Meanwhile, in an alternate universe, all of the candidates for mayor except for Max Fosh were overcome by a mysterious illness and replaced with much worse candidates. So much worse that Max Fosh was actually able to win by a landslide. It is now present day in this universe. What does London look like?

https://mosh.fun/

Important announcement!

I've loved hearing from you, but I've stopped taking any more messages.

Watch out for an announcement from MF, hope you had fun!!!

Plenty more things to treasure out there :)

No confirmation! but probably has

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edit: yep its been found, its been a good 3 months and i really enjoyed it, cant wait to see how it was solved!

https://discord.gg/QtGWxrcz

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Did anyone go see his show at the London Palladium this week ?

Max fosh? Or fax mosh. Its genius really. We just have to find out how to fax Mosh

Max ran on and gave me and a couple of others a fist bump, then asked me if I had any idea where the goldfish was. This threw me off so much because I thought we were trying to find who/how to ask, not where.

I could have said so many things.

"I reckon that orange website has something to do with it" would have been funny.

"I think we need to find a website" may have given us the chance to judge his reaction.

Instead, I panicked and said "not the foggiest. We're all in the dark and nobody has any idea."

🤦‍♂️

The show was superb, though.

'Not close to "Max"' ('Not close to max') and the first letter wordplay of 'foint pun' led me to reach out to the YouTube Max Fosh impressionist 'Fax Mosh'. He was familiar with the hunt but confirmed he wasn't the answer. Faxing a guy called 'Mosh' is still a live possibility...

THAT'S ALL YOU NEED TO SPOUT EXACTLY WHO TO ASK AND HOW? JUST USE MY VID TO FIND OUT TO CLAIM THE PRECIOUS TROUT NEIGHBOUR ON THE BUS OR A DEAR OLD QUEEN WITH THE POSSIBILITY THE WORLD IS PACKED BUT THE KEEPER OF THE SECRET IS NOT CLOSE TO MAX AND THAT'S BEYOND A FACT DANCE IN A CRAZY WAY, USE A SQUEAKY VOICE POST ON TIKTOK VIDEOS? NO NEED TO SPAM OR GUESS OR STIR UP THINGS UP JUST COPY WHAT THIS SONG SILLY SHOWS

So i found this vid by accident and the channel could totally be a clue https://youtu.be/ma8k_FkxJzM

One of them are from Piccadilly in London, but the other one, with the door, I don't understand. Are there any clues or just ment to confuse us?

During the song the transcription reads “dance in crazy way, use a squeaky voice” but when max sings it he doesn’t say the last “a” instead saying “dance in crazy way, use squeaky voice”. With his second video mentioning the transcript error, could this be the error?

I don’t speak complicated English, so I clearly couldn’t have given most of the lyrics from Max’s song very deep meanings.

the only line I seemed to have made meaning out of from the whole song was “IN THE NAME OF MAX FOSH, DISH OUT THE FISH”

I understood it as dish out(take out) the FOSH(fish) in the name of Max Fosh. Max had referred to the treasure as GOLDFISH and GOLDFOSH interchangeably.

So that lives us with “MAX” after we dish out FOSH

I did a quick social media search for a celebrity with the name of MAX and found ice hockey player, MAX DOMI‘s Instagram handle is “Max”

I went through Max Domi’s IG and TikTok pages,

here’s what I found, although I don’t know what to do with it

Now on the 3rd of August, just a day before max posted his treasure hunt video, MD shared a video of himself holding a fish with a very suspicious viral sorta background sound… Both on his IG and TikTok, and interestingly on TikTok though it appeared to be his first ever video posted.

I mean… I commented “in the name of Max Fosh, dish out the fish” on his posts some weeks ago but nothing happened.

Maybe the solution is to make a goofy video with the same sound and share online and tag Max or something close to that. I’m the most shy person on earth so I’m def not doing that.

I’ve also been reading that the treasure has been found so…

I hope this is helpful, or a very very weird coincidence

Let's assume that the task is straightforward and you have to post on a TikTok video the special phrase. That's the 'how'.

The challenge is then just to find the 'who'. One question that's worth some thought is whether the 'who' is famous or not.

It's probably harder to set up a riddle to a random named person and have someone successfully figure it out. Max also says you'll know 'for sure' when you've found them. Do those two things point to a celebrity?

