Can you solve the puzzle?

Latin dancing, Indian butter and American troopers are a few of the clues for this yr’s cryptic Christmas problem set by the nationwide spy company.

GCHQ’s annual brainteaser comes within the type of a Christmas card, despatched by Director Anne Keast-Butler.

This yr’s puzzle challenges the general public to decode the names of UK landmarks, testing abilities together with codebreaking, maths and lateral considering.

The deceptively difficult duties require ingenuity and perseverance, GCHQ mentioned.

The 2024 card additionally consists of additional layers for individuals who need to problem themselves additional, with further components hidden inside the code.

GCHQ’s chief puzzler, identified solely as “Colin”, described this yr’s exams as “fiendishly pleasurable”.

Talking to BBC Breakfast on Wednesday, he mentioned a 3rd of secondary faculties throughout the nation had already downloaded them.

The primary – and best – problem options 5 photographs, representing a spot title. Quizzers are requested to decipher the placement.

One of many more durable puzzles asks would-be spooks to calculate how far off from writing the numbers one to twenty the puzzle setters had been.

Ms Keast-Butler, GCHQ’s director, mentioned: “The problem has been designed for a mixture of minds to unravel, so is greatest tackled in teams of classmates, households or pals.

“Whether or not you’ve an analytical thoughts, a inventive mind or desire engineering, there’s one thing for everybody.”

In the meantime, “Colin”, who couldn’t be proven on digital camera, instructed the BBC that the problem was created “partly for enjoyable” – but in addition as a result of the sort of considering required to unravel it “replicates” the sort of work finished in GCHQ “defending the nation.”

“We require a mixture of minds and a mixture of approaches to unravel actual world puzzles and due to that we encourage numerous considering and that embraces neurodiversity,” he mentioned.

Requested whether or not he would advocate a profession at GCHQ for college youngsters who discover they’ll do the puzzle comparatively simply, the company’s chief puzzler mentioned such “intelligence” is strictly what the division is after.

He added that, with secondary faculties downloading the exams, “a really massive variety of faculty youngsters will see this and hopefully be impressed”.

The total problem might be seen under or on GCHQ’s web site.