The Times Crossword Friday Masterclass: Episode 43
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ธ.ค. 2023
- ** TODAY'S PUZZLE **
In the 43rd edition of our attempt to solve a Friday Times crossword, Simon takes on today's brutal and brilliant puzzle... This is a superb example of the form but it's NOT easy.
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"British female missionary" is one of those clues you have to be careful to google.
Brought a smile to my face when I did
Learned from experience on that one did we?
Lol😂
I got nothing except the right answer XAVIER.
16 is a square numer
The roman form is XVI
ER is a famous English person
And the whole Sir Francis Xavier is a missionary
@@jfryer485if youre not being sarcastic, 🤓👆
24:10 "ten minute festival of anxiety" is my new new favorite phrase. need to find a way to casually work this into conversations.
7 Down IONA is the island part of the clue
What a wonderful way to end the work week! Amazed at how you constantly get the answers and explain fully how they came about in such a short time! Please , please keep these going as we approach 2024!!
Very proud of myself for getting "La donne é mobile" from Rigoletto immediately, which I sang a month ago!
4:00 Well now I want to write a story about a war against AI in which humanity communicates via cryptic crossword clues 😅
Do it!!!!
I was somewhat surprised Simon didn't go for 'nae' , i mean me, a french, know this is 'no' in scottish 😅
And i must admit, i know it cause i read Terry Pratchett's wee free men saga in english ❤❤
"Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna' be fooled again!"
Terry Pratchett and Monty Python should do a collab titled Knights of Nae 😜
@@BigAsciiHappyStar they did the science fiction sketch, that's scottish enough
The problem is that he knew the word but mis-spelled it: NAY and NAE are both pronounced the same way. And then he knew Y is a one-letter word in one of those Continental languages, but (a) not the language of the opera title, and (b) not one that makes sense here, where we need a verb rather than a conjunction!
@@Anne_Mahoney si !
lol I never normally do this but I was shouting at laptop "La Donna e Mobile!" Simon!
I have tried to teach chatGPT the principles of cryptic crosswords and can vouch that it is both rubbish at it and incredibly arrogant, the polar opposite of Simon.
I'm not sure, but the wagoner clue might be a double definition by reference to American history. During the mid-1800s, the most common vehicle for California-/Oregon-bound Americans (i.e. westward travelers) was a wagon; someone who is heading west during this time could have been called a wagoner. There's a question mark because there were other forms of travel than wagon that were used, the wagon is just a staple of this part of history. And of course, a wagoner is also a word for a driver that starts with a W.
This was marvelous, nae, wonderful! Thanks, Simon.
Thanks for the mention. One tip for Italian answers: J K W X and Y are supposedly only used fo spell loanwords from other languages. (Which suggests that “Juventus” isn’t a word from “proper Italian”. ). “La Donna e Mobile” (from Rigoletto) is often translated as “woman is fickle”, with “e” as “is”. File with “La Gioconda” (Mona Lisa in Italian), which tripped up lots of peoole in a championship puzzle long ago, many spelling it with “Giaconda”. If you can see that “gioconda” is like “jocund”, the right spelling is easier too see.
Juventus is Latin for ‘Youth’, in Italian it would be ‘gioventù’. Some other Italian football clubs use non-Italian spellings of the city or concept (Inter, Milan, Genoa).
As for the rest, just a note: ‘e’ in Italian is the word for ‘and’, the word for ‘is’ is ‘è’ (with the mandatory accent). Interestingly, crosswords in Italian is the only place where it would be acceptable not to put the accent. And ‘La Gioconda’, in Italian is also called ‘La Monna Lisa’, with double n and the article
Good luck to consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant on Countdown!
As much as I find the cryptic crosswords to be absurd I look forward to watching you solve it each week.
Comment of the day, "can't justify it at all, doesn't deserve to be in there" could be applied to fifty percent of my cryptic answers. Thanks again for the rollercoaster.
Am now on tenterhooks to discover whether the 'y' will cost you. My Rigoletto memory is saying is 'e'.
Simon I kept shouting at the screen as you puzzled over wagoner. It was one of the few answers that I totally understood. Thanks for your insights as I am new to the Times cryptic crosswords and need many of your explanations to understand the solutions.
