“AUO. HSM. WTE. 😳 THREE LINES OF LETTERS… AND ONE PHRASE HIDDEN SOMEWHERE IN PLAIN SIGHT.” The question looked almost too simple when it appeared on The 1% Club: “What well-known phrase can you see here? AUO HSM WTE” No complicated maths. No long sequence to decode. Just three strange-looking lines of letters sitting on the screen. But that simplicity was exactly what made it so difficult. As the countdown began, contestants had to stop reading the letters normally and start thinking about how they were arranged. The seconds kept disappearing while the answer remained frustratingly out of reach. Then came the reveal. Suddenly, the familiar phrase seemed to jump off the screen — leaving viewers wondering how they could have stared at the same three lines without seeing it. The letters were right there the whole time… But would you have spotted the phrase before the 30 seconds ran out?

PLAYERS on The 1% Club were left stumped by a tricky question surrounding a “common phrase”.

The quiz show, hosted by Lee Mack, is known for being notoriously difficult with the latest episode being no exception.

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Those players lucky enough to make it all the way to the 5% question had a real challenge on their hands when Lee asked them to decipher a commonly used phrase from a board of seemingly random letters.

Seeming simple, the question read: “What well-known phrase can you see here.”

12 letters then appeared in a box and at first glance would not appear to be in any clear order.

With 30 seconds on the clock, the remaining players had to see if they could see what the phrase was.

With just seven remaining in play, Lee was left stunned when it managed to wipe out six contestants with just one player, named Steve, getting it correct.

It was soon revealed that there were hidden words doing an action that is required of them in the said well-known phrase.

The answer that Lee was looking for was: “What goes up must come down.”

It was then highlighted how the word “what” was featured in the first column of the box of letters beginning with the letter W at the bottom – thus reading as “what” going in an upwards direction.

The other two columns featured the words “must” and “come” descending down the column.

It therefore exemplified how literally “what” was going up” and “must come” was going down.

With only Steve getting the difficult question correct, he successfully managed to pass to the final round – the all-important 1% question.

But for the other six players, their chances of winning £100,000 were dashed.

Steve landed £10,000 for being the last player standing but opted to gamble it in order to be in with a chance of winning the £100k.

His decision took Lee by surprise, but he then revealed the 1% question which was: “What two letters replace the question marks?”

Underneath the rest of the puzzling question read: “TE times T equals MESSAGE. TO times IN equals POISON. E times ?? equals LEAVE.”

After his 30 seconds were up, Steve revealed he had locked in his answer as “NE.”

There was a dramatic pause, then Lee revealed he had got it wrong, with the correct answer being “IT” and the explanation: “If you replace ‘times’ with ‘X’, you form words with the same meaning as the words on the right.”

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