ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
I am the 374,293,191st best cryptic crossword solver in the universe. By quite a big margin, I may add, over the solver ranked #374,293,192. Just saying.
Wow are these things frigging tough. I mean Holy Christ-hard. I know I have a rudimentary command of the English language, but this settles it: I’m illiterate. I might (stretching it here: might) stand a better shot at the mots croises in “Le Monde.” I’m taking an educated guess that since I managed to stay awake long enough to get a solid D+/C- in French class way back when in the halcyon days of high school, and the puzzles are clued straight, I suspect I could feasably get one or two entries. Maybe not. I’ll let you know if I ever see that paper.
First off, a couple observations on the British puzzle pages. One: I don’t see any editor’s name, anywhere. In fact, the setter’s name is the exact same font size (different font/color) as the title of the puzzle. A+ goes to whoever came up with that idea.
Secondly, the Times of London ran (count ’em) seven (7) pages of puzzles and puzzle-related ephemera (bridge, chess and Scrabble columns, e.g.). Seven. Wow. They were: a 23x with cryptic and straight clues (different answers, obviously, no attribution for that one, oddly), another 13x with straight clues, four codewords, four KenKen, four killers, seven sudoku, one Samurai, two 3-D sudoku, four mazes, the aforementioned columns and one variety cryptic (we’ll get to that in a minute). It was a cornucopia of puzzles. Crazy!
I’ve heard Will Shortz say that the printed puzzle helps the sales of printed newspapers. Well, I’ve also heard that the Times is hurting financially. Quit fucking around and run more puzzles then. Like your sister paper. Why stop with the KenKens? Do you really think that sudoku and sudoku-like puzzles aren’t New York Times-worthy enough? Yet the KenKens are just fine? Call up Thomas Snyder and Wei-Hwa Huang and they’ll crank out capital A Art logic puzzles. Seriously, they’re the puzzlemakers of the year, IMHO. (I don’t give out awards like that, but their book “Mutant Sudoku” pretty much sealed the deal for me.) Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that the Times of London runs a ton of puzzles, and different variety in there too. Something the Sulzberger’s should think about doing.
So, anyway. The cryptics. I fared oh-kay on the Christmas Eve on in the Guardian. Araucaria set it (for those that care), and it was a regular 15x. And when I say I “fared oh-okay,” that just means I got four answers correct. {Popular group sees the smaller picture (5)} = INSET (saw the characde). {Revolutionary poem? No, a rude composition (7)} = RONDEAU (saw the anagram). I got HOW NOW BROWN COW from {What is this Jersey? An exercise in vowel sounds? (3,3,5,3)} exclusively on the straight definition and the letter count, but if you were to ask me how the cryptic part works, ya got me. I also got ALONG out of {Forward way to Tipperary (5)}, I guess from the song lyrics. But again, the cryptic end of it? Beats me. Everything else, well, I was toast.
The Listener crossword was set by Jago. It was a 12x variety that ran in the Times of London on December 26, and well, let’s just say I couldn’t get past the instructions. The clues, well, they relied so heavily on surface meaning (it was a story), that I couldn’t make anything out. A small sampling of three consecutive clues clues: {Mum raised and fed pup on Xmas leftovers (5)}, {It’s a sore point, considering what’s in most food. (7)} {Both together for Xmas? (3)}. Yeah, right.
But did I mention all the sudokus (and variants)?
Anyway, I just want to leave you with the request that if you liked the puzzles this month (or year, for that matter), and if you could afford to give a little to the tip jar this week, it would be much appreciated. As a special way of saying thanks, I will give any object from the BEQ.com store to a randomly selected donor. Thanks ahead of time.
Share the puzzle. New one on Wednesday.
The Times is a little looser than other cryptics; in any event, Jersey is a cow (surface) and the four O sounds could be a speech exercise (cryptic). Similarly, Forward could be a definition of along (my UK dictionary, Chambers, an essential tool, offers onward as a definition for along) and of course it’s “A LONG” way to the city in question. But if I can make reasonable progress in the Times (and finish the FT, an easier puzzle, more or less) the Listener is a puzzle subculture within a subculture that demands much of newcomers…
Your puzzle: Was on the easy side, but enjoyable nonetheless. Am I right in saying middle 3-stacks are less common? They certainly mean less 3’s which is great! AIRDALETERRIER was in a triple this weekend LAT/Michael Wiesenburg, which is unfortunate, but unforeseeable. FLULIKESYMPTOMS was a great “catch-phrase” type entry; puzzling trying to work out how to pad FLUSYMPTOMS to 15 letters! Oh, and thank you Caleb for 13D!
