Michael Linton, An English Eccentric

On a side street, just off the main road in Geraldine is a shop rejoicing in the name “ The Giant Jersey “. On entering the shop on the wall to the left there it is, the worlds largest jersey and as you would expect surrounded by shelves full of jerseys. However, as you look around and then through an open door to the rear you can see a continuous picture on the wall that looks like the Bayeux Tapestry. On seeing me looking, the lady behind the counter, who turned out to be Michael’s wife, said if you hurry you can catch Michael explaining it. I quickly enter and there is Michael explaining to Marion and Molly how he made what indeed is a copy of the said tapestry plus.

Michael’s explanation is pure magic. It turns out he works with knitting machines and there is a circular part of a knitting machine which has many 2x2mm approx metal “bits” . These bits are a sort of silver/grey/black colour and I think are removed to control patterns. Michael retrieves these useless bits and painstakingly places them on sticky backed rolls of paper. This however is only the beginning because now, using the resulting “cloth” as a canvas, he paints, with an incredibly fine brush so as not to get the paint leaking down between the metallic bits, the Bayeux Tapestry in faithful detail.

Twenty five years later he finishes the task but then realizes that the original Tapestry was incomplete and so takes an educated guess at what the complete Tapestry might have contained and adds that. The result is fantastic, but this is not the end of the saga.

Firstly, Michael has discovered that the original Tapestry did not include several events in the time line that one can view. Michael of course has researched all the missing events and is now going to find a way to include them.

Listening to all this is quite exhausting and mind blowing but curiously is only a part of the total picture. Michael is into number and alphabetic puzzles so he has combined this with the computerised picture of the tapestry. Throughout the tapestry he has placed a certain pattern of metallic bits which using this computer picture of the tapestry you are invited to find these petterns. On clicking on these “keyholes” an alphanumeric puzzle will be revealed and through solving it you are invited to find a secret word which will have something to do with a film, another hobby of Michaels. There are many of these puzzles spread throughout the Tapestry and you are invited to solve them all and then contact Michael and then he will put your name in lights on his web site.

Now, if this isn’t enough he has invented some other puzzle games and these along with some old favourites like Scrabble and Soduko are all to be found on his CD which contains the copy of the Tapestry.

Since I am an absolute sucker for numeric puzzle games I have of course got my CD and no doubt I will eventually load it on my PC. I daren’t do it now as I can tell you if I did this would positively be the last Post for this Blog.

Finally, Michael has named all the figures and events in the picture and by clicking on the character or the event on the computer copy you have an explanation of the person or the event.

My mind is still boggling at the sheer dedication that Michael has put into all he does and oh by the way his family, wife, son, and daughter are all involved in one way or another.

It was a wonderful hour or so going over all this with Michael and I hope one day to return and see the updated Tapestry. In the meantime I expect I am going to “mis-spend “many hours solving his puzzles.

www.1066.co.nz
www.giantjersey.com