My son was watching a TV quiz and couldn't work out how they arrived at an answer. I said, "give it to me son, I'll show you". It's now been 3 days and I'm losing sleep over it. If there are any intelligent people out there who can explain this, please put me out of my misery.

Question is as follows:

"In nineteen eighty-one Peter Patten was born. He graduated aged twenty-one and intended to travel to forty countries. He married when twenty-three which prevented his travels".

Add the numbers...

The answer is 5679, apparently; but for the life of me...


Tonish