Yaaay. It’s not Friday without the cryptic crossword masterclass 🥳
I am definitely adopting the phrase "festival of anxiety" into my life for regular usage 🤣 Always a pleasure to watch you solve these!
singing 'oh bobbins' to the tune of la donne e mobile :D
These solves have become something I look forward to to start my weekend:)
Enjoyed watching that, as ever, but that 'Y' in the centre was distracting - it seemed to be crying out, 'Fix me, fix me!'. I was really hoping Simon would go back to it. Turned on Countdown earlier, and thought 'Hang on, I recognise that face!', so that was two enjoyable watches today.
SPELL = signal as in, “that spells/signals doom”.
I think 6D is the first time I've ever seen that word used anywhere. Ever!
A solitary 'Y' usually indicates Spanish or Welsh. Italian and Portuguese have isolated Es.
I did actually know all the answers this time. Couldn't necessarily have solved it but the clue constructions were impressive.
Happy Friday everyone! And well done Simon (I'm not saying anything about 5d other than I am totally gutted for you! Being a huge fan of both Scottish folk music and classical music, the remainder of the puzzle was rather torturous for me after you'd filled it in. I just hoped you'd come back to it later and save the day at the last minute.) What a great puzzle this week, like you I hope there are more of them, because these types of clues are a huge problem area for me. It's so instructive to see you solving them just from the world play. Somewhere along the way you said that you hadn't done anything wonderful, I strongly beg to differ. I think I'll be rewatching this one with a wee dram later. Thanks very much, and have a great weekend (and all). ☺☺ PS: I hope Mark had success on Countdown, unfortunately I can't get it here in The Netherlands. I'm sure he'll have taken some beating!
Simon, tremendous job! Your slight imperfections just make you human.
Bard is hilarious. Highly recommend asking Bard to tell you a joke (you might need to prompt it with a particular topic) and then asking it to explain why the joke is funny. Occasionally it stumbles upon a decent joke, but it never, ever understands why.
Thank you for another masterclass! I always enjoy these, and it was an interesting experience watching Mark on Countdown and this solve during the ad breaks.
(Spoiler gap for Countdown fans)
Well done to you both! I stopped watching Countdown years ago but will look forward to seeing how far Mark gets.
7 Down: Rage = Ire, Charge = Bill, Island = IONA, giving Billionaire. The missionary referred to in 8 down is St Francis Xavier.
Proud of myself for getting the officers in reserve clue before Simon. Tricky clue referencing a reserve like that.
Thanks for the great solve again, Simon!
Nearly made it into the list of fastest times you showed at the beginning!
Wagoner -> Reno GA (Georgia) maybe as well
Spellbinder -> In the maritime world, you signal words with light or flags and you spell out words with the morse system that way.
5:43 As far as I know, "ere" has the most homophones with six: air, are, e'er, ere, err, heir.
XVI for roman square :D
Thanks for directing us to Mark on Countdown, a very enjoyable diversion on the way to the Friday crossword video!
I saw Mark on Countdown. Amazing. Well done
an absolute pleasure to watch....half before countdown and half after!!
I'm only just seeing how cryptic puzzles work but my justification for heading there for wagoner was Oner backwards = Reno a city in the west of USA. I know it doesn't make sense but that's what I did.
Always a pleasure to watch Simon's solves every Friday lunchtime.
Love these. Thanks Simon
Enjoying my usual friday dose of magic!
Being a doctor with a bit of an interest in opera, I got those two. The rest were a mystery to me but I persevere. 😀
A great joy, as always. I did get one answer before you did, so perhaps I'm improving! Many thanks and please please keep these Friday treats going!
I enjoyed that a lot, thank you.
Simon, you're so musical, I think you'd really like opera if you took the time to listen to some! Drama, humor, singing -- gotta love it. (Sort of like CTC videos without the puzzles?) Some Genuinely Approachable Operas might be Così Fan Tutte (Mozart), Die Meistersinger (Wagner, a bit long but absolutely gorgeous tunes), or Falstaff (Verdi, my late husband's favorite). Anybody want to add some other suggestions?
Love these!
Another entertaining solve.
Love the Crosswords!!
Knowing that the letter Y is never used in Italian (except in some lone words of course), would’ve saved you!
Iona the island I think in 7d.
I thought I got it all but put in SOLDOUT for SELLOUT for 18d. Thanks Simon for all your help over months. I can now almost always do the quick cryptics and make a respectable struggle with the main ones.
Yes. I agree. Bill - Iona - ire should be the parsing.
A Masterpiece! What a rotter of a setter 😂 I did get a handful before Simon, but so many were wickedly difficult to parse.
