missing riddles (tEXt 2002)

missing riddles (tEXt 2002)

The Exeter Book is an Anglo Saxon manuscript of poetry including 95 riddles

The Exeter Book is strangely missing from Exeter’s municipal profile

20 riddles have never been translated due to their partial or damaged state

In May 2002 we were ‘artist – in – residence’ for the first annual ‘tEXt 2002 – Place and the Word’ Festival coordinated by Simon Persighetti and based at the Phoenix Arts Centre in Exeter.

We responded to the 19 missing riddles from the anglo- saxon Exeter Riddle Book (missing due to the rough and careless use of the manuscript over the years including its use as a bread board and beer mat) which is held in Exeter Cathedral. Using pages from The Books as a source we wrote 19 new Exeter Riddles for specific items of generic street furniture found around Exeter – a post box, a road sign, a cash point machine etc etc.

The Missing Riddles website including visual clues and solutions were uploaded to a website at www.missingriddles.co.uk this link will open in a new window.

Other work included a live web surf event, a videographic city alphabet and a collaboration with DJ Johnny d’Bini on a club night in the bar.

missing riddle 18

Where locals carve their names with pride I am s(h)at upon and heart uprooted. A combined purpose of roost and rest, the extent of this welcome a hexagon. Painted and worn, as the dead. The comforts here are officially sponsored. With weary feet banked beneath lie I give feathers to shade and citizens to pigeons.

I am at rest.

I begin to bloom as early as the first part of June and continue right on until the autumn months instead of leaving a starlike image they reveal themselves as a short line.

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

missing riddle 19

I am clock and recorder, a dispenser of permissions issued on request. I exchange evidence of due payment. Hence my lid is cack.

Beside a moulded tree which pigeons fancy she sports fine braids and holds a scythe above me. I tell the time and my date is torn – the position of these should also be marked.

Of bitter news the bearer.

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

missing riddle 36

Here w(H)it (H)ails in the Guildhall’s stone nook. A pedestrian pause before motorisation. One keeps me company, then two, then three.

I rise from the ground but support nothing. My resituated patina of changing masters framed against a wall. Predictions replaced and replaced.

“Why could I not have guessed something like this would happen?”

184 – what’s my line?

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

missing riddle 41

One is told that I am me.

I once was nine but now I’m 12. Metal, curved and rust aligned. My feet are in, not on, the ground.

There’s nothing magic about this. Lean on me and lie in chains.

Then proceed with turning up.

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

missing riddle 63

I am black, my face is white. I lurk beneath danger where Martins lay.

Everybody values me for what they do not want. The issues involved are not difficult to understand.

There are at least 1037 others. I am a pitch coming up from the streets.

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

missing riddle 67

“The triumphant baroque of the monastery”

I am obscure and arrogant in my imposition. I am predominantly male and often stained. I am an exaggerated waste of space growing a cloak of oxidised blue.

“Poor miserable man! with such beast blindness in the present”

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

missing riddle 68

Altered and prejudiced the position, the power, the prestige, the usefulness of this house ….

I sign and am signed sanctifying the marketplace immemorial.

Some official my names are Charles Susan Albert Linda Woodland Ady Nigel Tony Embedded.

Being 42 years of stone and pencil and wedding confetti and tone effaced just to show you that children are still going on making up new names.

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

missing riddle 71

Composed of a fine network of connective tissue.

I stand alone.

Already out of order and stuck with apologies.

I hang betwixt 2nd Floor instructions and While U Wait locked box.

There is usually nothing to show that is not quite sound.

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

missing riddle 73

Things about me are suggestive of the open and closed; in which sense I might be thought of as spoken for.

I expose and am exposed (day and night activities).

I offer rules with provisos.

In fact I cast down directions. Tilted to the ground I am humble, slighlty bowed.

When it is desired to know. Rely on me, the auxiliary view.

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

missing riddle 75

I’m a patched stone stage for crossing characters. Step by step actors approach. When one arm is still the other is moving.

An ordered system in which all things are interlinked.

The beginnings and endings of ‘zone’.

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

missing riddle 78

The construction is simple strong and convenient.

I am two in one and one in two; the first and the second mostly. Scratch my face I am already part of a collection fed by hands. My number is unlucky, my day never ends.

I’m full of seals but remain unsealed. I have a red body and flat black feet thought to symbolise the whole.

What am I ?

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

missing riddle 82

Between Percy’s triangle and curve I lurk behind metal stealing yellow.

A glutinous entrance to hidden depths.

I give breath to that legend of delusive expediency which filth calls sanitation.

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

missing riddle 87

Remnants of palm I have two hands and feed on strips. A direction and an expression of psycho-geographic boundary assemble me.

I interrupt another company in an alleyway of entered passages. I give what surrender on promise is asked of me.

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

missing riddle 88

Solitary specimens took flight and flew. Or ….. is too awful to think about.

She is in her bedroom wearing an off the shoulder top and sucking a rocket lolly.

My presence announces absence and flys in the face of commercial music with a home made plea. By morning my urgency may have already been covered.

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

missing riddle 89

Turning a constantly blind eye.

Public and private meet down here passing an underground seat of anxiety and necessity where “she” studied interior design.

Where am I?

Think Botticelli.

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

missing riddle 90

Gold ! in these hills perhaps?

There are many others. I’m on the corner as it happens. Inset and segmented along a curve.

My alliteration is punctured. Take care now lest your tongue should trip. I name and inform and suggest possibilities to do with a car.

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

missing riddle 92

We are the better for this passing. A this and a that of the tracks.

A green metal coat for a Queen between zones.

I cross and am crossed over, my feet of engineering stretch immediate results.

missing riddle 19

Pay and Display Meter on Sidwell St. Exeter

The Exeter Book is hidden in the Cathedral Library

The Exeter Book has been used in the past as a cutting board and a beer mat

some of the missing riddles have now been found…..

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