DAVE Townend sends me items that are odd, daft or peculiar.

His emails always raise a smile. This one was intriguing and I don’t know where it came from but it works. It’s a way of telling your age from your shoe size.

Try it yourself.

Take your shoe size (only whole sizes), multiply it by five, add 50, multiply by 20, add 1012 and subtract the year you were born.

When you get your answer, the first digit is your shoe size while the last two digits are your age.

I should imagine there is a simple explanation as to how this works but I don’t know it. Perhaps a mathematician or puzzle solver can explain?