Tangential Ramblings

I stumbled upon Albert Einstein's apparently famous logic problem today. Here's how it goes.

In a street there are five houses, each painted a different colour. In each house lives a person of a different nationality. These five homeowners each drink a different kind of beverage, smoke a different brand of cigar and keep a different pet.

The question: who owns the fish?

Here are the hints that will help you solve it.

1. The Brit lives in a red house
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets
3. The Dane drinks tea
4. The green house is next to, and on the left of the white house
5. The owner of the green house drinks coffee
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill
8. The man living in the centre house drinks milk
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house
10. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill
12. The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer
13. The German smokes Prince
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbour who drinks water

I used Excel. Purely to organise my thoughts; not for any calculation logic. I reckon you can answer the question (who owns the fish?) without hint 15, but that particular hint gives you a full picture of what everyone drinks.

Let me know how you get on. For those who want to check their answer (against mine at least), go through the following clues, which are hopefully a bit easier.

• Take the letters at the beginning of each of the five one-word answers to the following clues
• Popular Japanese number puzzle
• Keeps the rain off you without the need for a coat
• French for I
• A reflected sound
• Your presents might be put in one of these by Santa
• Re-arrange these to reveal the name of a historic figure
• What did he sleep in as a baby?
• Re-arrange the letters of that word