4 Hats Puzzle

I just received this e-mail from Sifu Michael Durkin (of Shaolin Wahnam Manchester) my navigator for the road trip:

Dear Marcus, hope that you are well!

Well it seems your blog and the puzzles are causing a little stir. Afew of my students are already puzzling
over it, and trying to get hints out of me. And someone sent me an email with a few questions, but they didn't quite have the right
understanding of the puzzle. Heres a complete explanation of the puzzle along with an
image you can add to your blog if it makes things any clearer :

Shown in the image attached are 4 men buried up to their necks in the
ground. They cannot move so can only look forward. Between A and B is
a brick wall which cannot be seen through. They all know that between
them they are wearing 4 hats, 2 x red and 2 x blue, but they do not
know what colour they are wearing. In order to avoid being shot, one
of them must call out to the executioner the colour of their hat. If
they get it wrong, everyone will be shot. They are not allowed to talk
to each other and have 10 minutes to fathom it out.

After 1 minute, one of them calls out.

Question: Which one of them calls out?
Question: Why is he 100% certain of the colour of his hat?

This is not a trick question. There are no outside influences nor
other ways of communicating. They cannot move and are buried in a
straight line. So A & B can only see their respective sides of the
wall, C can see B, and D can see B & C


Best,
Michael

Experience Your Energy

I will be giving a free presentation on how Shaolin Cosmos Chi Kung overcomes so called incurable dis-eases. The venue is the Lancaster Hall Hotel, 35 Craven Terrace, London, W2 3EL, a good 5 minute walk from Paddington Tube station. The time is 19:00 hours (7pm) and the date is 20th September 2007. And the cost is FREE! If you'd like a look at the flyer that accompanies this presentation click here.

I expect my presentation to last around 60 mins, but have the hall booked until 23:00hours (11pm), so there's no need to rush off afterwards.

I look forward to meeting you there, bring your family, bring your friends and bring anyone you know who might be interested in this subject.

Book Update

I sent my book off to my editor (the very talented AnnA Rushton) last week (along with payment for her service). It should be back with me in 2 weeks time. Anna very kindly recommended that she did the first 10 000 words, so that I could see what errors I was making. I could then edit the last 20 000 words and save myself a bundle of cash! Now that's what I call good service.

I will be sending out chapters for "peer" review once it returns from AnnA, to make it as good as I can for you.

Work still to be done involves the photographs (I'll be speaking to the very talanted Claire Bond this Saturday about this project, I need a decent cover concept (any ideas gratefully received) and must confirm the Chinese Calligraphy that I have for the 18 Patterns that are covered by the book.

Then I will be putting a business plan together to go and visit my friendly business bank manager with. Once that hurdle is negotiated it's off to find the right printer and off we go!

So still a fair amount to do, but my goal is to complete all of this in time for Christmas. Because this book will make a great Christmas present (Hint, Hint!).