The DIFFICULT Cryptic Crossword Achievement
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ต.ค. 2024
- ** BONUS VIDEO **
We've been waiting for a suitable cryptic crossword to make a new cryptic video and yesterday's puzzle in The Times fitted the bill. It has the highest SNITCH rating of recent times (a measure of difficulty). If you're new to cryptics, watch Simon bend his brain against this one...
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Hours of content every day, and still we get an hour long bonus video... These guys some of the most generous content creators out there.
Thank you Simon and Mark.
I'd really love to see Mark's 6 minutes solve for comparison. It's insanely fast.
Mark is the AlphaZero of crosswords.
I believe 19 down is a triple definition clue. "Perhaps one" ; "Judge" ; "to be included"
That’s incredible
Why does figure mean "to be included"?
@@nickloader3184 "the issue of nuclear policy figured prominently in the talks"
@@nickloader3184 "He doesn't figure in my plans"
I got flagship, installation and au pair right away. Particularly proud of the installation one. It's only 3/50 something clues, but that's 3 more than I was getting a few videos ago. Slowly understanding how this works.
I was excited I had au pair and flagships, and even understood why, before Mark. Ever. I'll take that as a win any day of the week.
Figure is a triple def:
"One perhaps"
"judge"
"to be included"
Does "figure" mean "to be included"? I can't make that work.
@@andrewzmorris Think of it as "make an appearance". Her name is included on my list. Her name figures on my list.
@@andrewzmorris First definition I can readily locate of the verb form of figure is "have a significant part or role in a situation or process."
A common figure of speech (no pun intended) would be something like "How does it figure into our plans?" or "How does this figure into the equation?" So I can see how that could relate to being included.
@@TheLonelytexan Yes, an example given by Collins is "human rights violations figured prominently in the report"
How on earth did Mark solve that in 6 minutes. That's insane
Really put it into perspective how good Mark is compared to Simon. I suspect Simon to be better at Sudoku as well, compared to Mark, but we've never been able to see the difference
@@selenasilverstep7981 I think Mark would be quicker than Simon with sudoku as well, mainly because he bifurcates a lot more. Although I imagine if Simon was speed solving he would bifurcate too if he needed to.
We always forget that our humble bifurcating Mark is one of the greatest cryptic solvers of all time.
*24 Down:* Frequency and wavelength of electromagnetic waves are in an inverse relationship i.e. the longer the wavelength, the lower the frequency. A simplified way to think about it is to take a fixed length e.g. one metre, and imagine how many waves you can fit into it. The longer the waves, the fewer you can fit, i.e. the lower the 'frequency'. (It's a bit more complicated than that as you have to include the speed at which the wave is travelling, but you get the idea.) Usually if you multiply the wavelength by the frequency, you get the speed of light in a vacuum.
Just to add a couple examples: radio waves are low frequency waves that can be very large, on the order of meters. Microwaves are higher frequency, so they are shorter, on the order of centimeters. Visible light is higher frequency still, and are even shorter (nanometers).
The microwaves vs visible light difference is interesting to me, because it explains the front part of a microwave (the appliance). It has holes in it that are large enough to let visible light through, but not large enough to let the microwaves through.
@@pelahnar4 It never occurred to me that the grille on a microwave oven is designed that way, that is very interesting. Also I think a lot of people imagine all EM radiation is nanometres or less so when you first find out how enormous radio waves are (especially longwave radio which is literally 'long waves') it can be pretty astounding.
@@bobblebardsley 1500m basically a mile
ELF is a common radio abbreviation for Extra Low Frequency.
I used to watch my grandfather solve cryptic crosswords; I could never figure out how he got the answer from the clue. I understand it better now, but I'll stick with regular crosswords I think.
TH-cam comment section delivering the dope semi-colon (6)
@@iwakeupsad Feels like a needle at my grammar.
@@MrNikolidas No I love it!
@@iwakeupsad I thought "needle" was the answer :P
It delivers the dope.
@@MrNikolidas it was! I just liked how you weaved it into the reply.
(Not a great clue :p. I was going for section meaning to take letters from deliver and comment as in LE but I think it's very ambiguous.
31:48 I actually laughed out loud. *Your* brain is substandard. That's actually an insult to all of us. If *your* brain is substandard, what are ours? 😂
frequency [Hz = 1/s] = propagation speed [m/s] / wave length [m]. So frequency is inversely proportional to wave length, meaning lower frequencies bigger waves.