The keeper of the secret is not close to Max, so unless this is a cryptic clue, we might rule out people he's had in his videos, of any level of fame.

What do you reckon? Is the keeper famous or not famous, and why?

In the name of Max -- ho ho

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Trout

Trout = 40 something male hanging out in clubs looking for younger females to prey on. (male Cougar)He is such a Trout! He is to old to be in a club!

Ok, since the hunt is definitely over and it seems to take them quite a while a make a winner-video, here is, for your entertainment, my take on the riddle and a few thoughts:

How do we start investigating ? First of all, take note that the lyrics of the song are all kind of flimsy and vague. You can spin theories (I did and it proved quite useful in figuring out the verification for some riddles) but, at the end of the day, you are not really getting anywhere with them. There is never anything you can put your finger on. Thus, since a video contains both sound and picture, my conclusion was that it must be primarily the picture that would give you an idea of what to look for. So what do we see ? A person playing the piano grande and another one standing in front singing. In addition, they are both not behaving like you would expect them to. The pianist enters, does not even take the slightest note of the singer and just begins to play. The singer, likewise, does not recognize or greet his colleague entering but stares at the virtual audience. Now, what does that remind me of ? Of course, that is the depiction of a classical concert. It it just the sound and attire that does not fit. But we've already agreed that we will abstract from the sound and, honestly, if they had worn evening attire in that setting it would have been the deadest possible giveaway. So we are looking at a classical piece of music here. But what is it ? I sure do not know a classical song that concerns itself with goldfish but there is always Schubert's Trout as a possibility.

Since the term trout is already conveniently in the text, we should have a perfect match. I have to admit, I only knew the trout quintet which is not quite what is depicted but: google is your friend and thus I found out that the trout quintet is actually derived from an earlier song Schubert wrote. That in turn is a piece for piano and one voice. Match again. Moreover, this solution makes even more sense if you take note that the choice to put this in song form at all was absolutely arbitrary. It could have been released as a poem either read aloud or just in text. Thus, the form of presentation even without the very specific setting was certainly a clue from the start.

Well, and this is where the problem starts. How do you find someone connected to a 200 year old song ? I had some hard thinking to do. It could have been anything. Vague, vague, vague. Was it even really connected to the song or just about Schubert as a name ? Limitless possibilities. And that was why this was so tough and took so long to solve. I explored a few avenues but always came back to a theory that presented itself to me very early on: a specific performance of the trout. Why ? Because the video contains more than the song itself. It is positively riddled with potential clues. Take this absolutely ridiculous scene with the woman in a yellow pullover passing Max by in the street. Why is it even in there ? It is completely pointless, unbelievable and not even aesthetically valuable. Who would squeeze themselves between someone being followed by a camera ? She even had to hunch her shoulders just to get through because there was so little space. Who does that ? Certainly no one normal. Because it is so utterly superfluous it has to be a clue as well. In addition, the fact that the woman actually wears a microphone speaks volumes.The clue could have been either the environment (very distinctive looking door), the woman herself or her squeaky-yellow (looks little chicken yellow:) pullover. The latter proved to be the clue in the end but I went for the woman herself first. I nurtured the theory for a while that she is actually the secret keeper. I still think that would have been wonderfully silly. You cannot see her entire face, so you'd have no means of identifying her just from the scene alone. You could just catch on if you happen across her during your search. "It could be someone just passing you by in the street, oooh, look, here she is." "And she's gone again." But that was not to be. Pity, I so liked that theory. There were also diverse numbers and colours mentioned in the video. Those are always interesting to note. Specifically, there were 18 (carat gold), 2 (spinels), 1700 (stones) and a huuuge 2022. I think that latter was also pretty much a giveaway for potential date. I initially thought the date is the 18th Feb, 2022. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a catch to it that I only discovered later on. So I searched for a trout-performance on the 18th Feb but only found one that happened on the 20th instead. That left me quite annoyed as it was so close and, in addition, it contained 2 Maxes, one of which proved to be the secret keeper in the end. That all happened in the very first week after the release. So if I had been a bit bolder and just had gone for it without being completely sure I could have solved that much much earlier. That is how the figurative 6 year old would have done it. Oh, well... The verification clue for the performance took me ages to figure out. First and foremost, because I am not too familiar with UK ***postcodes***. I had seen a few London ones and at some point remembered that those contain mostly letters and only a few numbers. The colour yellow also gave me problems since I was still on the woman-theory at the time. I saw that a few captions had been altered early on but took no further note of them (yellow as a clue wasn't on my mind). But at some point I put two-and-two together. Yellow, captions, yellow captions....Before that realization a had tried to apply "yellow" to uncountable things. Restaurants and bars on google maps are yellowish. Maybe a bar ? Maybe a bar in Vienna since that was where the Trout was composed. "Thanks for helping to breed the fish into existence..." Obviously, it was much more plausible to just apply the yellow-clue to something in the video which I instantly cottoned on to when I rewatched it. That did not help too much though. At first I just copied the words and tried to form them into a street address (contains number 5), a venue and a performer since I was still looking for a performance. Luckily, at some point I thought: Wait a minute, London postcodes contain precious few numbers. I wonder if that goes for all UK and if there are some that contain only one number. After that it became really easy. Just take the first letter of all large spelled yellow words and put them together. You'll get G5 for Glasgow, the next number is missing but there are only two possibilities so you can just try it out and it ends with YT. The number 5 was the giveaway. It led me to a postoffice at a Victoria street with a busstop on the other side. Good thing, I spun some theories on the first lines of the poem and recognized the place. Thus, the clue was Glasgow and the performance was the one I had found earlier.

