Whangarei is a Maori word, and js pronounced "Farng-a-ray" (as close as I can get it with the Maori pronunciation). Always nice for this kiwi to see some NZ representation in the Times! Big fan, always learning a lot from you Simon.
I've been doing cryptics for over 60 years, and am still learning, so just love these weekly episodes from you. For all that, I was a bit shocked, having been born and bred in Whangarei, not to have noticed until now that the name contained the word "hangar". Well done, putting that one together!
The Friday cryptic video is always a great start to my morning! Particular appreciation for the quick jab at Protoss @15:24. It's been many years since I last played Brood War, but just remembering DT rushes still gets me!
This pre-lockdown fan would never begrudge you a break. You often mention the positive impact these videos have on people's mental health. I would never want you to break yourself. Folk can always watch the rich back catalogue (perhaps curate 7 and bug out for a week), or what about handing the channel over to a fellow sudoku solver for a week??! (Fear nought - we'll never love them as much as we love you and Mark.)
First of all - agree ; TH-cam algorithm ; we do love cryptic crossword content! I didn't get SHOREWARD without using a word pattern matcher either ; could the cannonball be a SHOT, shortened to SHO ; and "due" be a REWARD ; SHO + REWARD = SHOREWARD Something like that? Fiendish clue!
Enjoy your holiday Simon!! Such grateful appreciation that you continue to give us these amazing cryptic crosswords every Friday!! Just a joy and pleasure to see you solve them!!
The 'kerf' is the width of a cut by a saw. I know that because I'm subbed to a carpentry channel as well as yours. It's also one of the oldest words in the Indo-European language family.
Please take all the breaks you need. I love your content and want you to be able to continue to make it. That means take good care of yourself. Thank you
While I still couldn't solve these alone to begin with (not being a native speaker), I think I am getting better. I have never known so many solutions ahead of Simon during a video. This was a very good video, but Mark's monthly club solve on Patreon was just utterly insane.
Yes, he even recorded a video of himself playing it 2 or 3 years ago (or so). It's on the channel somewhere! I'd just thought of that the other day for some reason.
This crossword was pretty tough. Kerf ran the vaguest of bells, but I had never heard of a vaporetto and didn't know Whangarei I had to work the cryptics pretty hard to come up witht he answers, but it is all there if your are patient. I thought my time of 55 minutes was pretty good for a non-champion-level solver.
Thank you Simon! These videos are even more helpful when you come to a tricky clue and we get an insight into your thought processes - through your pain we grow 😅
It's really weird how I could have spent a year and never got vaporetto or inarable, but I got shoreward, think heading towards the land. Really well done Simon, great puzzle.
I actually got 13 across quite quickly, here's my logic: Cannonball shortly => SHO(T) => SHO due => REWARD to land => SHOREWARD Holiday brain strikes when you least expect.
Thank you so much for these weekly videos. I thoroughly enjoy them. I’ve started doing the daily quick cryptics on my own, but I’m hardly quick. I’m often stumped by cricket terms and some slang (I’m from the US). I should start a word list like the young Simon! Enjoy your holiday!
Another Friday toughie. 22:41 for me, with a couple of the answers constructed purely from the wordplay, a couple put in from the definition without understanding the wordplay, and a couple where I had a vague idea what was going on, but was half expecting them to be marked wrong. When I solved 16ac I exclaimed “that’s so clever” out loud, even though I was alone at the time. But I felt I had to let the universe know.
My favorite time of the week is definitely today! I'm counting the days for the cryptic crossword videos, I'm really having a great time Simon, and this time I knew a few words before you (even though it was pure luck) 😁
Had a quick scan through this morning, but didn't get a clue on first pass. Very busy travelling, so when I saw comments on Tftt, decided to leave it. Always enjoy Simon's analysis
Super happy to see you on holiday and not sick! One way I remember Latin for “force” as “vis” is a line from the Aeneid, Fit via vi, which means something like “he makes his way by force” and it’s such a silly sounding line, but it’s basically describing a soldier fighting his way through a castle to capture the king.
I love how Simon, and Mark and all of us, use the 'Englishman abroad' solving method. Maybe if we say the clue even slower and with slightly weirder emphasis, it'll become clear.
Hats off to the solving of that NZ city. I might be wrong but I think it might also have been one of the codewords used by the Pathfinder force for a particular type pf target marking during WW2.
I think that might be the German-influenced parts of Italy. Very few Italian words include K, and "speck" is German for "bacon" - Rühreier mit Speck is scrambled eggs and bacon as a German breakfast dish. But as you say, nothing to do with spam.
I've never been more proud of myself than when I figured out the last word before Simon at 1 hour mark exactly. I immediately thought of cannonball being shot and when I saw shore (relating to land) fit the letters I just tried to think of something re_a_d that could even be and came up with reward. Shoreward sounded like something that could be a word so I checked it out and it was correct.
Spek (Dutch spelling) refers to bacon cut into cubes and is a common form of ham in Dutch kitchens. Apparently it was a Spanish recipe "borrowed" during the Eighty Years War which eventually ended the Habsburg occupation of the Netherlands. It is also claimed to be the origin of the word "spick" (probably more or less extinct by now), a derogatory term for a Spaniard when I was a youngster in the UK.
I understand nothing about cryptic crosswords, but my geoguessr skills came in handy in this episode, and for the first time I ever I understood a cryptic crossword clue, Wharangei
You are a guitarist, if you look inside your guitar you will see strips of wood on the sides to enable attachment of the front and back. These have been kerfed.......partially sawn through to enable them to folloe the curvature of the sides
Love these videos. And just occasionally I get the clue or word eg kerf first. It does give me hope. Even if my wordplay skills need serious improvement. 😅😅
Thought you'd be all over vis as a word. I don't know Latin but I do randomly remember the origin of the name of that well known bread HoVIS. Note the small o in the name. Hominis vis.The Strength of Man!
"Speck" appears in the delightful German word "Kummerspeck", which literally translated is "grief bacon". It's an idiom for weight put on from overeating when under stress.
Wow.. That was tough, though the New Zealand one was at least gettable from the wordplay. The change in pronunciation of 'rises' when you add a C at the front seemed to block the penny from dropping for me, and with that answer intersecting with the unusual 'shoreward' many others must also have been left with those as their last two.
India is I in the NATO alphabet. Number plates on Indian cars usually carry two letters associated with the state they are registered in or the more recent BH registration (Bharat being the sanskrit name for India) for cars with all India road permits
Hey Simon I just wanted to say it would be nice if you’d mention in prerecorded videos that they are prerecorded, just so that people don’t get confused or disappointed when shout out requests seem ignored
The clue may be hard but it's perfectly fair. Simon's first problem was reading the beginning as (Cannonball + shortly due) rather than (Cannonball shortly + due), probably assisted by thinking of "due" as an adjective rather than a noun. And after spotting SHOREWARD he got a bit hung up on seeing "shortly due to land" as the definition rather than just "to land" = "towards land".
@@peterbiddlecombe1939 Generally I'm entirely in agreement that Simon can sometimes forget his own rules about indicator words and specificity, however in this particular instance I note a significant number of the "Times for the Times" people didn't get it either. It's all good. I'm not ragging on the constructor or Simon, both of whom are more brilliant than I'll ever be. Sometimes clues just don't gel with our way of thinking.
before I get blown up the phonetic pronounciation is (fong-a-ray) [the wh = F A = O and rei = ray] (I know it may look butchered, but it's whanga mate ;P (slick no, but one hellova nice place to holiday - try it some time)
The kerf is the width of a sawcut. The saw's teeth are generally set alternating to the left and right of the blade, which means that the blade doesn't get stuck in its own cut. The width of the set on the teeth defines the saw's kerf. It's odd how you can instantly latch onto some obscure term, and justify it by the wordplay, yet you couldn't see that cannonball was "shot", dropping the "t" making it shorter, then "reward" is "due". Putting them together "shoreward" = "to land". You seemed to lose your crossword brain completely. "Shortly" is an obvious wordplay operator. You seemed incapable of splitting "shortly due", which is a weird phrase to want to keep together in a cryptic crossword, since if something is due, the "shortly" is redundant, and we don't like redundancy in clues. Your other (very rare) failures have been somewhat forgivable, but this was an epic fail. If you had only applied your own instructions to solving it, you'd have got this quickly. You never even considered what "cannonball shortly" might be. "Speck is a cold-cured, lightly smoked ham or bacon typical of the north-eastern regions of Italy" according to La Cucina Italiana.
"Shoreward" is shot shortened to "sho," followed by "reward" for your due.
Ah, thank you. Had me stumped . Brilliant puzzle!
Yes, that’s very clever! Certainly too clever for Holiday Brain Simon!!!
Cutting the clue after “due” so the definition is just “to land” is so unintuitive.
This was the last entry I solved. Tricky as hell, but very clever.
