Kerry's riddle...

Posted June 4, 2000 1:38 PM.

Kerry is becoming quite ubiquitous. I quoted him a couple of days ago, and now, Mark at Riothero is quoting him as well. I promised Kerry that I'd set up a weblog for him on my server, and I still haven't gotten around to it, which just illustrates what a bad person I am. In the meantime, he will have to remain the dark figure behind the scenes - the Charlie behind the Angels.

Anyway, he sent Mark and I the same riddle:

1. In a street there are 5 different houses in five different colours.
2. In each house lives a person with a different nationality.
3. These five owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain
brand of cigar and keep a certain pet.
4. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar or drink
the same beverage.

(pretend there is a drawing of five houses here -- identical in shape (but
not colour) in every way.
House 1 House 2 House 3 House 4 House 5

The question is: Who owns the fish?
To prove you are not guessing, specify his nationality, colour house, brand
of smoke and preferred beverage.
Clues:
- The Brit lives in the red house
- The Swede keeps dogs as pets
- The Dane drinks tea
- The green house is on the left of the white house
- The green house's owner drinks coffee
- The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds
- The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill
- The man living in the center house drinks milk
- The Norwegian lives in the first house
- The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats
- The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill
- The owner who smokes BlueMaster drinks beer
- The German smokes Prince
- The Norwegian lives next to the blue house
- The man who smokes Blends has a neighbour who drinks water

It took me 25 minutes. Have a go and e-mail me when you think you have the answer, and I'll tell you if you are right...