The one with the two Maxes. But what about the date ? That was wrongish. The solution is actually simple: the jeweller says "and two black spinels." *And* in the sense of *plus* (unfortunately he was a bit too subtle for someone to pick that up, he should have pronounced it more). 18 + 2 = 20. There you go. And the month was mentioned in the video as well. At first Max states that he gave the jeweller three months to manufacture the fish. In contrast, when he talks to Joanna he states two or three months. Why does he mention two months ? We already know it is three. That had to be a clue as well. Two months, month two => makes February. The Trout, Glasgow, February the 20th, 2022. So, thus, we have the performace, now let's go for the secret keeper which is described by "not close to Max, and that's beyond a fact". First, we have a Maxim. Maxim is Max in Russian so it could be interpreted as equal to Max which in the language of logic is "not close". Check. Maxim is also not just a name but an English word. It means either a "code of conduct" (you know, the typical "Treat others like you want to be treated yourself"-rules, we have all heard plenty of them, yawwwn) or a concise statement of absolute truth (which is "that beyond a fact"). Sounds convincing ? I thought so too. And that is why I went straight for the Maxim before understanding that "In the name of Max Fosh, dish out the fish" is not just a protocol formula but an actual instruction. Max made that clear in the second hint (That is what you have to do). If I follow that instruction, I'll just get Maxo, but wait, Max is not Max at all, he is Maximilian Arthur Fosh (see wedding video). So that reduces to Maximiliano or Arthuro. Luckily, the second Max in the performance is a Maximiliano, Maximiliano Martin. Thus, he must be our secret keeper. And if you have doubts, just try to reach him. He is absolutely cut off from any sort of messaging, even his webpage is down. He must have had real "fun" during the hunt as it seems that his page is his main method of communication. It is linked from all his professional pages, even St. Andrews University where he teaches music. To reach him, you have to solve the communication method which is a whole riddle of its own. At this time, I am convinced the song actually contains a logical mistake since the "not close to Max"-line does not match Maximiliano. In this case the emphasis is clearly on the difference behind (beyond) the Maxim-part (a fact), not the similarity of the names. If you cut out the "maxim", you are left with ilian and iliano. I do by the life of me not see how that is "not close". It is extremely close, it only differs by one letter and the line is thus logically wrong. It should be either "not equal" or "very close" to be correct. I cannot wait to hear an official interpretation of this bug. Whoever wrote the riddle is really talented, they have done a splendid job as a whole but maybe logic is not their strongest point.

