When I was a student, many years ago, I discovered Piet Hein and his fascinating gruk (grook) poetry, which was originally written as a call to resistance during the Nazi occupation of Denmark. I loved not only the poetry, but also the whimsical illustrations of circular-headed little people which accompanied nearly every grook. I still have a couple of books of his grooks. If you take a fancy to them, they are still in print, obtainable from Borgens Forlag in Valby, Denmark or via Amazon.
What I didn’t know, until I stumbled across the fact this evening, is that Piet Hein also invented the Soma cube. You probably have seen one, even if the name isn’t familiar – it is the wooden puzzle cube (above), which is so easy to take apart, but fiendishly difficult to put back together again. Here it is in disassembled state:
