The Times Crossword Friday Masterclass: 15 March 2024
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- čas přidán 14. 03. 2024
- ** TODAY'S PUZZLE **
In the 57th edition of our attempts to solve a Friday Times crossword, Simon tackles today's puzzle which is, if we do say ourselves, pretty tough! Lots of intricate wordplay and vocab required - we love it!!
The puzzle is available to play on The Times crossword club website (which is behind their paywall):
www.thetimes.co.uk/puzzleclub...
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Dave Gorman's crossword video with Tony Gardner is here:
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It's hard to spot ortolan backwards when you don't know it's a word going forwards!
I knew about ortolans because of an episode of the Hannibal tv show where Hannibal and Will eat them. eating and hunting them, iirc, has been banned in a lot of countries
@andrewgrant6516 exactly!!!😁
Time to be introduced to words I’ve never heard of, clued by phrases that make no sense to me. And I ❤it and look forward to it every week. 😁
22:33 Bombay cats are shot-haired cats with fully black glossy fur and black skin (meaning even the nose, mouth, and inner ears are black). Also, their eyes are exclusively copper-gold, making them look like miniature black panthers. These are beautiful cats, very social, and make ideal family pets.
wow, that sounds like a gorgeous cat, even by cat standards! 😺💚
My old cat Napoleon was a very similar kind of American shorthair-- all black with yellow eyes. He was a handsome devil when he wasn't overweight.
Arthur Rackham is famous for fairy-related illustrations amongst other forms across forty years; he mixes watercolours, line drawings and silhouettes in his work. You might know his versions of Wind in the Willows, Grimm's Fairy Tales or Gulliver's Travels perhaps. His style, developed for the capabilities of printing at the time, is very easy to recognise.
no simon, let's not move on, we want to hear that stories from university
one of the great pleasures of these videos is the opportunity to shout 'CAR BOOT SALES' at the screen for a full 25 minutes.
Just love listening to and looking at the handsome Simon.😊
Could Simon be the rare British person who doesn’t like gardening? Intercropping is also associating two crops in the same plot or planter. Like planting basil around a tomato plant to bring it nitrates and chase away pests. Also, rhizome - just bury a piece of ginger in soil and never buy ginger again. Now if only I was as comfortable with cryptic crosswords as with gardening… Got maybe 5 words on this one. Thanks Simon, a joy always.
A lot of British people these days seem to want to concrete over any area that could be made into a garden. Got to put the car(s) somewhere.
@@thescrewfly That’s a disappointment and a half.
I do like gardening but I'm not very good at it :)
@@CrackingTheCrypticshould be a breeze now that you know about intercropping and rhizomes
by the way, the couple you couldn't source, the painter rackham and the cat breed bombay, fall handedly and to much satisfaction to Google images
Forgetting what day of the week it is and being reminded by Simon’s masterclass is priceless!
Arthur Rackham is certainly a very well known illustrator. I'm sure Simon would recognise anything by him as soon as he saw it.
My fav YT video of the week! I read 15 down as PEP (go) + PERON (a revolutionary = Eva Peron) + I (number one) = PEPPERONI.
I've got 'The Oxford Book of Tudor Anthems' open nearby, and I confirm that they are tremendously more likely to be sung in a chancel than in a stadium!
Cryptic Friday. Gotta love it.
Thank you Simon for another fabulous solve and more splendid explanations!!!
As someone who's literally just started trying to get into Cryptic Crosswords after watching Dave Gorman's video this is great to watch.
A tough one for sure, so much random vocabulary that you need, the various abbreviations for things are taking a while for me to get my head around as well.
Really good video though, and the clues were explained perfectly as well, great to see the thinking that goes into deciphering clues.
This was another great Crossword week! Thank you!!
Always astounds me how Simon can do these in one sitting and how people can do sub 10 minute times. I was chuffed to finish it over a couple of days with several return visits!
It was very interesting to watch. It was also interesting, for me, that I actually got three of the clues. I usually find crosswords confusing.
Favourite moment was when the clock was chiming, and Simon says “somethings ringing a bell”
36:35
Always the high point of the week -- I'm starting to build Fridays around these videos.
Superb once again thanks Simon. Lordy that was a super-tough one.
Another fabulous Friday treat, thanks Simon! A record for me today: four clues solved before you - definitely getting better with the weekly practice!
i thought the revolutionary might be eva peron, i guess it works both ways... great solve as always, i couldnt fathom doing that in 7 mins
I agree! Just reading all the clues would take a bit as you have to pay attention to all words, not just scan them. Then the time to fill in the letters of the answeres.
'Anthem' is used in Anglican church music as a general term for a piece sung by the choir in a service - e.g. during communion, or at Evensong, at the point at which the Book of Common Prayer says: "In quires and places where they sing, here followeth the anthem".
Phew, that was a tricky one. Well done to Simon for getting there in the end - most impressive, and entertaining as always.
Thank you! Love these videos!
Loved this weeks puzzle solve!
thanks for the solve simon!
My first video by you and what a superb explanation for every clue! Could the ginger clue be related to Red-head?
