The Times Crossword Friday Masterclass: 12 April 2024
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 เม.ย. 2024
- ** TODAY'S PUZZLE **
In the 61st edition of our attempts to solve a Friday Times crossword, Simon tackles today's puzzle, which is another tricky one but features two or three absolutely incredible clues.
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The G typo in 11 down "I hope he sees it!" "I'm going to leave it in..." "Nooooo!"
I was fine right up until he moved away from it, then it was... NOOO!!! and I already knew he would never go back and actually see the two "H" together. It stands out to me, but so do so many of the very easy Sudoku scannings that he misses on the regular.
But I think it is worse because he had the right words he just didn't TYPE them in right. But this is two parts of the Crossword... figuring out the words and getting the spellings right.
If you're able to survive solving a crossword this hard, you're eurycryptic.
"Crates" = Packing (adj) cases. "preparing to take off with other holidaymakers" = packing (v, present continuous) cases
Edge of the seat stuff with that typo! I love how good natured and gracious Simon is when he gets something wrong, the world would be a much more pleasant place with more people like this.
Thanks for the shout out for my daughter’s birthday. She was thrilled 🎉
I love the Friday crosswords: I've started building my evening around them -- get a pizza, a good bottle of wine, a complacent cat to lap-sit, and I'm all set. This one was pretty hard!
sounds like heaven
Simon spots the cricket clues, except when he doesn't...
(And I hope he spots that misplaced H before the end)
LAVA LAMP was the first clue on here i've seen that was an immediate write-in for me, between the _ _ _ A _ _ _ _ and the phrase "moving blobs" which to me immediately evoked the idea of a lava lamp
I got it pretty quick too but I had almost convinced myself I was probably wrong because I wasn't parsing the wordplay right.
Great solve! 14ac I think maybe: crates (noun) = packing cases, and the rest is a definition of what you might be doing if you were packing cases
Lava Lamp, Wicketkeeper and packing cases all had me screaming at the screen! However I certainly needed help with the others!! My thnx.
Simon not getting a cricket clue because he's thinking about bums. He is human after all.
Me looking ahead… ahahahha i solved SUPPER. Simon does the clue: finally an easy one…
Ugh. Lol
As an American, the deliveries = bowl part of Rose Bowl wasn’t something I’d ever spot, but the “by arrangement” made perfect sense, as the Rose Bowl for college football teams invites the teams it does each year by a specific arrangement.
17 down had me screaming. Simon was obviously a good boy in college, and didn't spent a lot of time staring at moving blobs in an altered mental state.
Yes! TGIF with a master class! 🙂
14 Across is just a double definition, no need to make it complicated:
A Crate is a packing case (e.g. for goods shipped from a factory)
and preparing to go on holiday would involve packing (suit)cases
As an American who doesn't watch cricket, 4-down was lost to me. Good on you for another lovely solve!
Brilliant Friday entertainment as usual
Thank you, Simon. Always a joy!
I had WICKETKEEPER but couldn't fully justify it without Simon's help. Loved the video as always
Excellent stuff. 24A was a write-in for me, but I'm that guy. Thank you Simon.
Thank you for another lovely solve. The Friday cryptic crossword videos are a highlight of my week!
Love the Crosswords always.
Thank you for my birthday shoutout Simon! Mum and I try the Guardian Quiptic every week, and your videos have helped us both so much ❤
Very good solve, Bubs. This puzzle is way above whatever class I'm in.
Yes Simon, I *was* inwardly shouting at you to spot that H before submitting. As for the 'Be All Ears' answer, I put the AL from dale into BEARS and somehow never noticed that I didn't have enough letters - I just moved on. An entertaining watch, as always.
Thank you Simon. Love these videos as a little weekend treat. This was rough. 🎉
Brilliant video.
I immediately got ravels and wicketkeeper, so I can't deny some pleasure in watching Simon struggle. Particularly since the only other answer I got faster than he did was brass section.
me too!
Likewise
Great solve, even though I was shouting at the screen!
Compulsory weekend watching - always look forward to these!
Not sure if it’s etiquette to mention this or not - but for an extra crossword fix, a channel called dweebovision does a solve of one of the earlier puzzles in the week - they seem to be released on Saturdays..
(Disclaimer - I have nothing to do with that channel)
The moral of this puzzle: it’s always about cricket!
Where Simon was talking about EC being outdated, I was thinking “it’s an older code sir, but it checks out”
Was waiting for the reaction for when the penny dropped re wicketkeeper, it didn't disappoint 🙂
Wicketkeeper! Relatively easy, on the assumption that Times crosswords are pretty much all about cricket (and the Church of England).
What i keep learning is that I might not meet Simon's skill level, but we would make an excellent team, as I often get the ones he struggles with and vice versa. I got 13a pretty quick, recognizing the prefix from "eurykote" and the Greek "topic" = place, as in "topical". I also, as an American, got wicket keeper before he did, which he will surely feel ashamed about.
🌱 thank you ✏✨
I'm shouting the answer to 17-down as it's the first clue I have got in all of these videos!
And now we have the jeopardy of will he discover the mispelling before he submits?!
Great, as always.
My personal score (as in getting it before) Simon was higher than usual because I got 16d and 4 d (wasn't "in person" brilliant!) quickly.
And of course Bolero = Torville and Dean!
i am looking forward to this solve every week, even thought i can solve 1 clue max.
Now and then, I get one before simon explains it. Even rarer, I get one before simon gets it.
Of course, Simon's usually helped a lot with checking letters
Very tough but all the more gratifying for that.
These are fun to watch because they are so impossible to me, my brain works to literally to get these clues. It doesn't help that there are always a lot of Britishism's that just aren't second nature to me (like wellie and ER for a king...) So, living vicariously through Simon's solves instead :)
If you knew classical Greek, you would see erys + topos immediately in eurytopic. On the other hand, you were able to parse be all ears, which was very tough.