Uppsala is the University in Uppsala close to Stockholm in Sweden. It is a really lovely student city.
I can recommend Dave Gormans current tour (PowerPoint to the People), it has a very funny cryptic crossword section (including a clue I remember Simon solving on the channel.
Awesome Simon, thank you. Would love Mark to record his screen as he speed solves; just to see how fast he works through it
Brilliant solve!!! I'm fondly remembering the time you featured a video of Thomas Snyder speed-solving a tapa puzzle, with pauses for commentary/explanations by you. I'd love if you made a video like that of Mark speed-solving a cryptic crossword!!!
this is a great idea
That was very hard, Simon. I got a couple before you did, but that was it. An 'ELF' radio wave is big because it has a long wavelength. I am that 'Radio Operator' by the way.
So Mark now has not only an eponym for complete enumeration, but also one for performing with style.
Next time I succumb to fully pencil marking a sudoku grid I hope my demeanour will be goodliffian as I indulge in goodliffing!
I really enjoy these! Language and communication are very important to me - I have always appreciated a “well turned phrase”. I researched to see if there’s a word for that - so maybe “logophile?” Anyway, enough about me - Simon is fabulous at communicating and I especially appreciated that he took the time to explain the answers. That someone can craft these obscure ideas and then someone else can translate them into something meaningful is on a par of Simon’s “the universe singing to us” ( which is one of the most beautiful phrases I’ve ever heard)! 😍
Excellent content. More cryptic crossword solving videos please, Mark & Simon!😊
Great and inscrutable as always, very enjoyable. I must say I laughed at your comment about "stylish": "Goodliffian doesn't fit." Thanks for this very fun bonus on the channel!!!
I loved it, Simon! I was pretty stumped on a few, but beat you on a few too, and was most amused you struggled with 6 down! Thanks very much! Most entertaining!
I love watching you think. I haven't worked out "figure" yet, but it does seem that as a verb, it could, in some sense, mean "judge to be included", since as a verb it has a basic meaning of "to think".
Here in the land Downunder, we are about a month behind in Times Cryptics (insert rude remarks here), so I normally try to avoid these wonderful bonusues, but I couldn't resist! Thrilled to have got at least a few clues before Simon... as always in awe of Magoo, Verlaine and co who seemingly treat these as a quick dalliance to be ticked off over tea and toast! mct
Fantabulous to get a 'Cryptic Crossword' thrown into the mix and even better that it is one in my pay grade. That 'ELF' was a stinger, we are all used to VHF (very high frequency) but ELF is new to me. All I could think of was EMF as in electro-magnetic force which did not fit the clue. On the whole a great solve by Simon and a magnificent solve by Mark.
Low Frequency is indeed a long wave but big implies peak to peak vertical rather than horizontal so takes some thinking
Extremely low frequency waves penetrate water and are used to raise submarines to pick up messages at periscope depth .
Uppsala is a university town in Sweden! It's located about 60 kilometres north of Stockholm.
Prisoners words : "i dint do it"
Come on Simon ! 🤣🤣🤣
I was fascinated by the Noel Coward one, because it illustrates a rare kind of 'bypass', where the brain jumps straight to the meaning while bypassing the word itself. When I played Scrabble tournaments I used to test myself with random anagrams of seven- and eight-letter words (no definitions as in a cryptic). On seeing ACGINSUV, I got stuck for half a minute, and then, somehow, I got a very vivid image of a llama in my head. (It's VICUGNAS, a type of llama.) What was so weird is that I saw the llama *well* before I found the word, and my brain had to backtrack from there. Apparently it doesn't happen often, but it's disconcerting when it does. There's a paper in this for any neurolinguists out there.
I LOVE the concept of these crosswords, but every time we get a "f. is a chambers-valid abbreviation of following" I just can't continue to dig deeper into these puzzles. There's just too many things like that.
Incredible puzzle! And Simon, I will never look down on you for taking a while to do a difficult puzzle that I would never be able to complete in the first place. Well done! And thanks for the bonus cryptic video :)
Naughty youtube algorithm hiding cryptic content from me! Fascinating as always. Really love the crossword content.
