54 multicoloured facets of hell

We figure that, if we’re going to count the Mecury Maze as a toy, then this iconic puzzle has to be listed in the catalogue too. For a start, it was one of those so-easy-to-manufacture products that blokes with suitcases down the precinct would have countless knock-offs for sale at pocket money prices. Hence, we don’t think we ever knew anyone who owned a branded version and, naturally, that’s what we really wanted¹.

We’re still unsure whether or not Professor Rubik actually endorsed the barrel, ball, hexagon or keyring incarnations of his original cube-shaped arthritis-provider, but we are confident that both Rubik’s Magic and Snake are canon. Secondly, the sheer amount of peripheral merchandise that the cube craze generated qualifies it for inclusion, principally the section of John Menzies devoted to “solution” books that offered anything but. Inevitably written by either precocious fifteen year-olds who shared a tailor with antiques freak-boy James Harries or spatial engineers from Brunel, they all amounted to a single set of impenetrable instructions; get one side sorted then somehow magically conjure up the remaining sides.

The hilarious dad-joke method of cracking the puzzle (“peel all the stickers off and put them back on in the right order”) was rubbish and, in any case, impossible. And, whilst there was always one kid in the class who could finish the thing fast enough to qualify him a spot on Record Breakers, the only option for mere mortals was to take a screwdriver to the thing. Rubik did, however, spark a short-lived interest in the wider potential of the geometric brainteaser, so we probably have him to thank for origami kits, 3D chess, and those bloody tangled steel wire puzzles that turn up in crackers to this day.

Image © 2005. Rubik’s and Rubik’s Cube used by kind permission of Seven Towns Ltd UK, www.rubik.com