Lateral Thinking Puzzle

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, there was a street swindler named Shady.

Shady used to offer everyone that walked past the chance to win a priceless diamond, but only if they could guess which hand it was in.  In the other hand, was a coin, choose the coin, and lose, he used to say.  And everyone did lose.  To add to the drama, Shady would open the chosen hand palm down over a ‘try again’ container which the unlucky loser would, each time, see the worthless coin, and their hopes of fortune, drop into.

His stand on the street was very tempting, as it was surrounded by treasure chests full of precious stones, or at least precious looking, which tempted in the eager and occasionally greedy punter who thought they could take on Shady.  Only they always lost, and went away empty handed, greasing Shady’s hand with a pound coin every time.  No-one took the hint from his name that Shady was less than honest, and in fact, everytime he used a little magical flair to switch the diamond for another coin, so in fact he always had two coins in his hand.

Today Our Hero walked up to the stand (call him Fred), and did what no-one else had done - won!  How did he win without having to show in any way that Shady was using underhand tactics to win?

Going Bananas…

It is a not so well-known fact that the best day of the week to pick bananas is a Monday. Allegedly. How many reasons can you come up with as to why this might actually be true?

This is a lateral thinking puzzle, so no idea is necessarily too outlandish - feel free to post any reasons you come up with! But don’t drive yourself bananas thinking about it…