Brutal. 6 down brought back a memory of a trivia clue/answer being "pickled ox tongue was ... a menu item on the Titanic." At the time I remember Nelson being described as pickled in alcohol for the post humous voyage home. The word pickle felt nautical as in preservative.
I'd like to hear Mark and Simon discuss the *nature* of cryptic crosswords. To me they seem utterly dependent on people being deep inside a particular culture. Whereas sudoku is more universally accessible.
Frequency TLDR: low frequency waves are longer and high frequency waves are shorter.
Shorter wavelength waves repeat more often in a given timeframe, given a constant speed of travel thru the transmission medium (air or whatnot), and so are described as "high frequency" as we count more waves per second (or other time interval). Longer wavelengths have low frequency for the same reason.
ELF, extremely low frequency. Used by submarines with miles long antennae to communicate when near surface.
Regarding the clue with the big wave: The velocity of a wave equals the product of its frequency and it's wavelenght. Set the velocity of the wave, e.g. electromagnetic wave (light) constant... when you reduce the frequency you simultaneously have to increase the wavelenght to make the velocity constant. Therefore, an extreme low frequency needs an extreme high wavelenght.
low frequency means the waves oscillate slowly, they therefore have a long wavelength, assuming constant speed of transmission.
whew! that was hard one - i was shouting au pair, installation, and tum but of course my shouts could not go back in time and cross the Atlantic to get to you. Sorry about that. What a relief when you got them though!
So proud of myself, managed to figure out 25 across on my own... as a non-native English speaker. Love these cryptic crossword videos.
1A OFF = dispatch. I don't think this is "send off", but "off" as US slang for "kill", which is one meaning of "dispatch".
I'm not very good at crosswords and doubt I could have gotten a SINGLE ONE of those words in that crossword puzzle on my own. I enjoyed listening to how you arrived at the answers though! I was rather impressed each time! 🤯
I'm doing Christine Lovatt.
She's an Aussie.
So I don't have to learn English Soccer Players and other Shibboleths.
Simon is utterly brilliant, but I'm enjoying Christine.
Christine is lot's of fun and still challenging for us Colonials.
And this doesn't mean I'm dating her.
I'd like to though.
Aussie Chicks are very pretty.
As is Christine Lovatt.
Amazing solve Simon! The only one I actually got myself was flagships, and then I was only a couple of minutes ahead of you. The rest was way beyond me
I was fascinated by this instantly. Thank you for these explanations!
Some awesome wordplay and surfaces here. Thank you so much Simon. Very entertaining solve! Got bedlam seconds before Simon and got NEXT quite a while before him which I was pleased about. Totally steamrolled by him with everything else. Magoo and the one who beat him are not even human at this point.
17a was a real shouting at the video one. Especially when he asked "What was the Noel Coward play?" at about 24:40
fra is an italian abbreviation of fratello that means brother and is used the same way americans use bro
I was just delighted to get a few and enjoyed my 45 minutes of trying to think like a solver. Anyone got a link for that TEA program Simon used at the end?
Not sure if the link would be blocked, but I searched "tea crossword software" and it was the first link.
@@limegreenelevator Thanks, much appreciated!
Whoa, that is long for a cryptic
Went to university in Egham and did not know where it was until I moved in😂 would hate to have tried to solve this beforehand
Egg and Ham make Staines Upon the tablecloth
What an incredible puzzle. Very interesting to see all the different kinds of notation and symbols that come together to make answers. I think I got maybe 2 of these a bit quicker or at least as fast as Simon as he was going through it, but I’m looking forward to getting better at cryptics c:
Yes, that was a tough one! I got EYETEETH and FLAGSHIPS right away, but would never have gotten EGHAM. I also knew DRAMSHOP, but it is a very old term, for sure. I probably read it somewhere in an old novel. I also got ELF before Simon, and even surmised the correct words for that acronym (from my study of trigonometric/circular function graphs, where a lower frequency means that the period of the wave is longer -- not bigger, as the clue implies a larger amplitude or height).
Uppsala is indeed a University city just north of Stockholm in Sweden.
I thought, until you got that F in the bottom word, 24 down would be “sin” which could be considered mischievous, and is also an abbreviation for ‘sine’ - Extremely Low Frequency means there’s more time between the waves, they’re infrequent, and therefore wider as they are continuous and also evenly spaced
Very much enjoyed that ! Ironically I got Blithe Spirit, Au Pair, and Flag Ships but totally failed to get anything else!! But I will keep trying!