2D is interesting in relation to the sometimes expressed view that every word in a clue needs to be essential. "Where one might sing anthem's opening line" could be just "Where one might sing opening line", and the clue would still work. So "anthem's" is not vital - it just makes the clue read better, especially if you know about church buildings and music. Personally, I have no problem with strictly unnecessary words or something like "a building" indicating "church".
Another reason to look forward to Friday, as if one were needed 😎
much enjoyment as ever
Thanks for the video! I do wonder if it might be better for the algorithm if you swapped episode numbers for dates? People might be less likely to click on "episode 57" of a series they've never watched.
Good idea. Thanks!
Between me loading the page and now, the title has changed to the date! Good comment.
Champers also sounds like chompers, which is synonymous with biters. probably a bit of a reach.
I got car-boot sales straight away, which was a big help, and made the puzzle much easier. I didn't really struggle with any of the clues, so I guess I was just on the same wavelength as the setter. It also played to my rather eclectic set of interests. I wouldn't have beaten Mark's time, but his brain does seem to have a very efficient filing system, whereas mine is in need of a good secretary to put it in order.
I thought you might struggle with tallies, based on other crosswords. Thankfully, I know of Tallis thanks to Vaughan Williams' stirring Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, so it was an obvious clue for me.
I had to look up Arthur Rackham, who was indeed an illustrator. Like you, I only got that from the word play.
Saddo was quite amusing. I was wondering if your slightly staid dictionary included it.
Wiktionary has "saddo," so I guess it's en fleek.
Thanks, brilliant
My streak of learning new British terms is intact
Thanks
Although it didn't turn out to be the right answer here, I'm now thinking about the homophone/pun between "inquire" and "in choir" (literally, where one might sing). I suppose one could come up with a clue like "Look into where one might sing, it's said" to make use of that.
🌱thank you ✏✨
In addition to these masterclass videos, have you considered doing something like starterclass episodes?
I never miss an episode of these, but the Friday cryptics are hard puzzles, and accessing them requires a subscription. Might there be an audience for videos of easier and more accessible cryptics, like for instance The Guardian's Monday quiptic? As a non-native English speaker who has only got into cryptics in the past year thanks to your videos, it usually takes me a full week to tackle Guardian's quiptic, but I'm immensely proud of myself whenever I can do it. It would be fun to sit down on Sunday afternoons with last Monday's quiptic nearly solved in my lap and watch you go through it and explain what's going on.
I'd second this! I need something like a kids' version of cryotics to get started.
I would certainly be interested in a more accessible crossword break down.
Every time I watch these videos, I seem to be left with questions that I would like to ask you. For example, what are all the scenarios where a question mark (?) would be used?
I think it would be cool if these were a live solve where you could engage with chat. Would that be appealing to anyone?
Arthur Rackham, illustrator . 8a = Plastic. 19a= bitter without a t.
For 15D I though this might refer to (Juan) Peron as a revolutionary (in Chile IIRC). That makes the rest of the wordplay work better.
when it's a 50 minute cryptic video you know it'll be good
I had an amusing clue in one I did recently. Scrambles Scrambles, Scrambles! (9)
Clambers. Fun clue!
Brilliant as usual Simon. I need some help with a cryptic clue that I've got the answer to, but can't for the life of me figure out the wordplay....can you or someone explain it please?
Opposition's one timid sheep at heart by the sound of it. (5)
The answer is ENEMY but how you get that from "one timid sheep by the sound of it" is a mystery to me! 🙂
The heart of one, timid and sheep is N, M and E, which sounds like enemy.
A clue I thought of today:
Don't assist the needy (8)
Or
Without assistance for the needy (8)
An anthem is a type of religious song in the C of E
That first clue is already cracking me up. Hearing a sentence like "I've got to hide 'short' in my beers and my outdoor markets..." will never not be funny to me.
With 15 down I'd thought it would be talking about Juan from Argentina? 🤔
Simey failed to notice the symmetry of this puzzle. Probably explains why the clues were a bit left of center :PPPP
This clearly demonstrates how a Cryptic crossword can be much easier than a plain crossword with the same answers. Without the wordplay to help, that would have been almost impossible.
Well, most regular crosswords would be exponentially harder if half the letters were only used in a single word-- you'd have to run the table on clues to get them all. Here, the cryptic definition is acting as a kind of second-chance at getting the answer, and Simon pretty regularly manages to deduce answers that are words not in his (or, in many cases, just about anyone's) vocabulary.
I’m learning a lot from these videos but they don’t encourage me to tackle the Times crossword - there’s just too many words that I don’t know!
Re: 16 across, any farmer would have gotten that one quickly. Back to your roots! (literally!)
Does 15 down not reference the Argentinian Peron? Were Juan or Eva revolutionaries?
To be fair, even Indians don't really use pice often lol. We use paisa (paise is the plural) if we even use the word. I think pice might be the british transliteration, like how people use Bombay instead of Mumbai
Nice
My caveman brain can't even begin to start these. Well done!
Yes, it helps to have heard of Arthur Rackham, and to know pice. But car-boot sales should have been a write-in for an English solver. As a US solver, I didn't have too much difficulty with this one.
In Pepperoni - would Per come from For as in "for each" - the literal Italian translation
Arthur Rackham, one assumes
He is British illustrator and his style is very recognizable
Thanks. I thought I recognized the name.@@mycroft64089