Stamp collectors will recognize lake immediately.
eurys not erys. Even not knowing Greek, a veteran crossworder should probably recognise the prefix eury-
4D had Simon stumped for a while.
I see what you did there…
Occasionally, I have to check I hit the play button because Simon is in pause think mode.
I think that siren is warning you that Godzilla is approaching. Head for the shelters!
Congrats Nick on first solve of a cryptic!!
Great way to start a beautiful weekend with Simon treating us to his abilities as only he can in solving a masterclass puzzle!!
Whoo I got 16D almost immediately 🥳
Simon I’m jealous - the Chambers app that you use is not available in Australia.
Surely the Edward in 8 down is Edward VIII who felt trapped by his duty?
In which case it's a brilliant clue as 'duty' has two meanings in the one clue, working for 'excise' and ER.
Wow, that was quite something! You should learn a little Greek, Simon, I'm certain you would enjoy it :)
argh at 48ish he had 14 then ignored it. it's a double definition. what you do when you go on holiday and a type of crate.
Seeing that typo in "through" just sit there throughout the whole video is painful lol
4d. Tied you in a knot?
This is the first time I have a look at the first clue and immediately know it (1 down). Icing on the cake is that Simon has no clue (as so often with musical questions, which baffles me since he is obviously very musical and interested in music).
I also got that one straight away, which led me to 9 and 12 across and 2 down straight away. I've got in the habit of pausing after Simon reads the clue, or after he says 'I have got this', to see if I can work it out, and the percentage of times that I can do so are going up. I was very pleased to also get 7 down, 17 down and 22 before Simon, which shows that watching these videos is having an effect. Thank you for the excellent teaching, Simon!
Spot the typo, spot the typo....
What is the surface of 9 across? Those are just word, right? "Disagreement heretic"? "into versus"? Does it make sense to native English speakers?
Congratulations to Nick for breaking his duck.
When I saw the snitch and saw that mohn and Andy Fisher were both at over 7 minutes, I started drooling with expectation for a humdinger. Instead, I found this the easiest one you've done yet, and by quite a margin. I could easily have got high up the leader board. I can't help wondering whether solvers were perhaps over-thinking this. For example, the most obvious "medicine man" is a shaman, and it fit the wordplay perfectly, but you ignored the obvious.
The only word I wasn't sure about was eurytopic, but it rung a bell and seemed plausible, since eurythermal means tolerating a wide temperature range, so eurytopic meaning tolerating a wide range of places seemed likely.
The only other clue that gave me trouble was wicketkeeper, which I only got once I had some crossing letters, but it was a quality clue.
Considering you mentioned about deliveries and bowling, I'm surprised you didn't get rosebowl immediately. I got the whole top left quarter done in well under a minute.
Print-through is where what was previously recorded on a tape can still be heard, or sometimes on an old tape, a layer on the spool will affect the adjacent layers, giving a faint echo or pre-echo.
I was really baffled why you took so long processing "packing cases". What do you do when you're preparing to go off on your hols? You pack your cases. Crates are packing cases. There's nothing complicated about it.
I was also stumped why you didn't get "wicket-keeper", since the crossing letter that started it was also a cricket term.
I genuinely can't understand why you thought this was hard. With the exception of eurytopic, there were no obscure words, and most of the clues were easy to split into definition and wordplay. The only tricky wordplay was the indirect clue for glen, but it was a pretty obvious definition, so it just needed some thought to unpick the wordplay.
There were some fine clues in this. I particularly liked wicketkeeper, brass-section, and abacuses, but there were plenty of others.
2 question for CTC or anyone who know the answer
Why do the definitions always must be in the start or end of the clue. What wrong with the middle
What do the word "if" means in cryptic clues. Is that part of cryptic or indicators or doesn't mean anything
good questions
@@ahouyearno thx
You do very occasionally get a definition in the middle, but it makes wordplay harder, and "if" will always mean something; if I have learned one thing watching this every Friday its that every little bit of the clue is necessary
@@louisesuth8141 great thanks, but one question about definition, when I googled about it the google said it always MUST be in the start or the end of the clue so I'm curious.
Cryptic crosswords have a convention built up over decades which people follow because it's convention. Nothing more or less.
am sure many people would love to meet you at parties simon. people need to talk more about things that actually interest them anyway
I have been wondering for years... Who, or what, is Maverick?
I believe he was Tom Cruise's character in 'Top Gun'
@TheGroatesque1 I'm not sure Tom Cruise flies past Simon's house every Friday...
@@PeterMoore66 Simon calls the pilot who flies over his house Maverick
@@Kradlum Oh, OK - it's just his nickname for the guy! Ha ha. I was reading far more into it than that! 🙂
@@Kradlum Or pilots - if he lives near an airfield it seems likely there's more than one person using it.
46:35 The expression "without cover for expense" generally indicates that you need to remove the first and last letters of "expense" as in the other cryptics. Whereas in this example, in order to find the correct answer, you need to think of "without" as "less" and add the first and last letters of "expense" next to it. Scariest misleading clue I've ever seen. The person who wrote this puzzle must be a psychopath who likes to make people suffer.
In other words, a crossword setter.
is there a rule which says that a person trying to complete the puzzle can NOT pick up a dictionary? or some other means of helping with solving the puzzle?
You are allowed to solve a crossword however you feel, but there's a certain thrill of being able to solve one without external aid
Shame you don't do a quick typo check before submitting. It spoilt a rather excellent solve.
I wonder if you also watch another solver on here, like someone else mentioned in a comment.
@@phyphor I certainly do. I 'Hope and Prey' Simon takes heed. 😁
A quick squiz would have avoided this…
First
1 Across.