Re other musings:
The daily paper here has the Telegraph cryptic. When I do solve it, which is infrequently I must admit, I usually get through about 2/3 of it, then curse at the rest when the solution arrives tomorrow!
How many puzzles are there in the NYT on Sunday? Had a close look at the 2 page spread in our local (unrelated) Sunday Times: Something called “Elimination” (18 cryptic-esque clues, 37 answers – find the odd answer), Bridge, Chess, 3 cryptics (1 with straight clues too), a quiz, and a codeword. A fair amount, but it’s not nearly as big a newspaper though…
“One: I don’t see any editor’s name, anywhere. In fact, the setter’s name is the exact same font size (different font/color) as the title of the puzzle. A+ goes to whoever came up with that idea.”
Agreed, A+ idea and long overdue in the U.S.
At the very least, a crossword editor’s name should appear second in the byline, after the constructor’s.
Under no circumstances should the editor’s byline be larger than the constructor’s, as that gives the editor far too much credit.
Of course on the downside, in the local Sunday Times there are no bylines, anywhere, at all…
@Cole: The Times is looser than the Guardian? I beg to differ. At any rate: “What is this?” = HOW NOW, Jersey is a brown cow. And this week’s Listener clues are not cryptic — ‘All clues contain a definition of the answer and a consecutive jumble of its letters, beginning at the start or ending at the end of a word.’ Filling the grid is the easiest part. After that, good luck!
And now a word from that ring of hell where solvers take 55:47 to get through a first-rate puzz like this one. There’s just got to be a proper word for the untamed territory north of “hard”.
Big blocks like the 3×15 in the center are still scary to me, so was glad for THE GLOBE THEATRE and FLU LIKE SYMPTOMS gimmes. Created my own blocks, too. 20A SNOWY seemed gimme’ish, so didn’t question it soon enough. Also filled in 38D, based just on two crosses, as ART CENSOR. And UNITECH felt soooo right (OMG how can I have never seen a single episode!?).
The fun in this one came from the creative cluing. Loved the Bill the Cat evocation at 22A (yeah, I hear it shows up in Cathy too, but she’s no BtC). 62A “Stomach, etc.” was a helluva clue, IMHO. Ditto re 49D, where I stared and stared at __IDO thinking wow, how stupid AM I this a.m.? Some days, “Doh!” is hard to distinguish from “Aha!”. Same feeling re 15A. Watched as the crosses slowly fell into place, thinking no, couldn’t be. Cool.
Still stumped by cluing of 9D OPAL as “10 gem”. Can someone help me out on that one?
re “how can I have never seen a single episode!?” — the clue was related to the hilarious cult movie “Office Space”, not “The Office”.
Great puzzle done in three increments throughout the day with one mistake. I’m not very good with stacking 15 worders but once I broke through on a partial of AIREDALE, the rest of the puzzle fell quite nicely. BEQ has a thing for Axe and here it is again as a shower gel, I won’t ask.
10 gem refers to the month October as in the birthstone.
Why do you think I got hooked on ornery American crosswords? Answer: they’re hard.
Down under, after a cryptic diet, and all the local Quicks being too quick, I needed a new hill to climb. And there on the horizon loomed Mt Quigley, Gaffney’s Crag, Blindauer Bluff and all you other sheer wonders.
Sounds like Mt Cryptic beckons, BEQ. Because it’s there, eh?
RHEME, eh? Interesting.
I’ve gone in the opposite direction: I was once editor of the Listener Crossword in the Times of London and am now trying to get into US-style puzzles having emigrated to America three years ago.
It’s probably easier this way, though the glue that is the little words in American puzzles takes a while to memorize – something akin to the set of abbreviations you just need to know for cryptic clues.
The low profile of crossword editors in the UK is mostly historical, I think, although the reticence of the British may have something to do with it. I don’t think the editor’s name appears alongside any of the major crossword series in the UK. British editors tend to change puzzles comparatively little and a constructor of Araucaria’s stature probably sees his work published as is – that may also be a factor in the low profile of the editors.
Signing of puzzles in the UK is by no means universal and when it happens tends to be using pseudonyms. The Guardian puzzles have been published under pseudonyms for as long as I can remember. OTOH, the flagship 15x daily cryptic in the Times of London isn’t signed. The trend is for more puzzles to be signed, which I agree is great and certainly welcomed by the constructors.