Blog means weblog, it confuses me that young people seem obsessed with making words shorter. I have always liked long words, they look very nice on the page, like mountain ranges. I think that is why I have always had an affinity with the German language (although not one I could openly admit to for a long time). No doubt a Blog will soon just be known as a Bl or even a B. Or perhaps an Og. I am not entirely sure of the protocol of writing this blog – do I write for an audience or for myself? I am going to treat it like I would my diary, and if this displeases anyone then so be it. I am 91 and deserve to be indulged.

IS there a secret message in this weblog?

So what, you may ask, have I done to earn the giddy honour of addressing you all in this blog of mine? Unfortunately (and apologies if this sounds a little grand) much of what I did is still classified, but I can assure you that it was indeed done. What I can tell you is that during the War I was recruited as a Wren into Bletchley Park, a place I sincerely hope you have heard of. Whilst there it was discovered that I had something of a gift for maths and problem solving, skills which allowed me to dip my toes into some interesting waters - waters which, as I have mentioned, must remain muddied for a few years yet.

My interest in old codes goes all the way back to Sir Francis Bacon by literal translation of his old ciphers and even further back to the pigpen of the Masons and the scytale of the Spartans.

The new-fangled types of encryption my grandson has been working (rather too hard) on involve the use of galactic-sized prime numbers. These are indeed practically unbreakable, but are also absolutely impractical if one has only a few minutes to send a message.

The art of steganography or hiding a message where a message cannot be seen to be is rather more my cup of tea these days. And, as almost anyone will tell you, I do like my tea.

A clue if you're stuck

Monica tells me there are points at stake if you were to use this, but you do need to solve it in order to advance. I'll make the point first then that you should always read aloud and read widely, especially the paragraph with italics. And if you're really stuck, she says it will only cost you a point to click HERE.

My grandson adds that...

...he's very tickled by the way that tinyurls like this (do click, no points at stake!) can hide information from prying electronic eyes. So much so, he thought that if all of you are really interested in encryption and privacy, you should firstly use that tiny link to take a close look at this photograph of me. You should right-click to save it first so you can use it. Apparently.

(and I wince when he says there will be two more photographs, as well as the video)

I'm sure I don't understand when he says you won't need a password.