Read the comments early and did not understand the hard part until Simon got there in the actual video😅
Dear TH-cam algorithm: please learn that we all like puzzling and this is not only Sudoku but also crosswords. Thanks, a watcher
Whangarei is a Maori word, and js pronounced "Farng-a-ray" (as close as I can get it with the Maori pronunciation). Always nice for this kiwi to see some NZ representation in the Times! Big fan, always learning a lot from you Simon.
I've been doing cryptics for over 60 years, and am still learning, so just love these weekly episodes from you. For all that, I was a bit shocked, having been born and bred in Whangarei, not to have noticed until now that the name contained the word "hangar". Well done, putting that one together!
Holiday brain Simon is such fun to watch. These videos are the highlight of my Fridays, thank you for sharing!
The Friday cryptic video is always a great start to my morning! Particular appreciation for the quick jab at Protoss @15:24. It's been many years since I last played Brood War, but just remembering DT rushes still gets me!
This pre-lockdown fan would never begrudge you a break.
You often mention the positive impact these videos have on people's mental health. I would never want you to break yourself.
Folk can always watch the rich back catalogue (perhaps curate 7 and bug out for a week), or what about handing the channel over to a fellow sudoku solver for a week??! (Fear nought - we'll never love them as much as we love you and Mark.)
First of all - agree ; TH-cam algorithm ; we do love cryptic crossword content!
I didn't get SHOREWARD without using a word pattern matcher either ; could the cannonball be a SHOT, shortened to SHO ; and "due" be a REWARD ; SHO + REWARD = SHOREWARD
Something like that? Fiendish clue!
Enjoy your holiday Simon!! Such grateful appreciation that you continue to give us these amazing cryptic crosswords every Friday!! Just a joy and pleasure to see you solve them!!
The 'kerf' is the width of a cut by a saw. I know that because I'm subbed to a carpentry channel as well as yours. It's also one of the oldest words in the Indo-European language family.
Always lovely to see you getting recharged
Cannonball is shot. Shortly is SHO.
Due is reward.
SHOREWARD
Please take all the breaks you need. I love your content and want you to be able to continue to make it. That means take good care of yourself. Thank you
While I still couldn't solve these alone to begin with (not being a native speaker), I think I am getting better. I have never known so many solutions ahead of Simon during a video. This was a very good video, but Mark's monthly club solve on Patreon was just utterly insane.
Enjoy your holiday, Simon!
A Vaporetto is a motorboat used for public transportation in Venice. I asume they used to be steamboats (vapor=steam).
Great stuff! Really enjoyed the video Simon. Happy Christmas to you and the team!
CTC RULES!! Thank you Simon and Mark!
Absolutely love these. Please keep them coming. X
15:30 WAS THAT A STARCRAFT REFERENCE????? I can't believe it hahahah does Simon play Starcraft?!?
Yes, he even recorded a video of himself playing it 2 or 3 years ago (or so). It's on the channel somewhere! I'd just thought of that the other day for some reason.
Very much enjoyed Simon learning about the existence of the city of Whangarei
Good learning for us. Please keep going.
Thank you so much for this videos especially for taking time out of your holiday to sit. I hope you had a lovely break :)
Wow. 28 across is the first cryptic clue I've ever actually fully figured out myself.
It's the best feeling! Congratulations!
Here’s to it not being the last! 🎉
This crossword was pretty tough. Kerf ran the vaguest of bells, but I had never heard of a vaporetto and didn't know Whangarei I had to work the cryptics pretty hard to come up witht he answers, but it is all there if your are patient. I thought my time of 55 minutes was pretty good for a non-champion-level solver.
Thank you Simon! These videos are even more helpful when you come to a tricky clue and we get an insight into your thought processes - through your pain we grow 😅
Thanks Simon! Both of those were tricky and it's always lovely to have you shepherd us through the big one. Have a fabulous holiday!
It's really weird how I could have spent a year and never got vaporetto or inarable, but I got shoreward, think heading towards the land.
Really well done Simon, great puzzle.
I actually got 13 across quite quickly, here's my logic:
Cannonball shortly => SHO(T) => SHO
due => REWARD
to land => SHOREWARD
Holiday brain strikes when you least expect.
Good video Simon. Thanks for helping me so much with Cryptixs this year, and merry Christmas!
Thank you so much for these weekly videos. I thoroughly enjoy them. I’ve started doing the daily quick cryptics on my own, but I’m hardly quick. I’m often stumped by cricket terms and some slang (I’m from the US). I should start a word list like the young Simon! Enjoy your holiday!
Love this video, don't really understand crosswords but these videos are always interesting.