I don't know why, but I'm surprised you're not an opera fan - and that you haven't heard La Donna E Mobile. Always surprises me what you are and aren't into lol
For Wagoner you said w-a goner (west=die) which gets you there but I interpretted it as an &lit / double definition. Driver from West (Wagoner) going that way? (Towards Wagoner, the name of a county and city in Oklahoma). Great clue
My favourite part of the day :D
@ 6:46 - Up to this point, like you, I'm struggling to even parse these clues, but I've just had my first breakthrough - lad on mobile ringing nae - very nice clue.
I got hip-replacement quickly - another nice clue. The crossing P and A helped me get family planning quickly, and that enabled me to get game war dens (I was able to spot the definition, rather than being led down the route of thinking officer might be col, maj or something like that).
After getting chronon, I got black box, and was irked that I didn't get it when I first looked. That gave me bill-iona-ire (Iona is the island) and Xavier (XVI=16, "a" seen inside it, ER=once leading British female). I got Swiss army knife easily, by seeing the k and f in the anagram, which suggested knife. I got kingpin, because there aren't many words ending with GPIN.
My thought process for heptagon was identical to yours. This helped get overlapping (a nice clue).
I thought W A GONER was nice, a goner might be described as going west.
I think you'd have done so much better if you'd got La Donna e Mobile. That opened up the whole crossword for me. There were so many really nice clues in this. Many were hard to parse without crossing letters to nudge us in the right direction. This was one of the best for a while - challenging, but fair and nicely crafted clues that reward the solver.
La Donns e mobile is the operatic aria. I think the missionary was St Francis Xavier. Medical procedure is a HIP Replacement. Animal reserves have GAME wardens. If you have died you have GONE WEST, therefore W A GONER. (overthinking this one Simon!)
😂Simon I wonder if you did in fact have the right glasses: you consistently mis read “fashionably” in 15 dn as “fashionable “.
Hilariously entertaining again, and sent me off to find out who Theodore Bagwell might be.
Fortunately, the aria was a write-in for me, but the rest was pretty difficult. I didn't help myself by guessing Falstaff for 1 down, and then getting confirmation from the two Fs working in the across clues - it must be right! However, I still mark answers that I can't parse on my copy, and try to solve the other across clues both with and without the starting letter. Eventually I saw wagoner, so Falstaff must be wrong.
My other error marking the enumeration of Swiss army knife wrongly on my copy - you'll never get anywhere if you do that.
Mark G has just solved this one in 6:29, beating Mohn. However, the best NITCH in the SNITCH goes to the TfTT blogger Jeremy, who solved this one in 64% of his average time. Not surprisingly, he is very enthusiastic about the puzzle in his blog.
Those who know Italian will know that Latin est gets reduced to e. Y does exist, but it means and in Spanish.
Once leading British female was unbelievably clever wordplay. Side note, I’m happy I instantly got parolee and worked out the medical procedure before Simon did
Simon, you'd be hard pressed to find any of JKWXY in Italian words, especially in opera titles. They are only found in recent borrowings. As a child, I was taught that the Italian alphabet has 21 letters 😅
Anyone else running to watch Countdown!! 😊
Bard would fail the Turing test miserably. "Artificial Intelligence" is a pretentious misnomer.
So many treats in this crossword, not least Swanky Misfires as an excellent band name. I know it wasn't quite a clean solve Simon but it was exceptional nevertheless. Thank you!
Other AIs are available (but not much better!)
ChatGPT
Certainly! The cryptic crossword clue "Sadly a Mexican's one obsessed with it (3,6)" breaks down as follows:
The answer is likely "hot sauce."
Explanation:
"Sadly" indicates an anagram.
"a Mexican's" suggests rearranging the letters of "a Mexican."
"one obsessed with it" hints at the solution being something associated with a strong interest or obsession.
Putting it all together, an anagram of "a Mexican" gives "ceximna," and if you add "one" to it, you get "hot sauce" (a type of condiment that someone might be obsessed with).
So close, yet so far.
But still better than the time I asked it for a Wordle starting word and it suggested "xylophone".
It got the construction right, but a bit of hallucination there. I bet if you pointed out that the answer didn't contain the anagram it might have found the answer.
I tried that - it didn't really improve ...
ChatGPT
I apologize for the confusion in my previous response. It seems there was an error in my explanation. Let me clarify:
The correct anagram of "a Mexican" is "exam in a," and when you add "one" to it, you get "exam in a one." I appreciate your patience and understanding. However, this doesn't seem to lead to a meaningful answer for the given crossword clue.