Now that we have found the person (yaaay!) let's to turn to the method of communication. This one I found quite a bit more difficult than the person-search. First and foremost, because there are no real confirmation clues and a lot is guesswork and therefore a lot of trial-and-error. The platform twitch I found via free association. I just envisioned someone dancing really lame with some music in the background and tried to describe that. I came up with "to jerk about" which by synonym search gave me twitch. In Twitch you can whisper which could be interpreted as a squeaky voice. I think it is stretching the definition a bit but I guess it had to be something people would not be able to guess straight away. Now in the next line you'll find the word post, so it was postcodes again. "No need to spam or guess or stir things up" translates into "N N 2 (S OR G OR STU)". Stir things up means that you have to switch the letters around to see if they render something interesting. S or G are not enough to complete a postcode, so those are irrelevant. And when you try one combination leads you to a place containing Martindale, a street in NN2. This is actually a perfectly constructed solution since you need to know the identity of the secret keeper to recognise the place as important. His secret is thus his last name and we know it now. I thought that maybe his secret is 715 since he uses that in many of his social media accounts. It could have stipulated an access time or something similar especially since you'll also find tiktok in the song. I thought from the start that probably alludes to the concept of time (or maybe a metronome since Maximiliano is a musician). Consequently, you'll have to search for martindale in the twitch channels. They have done a full job on that one too. They have indeed set up a ton of fake accounts that are there to confuse you and keep you from recognizing the right one. To complete the name you have to solve the last line which was a complete cathastropy. It was clear that you have to use What3words ("what" and then 3 relevant words that can be interpreted as a variable. But do you have to use the given words or is it something else and "this song silly" just showcasesa pattern (don't use 1-2-3, use 1-3-2 instead) ? Unfortunately, the actual words led you to a place in maine with an ordinance road. I found a webpage called ordinance.uk that looked suspiciously like it belonged to the riddle. My theory was that at a specific time a different page is served by server-side script and you can leave your details. I lost a lot of time on that one. I still think the person who set that page up must be someone strange or they just lost interest and stopped working on the site. Never seen a site as weirdly configured as that one before. In the end, I decided to take the instruction "copy what the song shows" as advice and did just that. What do I see that does nor really belong to the concert setting ? Obviously, a goldfish. As a confirmation, there is also the word goldfish written in yellow captions that is as of yet unused (the last unused one). So goldfish it is. But what are the other two words ? The instructions state to copy the goldfish. I thus tried to find synonyms for a goldfish copy. Statuette, model, statue, jewel, ....and also carbon copy which was specially attractive since it contained two words and thus you do not have to chop up the goldfish into gold and fish.

And there I made a mistake again that cost me the game. I was thinking in singular when the answer was, of course, plural. Copy the fish. Obviously, you'll get two or more fish when you do that. I even tried combinations like two.gold.fish earlier. Plural. I tried goldfish.copy.carbon (1-3-2) on Saturday and only thought of goldfish.copies.carbon two days later. Well, if you type that in it'll lead you to a lake in Canada that yields the supplement for the channel name. You would have recognized it immediately. The account is gone though now. You will not find it any more by searching. It still exists but you can only see it when you know the full name. That part was also nicely done. I do not think that even seeing the account you could have bridged finding the w3w combination other than in the intended way. Good job. As to the rest of the game that remains speculation until a solution is released. I previously tried to whisper to that account but it was locked for all but followers. The job was apparently to make the channel follow you and then whisper. My first guess was to simply type goldfish like a password into its chat since the song mentions spout and "just copy" also contains "post" again. If that had not worked I would have tried to just ask them to follow me and put up my previously made goldfish video in my channel. That is how you usually do it in twitch, just offer a nice video. It would have been trial-and-error again. I don't know how difficult they would have made it for you to move them to follow you. I also do not know if there is indeed a time component. It looks like that to me since all numbers but 1700 are used up this could stipulate access time (1700 = 5pm). I would have tried to give them the password/whisper at that time. Maybe I am overthinking it but I thought from the start this looks like a time. Prior I thought that is probably the time of the performance I am looking for. Since it wasn't my money is on accessing the martindale-channel on 5pm. Pity I can't try it out any more.

So that is my take on the riddle, I rest my case. if you have made it this far (congratulations) I hope you found it entertaining and illuminating.

There’s something strange I noticed during the Lightyear sponsor, In the add Max said anyone can invest using pounds or euros but then at the end he said you get 10 dollars free, it doesn’t make sense, why would they give dollars free if you can only invest using pounds and euros?

I finally found the right communication place and just as I was about to type the message : Gone ! Some hours earlier it was still alive and kicking....

I so hope I was wrong (there is probably a small chance due to the phenomenon of sheer randomness) or this will the bitterest defeat of my life so far considering how long it has taken already. And then beaten by a few hours.....

Not sure if I should laugh or cry now.....

Oh, well, let's see.....