Another Friday toughie. 22:41 for me, with a couple of the answers constructed purely from the wordplay, a couple put in from the definition without understanding the wordplay, and a couple where I had a vague idea what was going on, but was half expecting them to be marked wrong.
When I solved 16ac I exclaimed “that’s so clever” out loud, even though I was alone at the time. But I felt I had to let the universe know.
Great stuff Simon. Enjoy your holiday.
My favorite time of the week is definitely today! I'm counting the days for the cryptic crossword videos, I'm really having a great time Simon, and this time I knew a few words before you (even though it was pure luck) 😁
Had a quick scan through this morning, but didn't get a clue on first pass. Very busy travelling, so when I saw comments on Tftt, decided to leave it. Always enjoy Simon's analysis
Always enjoy these! Hope you have a wonderful holiday!
Equations do indeed always have an equals sign. If it does not have an equals sign it is an expression. :)
Chemical equations don't usually have equals signs 😉
H2+ O2 -> H20
Super happy to see you on holiday and not sick!
One way I remember Latin for “force” as “vis” is a line from the Aeneid, Fit via vi, which means something like “he makes his way by force” and it’s such a silly sounding line, but it’s basically describing a soldier fighting his way through a castle to capture the king.
brilliant video as always. thanks simon!!
Great video as always
Thanks for taking time out of your holiday to make my day.
Well done Simon, very enjoyable as always, hope you have a relaxing break.
I love how Simon, and Mark and all of us, use the 'Englishman abroad' solving method. Maybe if we say the clue even slower and with slightly weirder emphasis, it'll become clear.
Hats off to the solving of that NZ city. I might be wrong but I think it might also have been one of the codewords used by the Pathfinder force for a particular type pf target marking during WW2.
I'm on vaction too and I"m loving these Master Classes!
that NZ city clue - Whangarei ... I got it when the last letter was put in ... probably helps I live in and am familiar with NZ places :)
speck is actually a really nice quality smoked spiced ham from Italy. definitely not something soldiers would be eating out of cans in WWII lol
I think that might be the German-influenced parts of Italy. Very few Italian words include K, and "speck" is German for "bacon" - Rühreier mit Speck is scrambled eggs and bacon as a German breakfast dish. But as you say, nothing to do with spam.
@peterbiddlecombe1939 oh, yeah, I don't know the origin of the style, just that it's another of those cured hams that Italy is so good at
More holiday brain please! I actually got a chance to jump in and call a few of them ahead of you! 😁
Big fan of this one, great video!
Excellent solve Simon - cheers
such clever clues! enjoy your break
I've never been more proud of myself than when I figured out the last word before Simon at 1 hour mark exactly. I immediately thought of cannonball being shot and when I saw shore (relating to land) fit the letters I just tried to think of something re_a_d that could even be and came up with reward. Shoreward sounded like something that could be a word so I checked it out and it was correct.
Wonderful as always!
Spek (Dutch spelling) refers to bacon cut into cubes and is a common form of ham in Dutch kitchens. Apparently it was a Spanish recipe "borrowed" during the Eighty Years War which eventually ended the Habsburg occupation of the Netherlands. It is also claimed to be the origin of the word "spick" (probably more or less extinct by now), a derogatory term for a Spaniard when I was a youngster in the UK.
Just a small point when thinking about 22ac. Hobart is an Australian city…😉
8:44 Nice to see my home city of Hobart mentioned on CTC, although for future reference it is in Tasmania, Australia - not New Zealand!
Thanks for recording whilst on holiday Simon. Enjoyed it! 😀
Yes, thank you, Simon!! And have a wonderful holiday!!
I understand nothing about cryptic crosswords, but my geoguessr skills came in handy in this episode, and for the first time I ever I understood a cryptic crossword clue, Wharangei
Great puzzles.
"CANNONBALL" Is what you yell, before you jump into the water...!
You are a guitarist, if you look inside your guitar you will see strips of wood on the sides to enable attachment of the front and back. These have been kerfed.......partially sawn through to enable them to folloe the curvature of the sides
Omg. I figured out 2 answers myself😂. Go enjoy the sun, Simon❤
47:50 also a doctor placed an IV in a vein
Cooks peal off skins of potatoes (peal potatoes) for example
We LOVE cryptic crossword videos!
Love these videos. And just occasionally I get the clue or word eg kerf first. It does give me hope. Even if my wordplay skills need serious improvement. 😅😅
Simon is incredibly fast even with holiday brain, just breathtaking
Are holiday mistakes called holiday clicks? ;) Always look forward to seeing the Friday Cryptic!
