Yes.

RESULT: it was Dorchester, successfully guessed by @mythalive.bsky.social. Surprisingly, several people got the right area of the country by sheer fortune. I'm afraid I was being a bit mischievous when I said 'easy one'. This was essentially impossible. Barred!!

I thought you said... no. Nothing.

Sorry, I meant to type diabolical

A solid wall of holly, as it were, seen through the four vertical bars of a fence.

Easy one to get you back in: in which town was this taken? It was a destination on my last tour, with a population of under 50,000.

(NORMAL 'BARRED' SERVICE RESUMES SOON.)

Bedtime Lies by Robert and the Very Bad Dogs on Apple Music Album · 2025 · 20 Songs

'Dude, don't tell me you don't know about August 21. That's, what can I tell you, it's the day we all gather to eat these shitty herrings which smell like shit. And then afterwards we all release an album.'

'Release...?'

'An album, yeah.'

itunes.apple.com/album/id1829...

After all, 'red herring' tends to mean a misleading clue, a false friend, doesn't it. You've never heard a detective say 'aha! This looks like a normal-coloured herring.' Still, to make sure, you call Helga, your friend in Gothenburg. At the word 'surströmming' she becomes effusive.

Sure Strumming. It sounds...
...
...yes! You dash up to the kitchen and check the flags backwards again. Surströmming. Things are coming together. What does it mean, this strange word? You pay the £7.99 to ask Google. It starts talking about herrings in Sweden. You're disappointed.

As you're putting your leotard on for the day ahead, the first thing you see on the bedroom floor is your receipt from the music place. THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING AT SURE STRUMMING, it says. Something jars. It's like you've got a fly up your nose. You're sure the music place wasn't called that.

Last night was a blast. You went to Reverse Karaoke. You go in a booth, choose a song, they play the vocal track, and as a group you have to supply the guitars, bass, drums, other percussion and production. It's a lot of work and you spent a fortune on instruments. But you went to bed happy.

But - again - there's always music to distract you.

Maybe standing on your head will help. Maybe reading them backwards will help. Maybe it's more a case of pounding your chest, having a good old cry, and then perhaps a nice bowl of pasta.

How these people are getting in your house, and what they mean by all this, remains a serious concern.

National flags. A string of eleven of them. Upside down. And greyscaled. Again, impossible to say which flags. Although it isn't a particularly easy puzzle even if one knew.

This time they're... it can't be, can it? Upside down!? And also there's something off with the colours. They're not quite in black-and-white but they don't really show up either.

You rub your face, your hair, your stomach; you leave your downstairs friends alone for now.

'My word,' you mutter.

Up the stairs you go, rather than down, because for some reason you had your entire house reconfigured this week, spending £350,000 for the builders' 24-hour service. It's lucky you inherited that mystery fortune in February this year.

You stop.

Not again. Not more flags.

Heavens, what a night of dreams. For the third night running. Why did you dream that your cat was a pig? Why did you dream that you choked on a fig? Why did you dream the sky wasn't that big? Especially that last one. The sky is, very obviously, huge. Not ONE thing you dreamed was true. Again.

The Company will let you talk amongst yourselves for a little bit. Please spread the word to any other former employees.

What is there to be done? You put your favourite band on and get to work.

A sequence of national flags. But I cannot tell you which national flags, because I'm afraid we are in a PUZZLE SITUATION.

Why would anyone do this, and what are they trying to communicate, you ask yourself. You can't help feeling that prickle of fear and intrigue down your spine and in your downstairs friends. It's a feeling you thought you'd forgotten.

'This is too much for me,' you murmur.

You stumble downstairs, wearing absolutely nothing but the wizard's hat you've had to keep on for the last 10 days after losing a bet with Steve.

'Holy shite!' you blurt out, rather oddly. But with good reason. Someone has painted a load of flags on your kitchen wall. W the actual F?

BOOOOOOOOOO

ATTENTION ALL THOSE WHO PLAYED THE COMPANY: BREAKING NEWS

It's a long time since you escaped from The Company, but this morning when you woke up, something felt... familiar. There was a song in your dream that you almost recognised. You grope around in vain to recapture the melody.

AMAND-ED RESULT: it should be on the record that Amanda got it bang on. Very well done to her as well as Maayan. There were small clues in the Christmas lighting and Toronto itself was gettable but you needed some luck with the temperature. You. Are. Playing. Barred. (Sort of.)

Correct, you did. Congratulations.

So that was the original planned visit. It was FOR my 40th birthday, not AT the time. So actually not 'alarmingly accurate'. But.

This is all alarmingly accurate. The New Pornos shows themselves had been postponed from Summer 2020.

Well done to a number of you who got very close to this by different routes, but especially @agentmaayan.bsky.social who got to 5.5 simply by converting her lucky number from fahrenheit into celsius.

Some excellent detective work, here. The temperature - as recorded on a phone note - was a chilly but not unbearable 5 degrees celsius when this was taken, in Toronto, on the 11th of December 2021 (it had been much colder a few days before, when I saw my favourite band there, two nights running).

Isn't it?

Inner-city scene, taken through bars. There appear to be coloured lights hanging from the bars. Behind them, we can see a couple of cars in motion, and the lights of a high-rise building - with a couple of smaller buildings, hard to make out in any detail.

What was the temperature when this photo was taken? Use celsius or fahrenheit depending on what you think is the appropriate choice for the country.