On the very first clue, I’ve never heard those meanings of both clout and cuff
At the end, with the .ij... words: Rijeka is a city in I believe Croatia.
Could the "ur" of figure relate to the "to be" in the clue?
HMS Victory was admiral Nelson's flagship at the battle of Trafalgar.
I can't believe you didn't instantly get flagships, considering some of the other clues you got quite quickly. For a crossword with not particularly obscure words, this was pretty tough.
Thank you Simon. I love your crossword vids
Actually quite shocked with myself as a complete novice at cryptic crosswords getting 6 down on the first attempt, well before Simon. I got the ship reference from Victory and the HIPS, but LAGS was the bit of the clue that I didn't understand until Simon got it. I just knew Victory as a flagship. As an engineer, my vocab is broader than most... mostly because half the words engineers use are not in any dictionary 😅
I like how you think it's mean to use "ELF" since no one's ever heard of it, even though that's how I feel about half of the answers!
I love this channel. Keep it up! (greetings from Malta)
I'd really like to solve some of those some time but it's really REALLY difficult if you are not a native English speaker. I'm still looking for German variants but those sadly don't reach the same quality.
I like the Zeit Magazin Rätsel a lot. It's not as esoteric and needs more general knowlegde rather than just technical ability than British cryptic crosswords, but has a lot of wordplay and anagrams, too.
Trust me, it’s really REALLY difficult even if you are a native English speaker!
@@Shif80 A lot of americanisms in this one.
This is really hard even if you are a native English speaker, so our non-native speakers should be proud that they can even follow the video commentary! I applaud you!
@@bibliopolist thanks for the tip. I'll try that one, was a bit taken back that you need to subscribe to Zeit for that.
I’d love to see Simon or Mark tackle a cryptic from Australia, possibly one by David Astle (whose initials, when they appear as the setter, are sometimes said to stand for “Don’t Attempt”).
Cheers is often Toast cited as Brown Bread!
So Brown Bread is a clue for Cheers.
Talk about obscure.
I got Bedlam before Simon, though I spelled it wrong in my head 😂
"My brain is substandard". Simon, I can't see what's swirling around in your mind, but from the outside... I'm not seeing anything even faintly substandard. Human, admittedly, but not substandard. Be kind to yourself, please.
Aww yiss, more cryptic crossword content.
The Rutherford one, I would have put in the clue US president
I consider myself understanding English reasonably well, but this is absolutely out of reach for me. Still stunning to watch! Is there something similar in German?
It's not exactly the same but "Um die Ecke gedacht" by "Die Zeit" is the closest thing I know of
I think 14:18 was the first time I've ever got a times crossword clue straight away.
Good stuff
I love cryptic crosswords. I do wish they would make there way to the U.S. Many of the ones I do have abbreviations specific to the region I'm not familiar with.
Simon did a (NY Times ?) one the other week
@@highpath4776 That would be the UK Times. I understand the confusion.
@@AngrySanta I know one of them did a US one but I could not recall the paper name, Washington Post ?
The New Yorker magazine occasionally publishes some Cryptics.
@@highpath4776 I'll look into that.
Nice solve, and an interesting crossword by The Times' standards. But it doesn't seem overly difficult compared to the cryptic crosswords published in the Gruaniad, in my (humble) opinion.
Not sure I agree there. I can do most of the guardian most days. Here I felt I did not have much chance.
What was the software you used at 49:30?
Ive been learning English for 15 years and i have no idea what's going on here(
8d is quite a nice &lit
YAY!
@14:23 Nice.
These words are out of my non-english brain league.
I love the concept of these puzzles, but find the reliance on archaic abbreviations and colonial British military history rather infuriating. It just sort of contributes to this feeling that cryptic crosswords are a fusty, outdated kind of puzzle. Would love to see some cryptics updated for the 21st century.
Honestly how anybody gets these answers beggars belief, I just read a load of nonsense may aswell write any words that fit the grid 😂
The Original Sunday Crossword
John 8 across: devil (5) , o , , ,
These "American" expressions are not very familiar to me, an American lol
English is a wacky language.
Well, these are usually unintelligible to me. But I had a fill immediately for ExExxxxx.