13 and 22a would have me stumped completely.
Never thought I’d hear Simon say “wanger” on a Friday masterclass 😂😂
Any Smurf who did A Level woodwork will know and love the "kerf"
Thought you'd be all over vis as a word. I don't know Latin but I do randomly remember the origin of the name of that well known bread HoVIS. Note the small o in the name. Hominis vis.The Strength of Man!
"Speck" appears in the delightful German word "Kummerspeck", which literally translated is "grief bacon". It's an idiom for weight put on from overeating when under stress.
15 down is one of embarrassingly few clues that I’ve gotten immediately in all of these masterclasses.
Wow.. That was tough, though the New Zealand one was at least gettable from the wordplay. The change in pronunciation of 'rises' when you add a C at the front seemed to block the penny from dropping for me, and with that answer intersecting with the unusual 'shoreward' many others must also have been left with those as their last two.
Hope you’re feeling better soon
India is I in the NATO alphabet. Number plates on Indian cars usually carry two letters associated with the state they are registered in or the more recent BH registration (Bharat being the sanskrit name for India) for cars with all India road permits
Cannonball is "shot" shortly is "sho"
reward is your "due"
I guessed "shoreward" and it felt right and then spent about as long trying to figure out how that would work. 😂
🌱thank you...✏✨
Friday feeling 🎉
18.40 "pukka pies"... 🤣🤣🤣
So nobody has heard of the NZ cities Whanganui and Whangarei? Shocking.
I think the vocab level here is a tad hard even for Friday.
I have given the 'like'. Whether this counts as a kind comment is, as ever, a matter of taste and/or opinion.
The only reason we got 22 ac is that we know people who live there!
My sister-in-law is from NZ, but I think she'll forgive me for not knowing the 14th largest city there.
Hey Simon I just wanted to say it would be nice if you’d mention in prerecorded videos that they are prerecorded, just so that people don’t get confused or disappointed when shout out requests seem ignored
Given how badly Shoreward was solved within the cryptic denizens, methinks it was a poor bit of clueing.
The clue may be hard but it's perfectly fair. Simon's first problem was reading the beginning as (Cannonball + shortly due) rather than (Cannonball shortly + due), probably assisted by thinking of "due" as an adjective rather than a noun. And after spotting SHOREWARD he got a bit hung up on seeing "shortly due to land" as the definition rather than just "to land" = "towards land".
@@peterbiddlecombe1939 Generally I'm entirely in agreement that Simon can sometimes forget his own rules about indicator words and specificity, however in this particular instance I note a significant number of the "Times for the Times" people didn't get it either.
It's all good. I'm not ragging on the constructor or Simon, both of whom are more brilliant than I'll ever be. Sometimes clues just don't gel with our way of thinking.
before I get blown up the phonetic pronounciation is (fong-a-ray) [the wh = F A = O and rei = ray] (I know it may look butchered, but it's whanga mate ;P (slick no, but one hellova nice place to holiday - try it some time)
Hobart?? Hobart?? oh dear. Your Antipodean fanbase rolling their eyes heavily.
WANG-ER-AI!! Te Reo Maori pronounce WH as an F sound. its pronounced Faang - a - ray. Oh dear simon, you've had an NZ disaster today....
How dare you being only human and taking holiday with (I hope) your family !🤪
Kerf is when you make a guiding cut with a saw
Promise I wasn’t shouting a spire 😅
The kerf is the width of a sawcut. The saw's teeth are generally set alternating to the left and right of the blade, which means that the blade doesn't get stuck in its own cut. The width of the set on the teeth defines the saw's kerf.
It's odd how you can instantly latch onto some obscure term, and justify it by the wordplay, yet you couldn't see that cannonball was "shot", dropping the "t" making it shorter, then "reward" is "due". Putting them together "shoreward" = "to land". You seemed to lose your crossword brain completely. "Shortly" is an obvious wordplay operator. You seemed incapable of splitting "shortly due", which is a weird phrase to want to keep together in a cryptic crossword, since if something is due, the "shortly" is redundant, and we don't like redundancy in clues.
Your other (very rare) failures have been somewhat forgivable, but this was an epic fail. If you had only applied your own instructions to solving it, you'd have got this quickly. You never even considered what "cannonball shortly" might be.
"Speck is a cold-cured, lightly smoked ham or bacon typical of the north-eastern regions of Italy" according to La Cucina Italiana.
I love the crossword solves but PLEASE give them to Mark to do, they're 100 times more watchable.