Let's reassess the clue:
"Sadly a Mexican's one obsessed with it (3,6)"
The correct answer might be "hot tamale." Here's the breakdown:
"Sadly" suggests an anagram.
"a Mexican's" hints at the phrase "a Mexican."
"one obsessed with it" indicates a person who is obsessed with something.
Putting it together, the anagram of "a Mexican" is "anexicm," and adding "one" gives "hot tamale," which fits the overall theme of being obsessed with a particular food item. I appreciate your patience and hope this provides a more accurate solution.
@@CharlieGrant88 lol
The elves in LOTR go “into the west” when they leave Middle Earth.
Finally it's Friday!
lad on nae mobile, I love it.I got this way before Simon.
I think 21a is perhaps slightly more clever than you realized. I think OLE is not just "word of encouragement", but "word of encouragement for keeping", as in goal-keeping in soccer. :)
Simon mentioning the US States made me absolutely sure Go West was WA Gone (gone to Washington) but of course it's never that simple 😅
I dont understand how you solve any of these! Seems so tough!
Was very worried that today was actually only Thursday when I didn't see this in my feed earlier.
Whenever there's a music answer in the crossword that should be the intro tune.
Great!
Isn't it Pratchett who made a 'kinda cryptic' joke about la donna e mobile ? But the mobile was related to moving and not mobile phone
(you asked comments to be about this clue).
It's pretty much the most famous operatic song. Everyone would recognise it. I've no idea which opera it's from though.
Rigoletto!
@@plusjeremy Grazie
La donna È mobile, not Y. Italian does not have Y as a separate word, unlike Spanish.
That Simon didn't get "La donna e mobile", the most famous opera song ever, the second he understood the wordplay is baffling to me (note that I would never in a million years have solved the puzzle).
Maybe the Y in 5 down seemed plausible because it's a common Spanish word meaning "and". Solving cryptic crosswords often depends on dredging up vaguely remembered knowledge. Simon was disappointed but I doubt whether it spoiled anyone's enjoyment of the video.
La Donna e Mobile from Rigoletto?
The only reason I know La Donna E Mobile is because of Doctor Who...
I interpret the W GONE in 12a as GONE W, gone west but the phrase not the letter string hence W GONE.
I got Black Box because there's nothing else it could have been, but I can't parse it at all, and I don't think Simon really explained it, unless I missed it?
B for British, when you "don't have", you LACK and "to fight" is to BOX. A black box is a device that needn't be understood to be used, also I came across the term being used as another way of referring to "Deus ex machina". In fiction, this is "a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly or abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence."
thanks@@Prazzie I've never heard that meaning of black box before. I've only come across it as the device on aeroplanes that inexplicably seems to survive every crash...
Thanks once again Simon. If you class your mistake as ignorance what hope for the rest of us?
The AI language model thing shows that it doesn't even know a very basic crossword clue parsing thing, which is to look at things like (3,6) and know it means you MUST have a nine-letter answer.
Would 12A 'WAGONER' be leaving West (California) so be GONE but 'IN' Arizona (AR) W A GONE R ?
Iona is a Scottish island (and, also, the acronym for Islands Of the North Atlantic, a proposed term for what might otherwise be called the British Isles that isn't offensive to Ireland).
WAGONER - "WA" (Washington state abbreviation), "GONER" = gone to Washington (to the west)?
Clearly I know my opera arias better than Simon. Once he pulled "lad" out of thin air for 5 down, I started singing. But he is far superior in all other cryptic crossword respects!
Able was I ere I saw Elba.
yay first
awesome
unlucky simon nae 😁
woo
British crosswords are insane
e
Oh dear... That AI answer...
the machinery in the background does make it very hard to listen to
Cryptic Crosswords are perhaps the absolute worst thing for current AI LLMs to attempt. They don't know what anything is, they only know what sequence of characters is most likely relevant to the characters they have been shown. Since cryptic crosswords require several levels of definition wordplay to solve, and the AI doesn't even understand the first level, it's not going to do well. That won't stop it from being extremely confident about its wrong answer though.
That's why they shouldn't be used as a source of factual information. They don't know to say "I Don't Know", because they don't actually know anything.
Dear Simon, I understand you really want to show us some obvious abbreviations like "No." for number, but please take the time to explain things like "lap" meaning "drink". Not all of us have knowledge of obscure words like that...
Personally, I would have hyphenated 14 ac, but even so, the definition doesn't make sense - a nun is a sister is a nun, not LIKE a nun...and as for 20 dn...well!