The Lock Keeper's Log — Daily puzzle for 2026-10-20

Easy — logic-grid deduction puzzle

Four volunteers help reopen an old canal lock, and the keeper needs to match their times in the log with their badges and snacks.

The old lock on the canal was opening again after years shut, and four volunteers came early to help: Harold, Ivy, Cyril and Doris. They checked the big wooden gates, wound the paddles and kept the crowd back from the edge. Each of them signed the keeper's log at a different time, wore a different badge, and at the break picked a different snack from the keeper's tin. The keeper wrote one name to a line, earliest at the top, and numbered the lines from one downwards. The ribbon was about to be cut, and the keeper wanted the morning's log put straight first.

Clues

1. Of Harold and Ivy, one signed in at 07:30 and the other at 08:15.
2. Harold signed the log before Ivy did.
3. The person who got the honey bun signed one line below the person who got the fig tart.
4. The line number of whoever wore the brass badge and the line number of whoever got the sesame bar added up to five.
5. In the log, the glass badge turned up right after the brass badge.
6. Either Cyril wore the linen badge or Doris signed in at 09:40, but not both.
7. Whoever got the lemon biscuit had signed in later than whoever got the honey bun.
8. Doris's name went into the log after Cyril's.

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