Thank you so much for making these videos! It is such a pleasure to watch you solve these difficult puzzles every week and I'm learning so much from your explanations. Incidentally my Tradescantia plants are taking over my garden and it was a buzz to finally solve a clue before you did, but also very impressive to watch the way your brain worked to come up with the correct answer!!
I managed about half of the crossword before giving up and deciding to watch Simon work out what I'd missed! Thanks for the video - always a treat at lunchtime on a Friday.
Once again, Simon’s lack of knowledge that I knew about and outstanding knowledge of other things I didn’t leaves me bemused 😂 thanks for the entertainment. I’m still not planning on solving any of these crosswords anytime soon, but I have been solving sudokus like a fiend!
Great solve. Some really hard ones in there. Very happy to get "tradescantia" immediately, since I have several of those chilling in my kitchen window. :)
In biology at uni the term Taxa was used quite a bit to describe the ecology of an area, e.g. this forest comprises several different Taxa. 😊 loved the video!
It always makes me chuckle when Simon reads a clue, declares "I have no idea what this is!" and then declares one second later "I know what this is!" His brain moves fast! :)
Thank you for the masterclass. Today was a good example of why I like to solve puzzles with my wife. She can often explain the “why” when I have got the answer, and vice versa. It’s much harder on your own. :-)
Crossword solving is a team sport in our house, too. It's fun to bat the clues around, and share the “a-ha!” moments. And, yes, the many times that one person goes “I think I've got the answer, but why is it ___?”
Didn’t get much before heading to RUclips! Thanks for giving the explanations before the answers - gives us a chance to take a little bit of the outstanding credit!
Well done! Thanks to following Simon's crossword solves I must be improving, because I was able to beat him to getting "purser" and "taxation". and to seeing the justification for "Loire"...
The ones Simon struggled with I saw quickly, and vice-versa. He got redolent almost at once, and had little trouble with tradescantia, while I put in hunter and taxation as soon as I read them. PS: You didn't go far enough in your standard/evergreen search - while you saw that evergreen could mean a song or piece of music that is popular for a long time, you overlooked nearly the exact same thing in the definitions of standard.
Tough day at the office this one! I love/hate when Simon reads out his understanding of the clue and it makes me get it immediately, but seems to then reject that understanding himself! 3 of these in there this time.
The notification literally put a smile on my face. Edit: Who could forget Duncan McKay, the crooked purser who is drowned by the kraken in Return of the Obra Dinn!
Simon is always warning us that the compiler is trying to get us to split clues up in the wrong way, but today he seemed to get fooled by a lot of such clues.
Also as regards the "why are all the definitions of standard on one page instead of standard¹, standard² etc" I think it might be because they all share a common etymology (estandart, in square brackets at the bottom of the definition) and are therefore different definitions of the 'same word' whereas some other words have the same spelling but completely distinct etymologies. I might be wrong though - I'm not sure if they do the same thing when a word has multiple pronunciations, too.
I'm sure you're right. If you have the print version of Chambers and actually read the "Using the dictionary" content at the beginning, it practically says so in the first topic - Order of entries - "this grouping of related words within an entry preserves and explains their etymological 'family' link"
Hah, yes, I just posted almost the same comment before reading yours. Including the "I'm not sure" part. :) Thanks, Peter, for confirming us both correct in our uncertain thoughts!
Lovely puzzle. I think you missed part of what makes the wordplay of 25a) so clever. Area 51 is an area in the Nevada desert which is rumoured to store captured alien life forms and is thus something of a mecca for alien conspiracy theorists, hence 'Area 51 opens up belief in invisible controlling powers'.
To my amazement, as I'm really a bit of a duffer, I managed to solve this until I got to 'taxation' - a stumbling block throughout my commercial career! Ever in awe of Simon's ability!
The 'into' anagram was so hard to spot. For me , taxation just went in with a shrug. How to remember the other meaning of last though? Seen a few times, but it refuses to stick in my brain. Great solve by Simon, as ever. Always enjoys these.
The clue also makes reference to Area 51, a military base in the Nevada desert where, supposedly, evidence of alien encounters is being held under wraps.
When I went to the school in SE London in the late 90s Latin was still compulsory for the first 2 years [years 7 and 8] so you must have done some surely!
After I touted it on previous videos, the New Yorker is no longer running Cryptic crosswords, so watching these videos is the only way I'll be getting my fix for awhile.
I had the same experience. Usually I watch these videos to parse some clues I didn't quite understand. This time, I was on the setter's wavelength and understood the ones that kept Simon so busy!
I know it wasn't, but 10 Across could have been 'absurd' given the checking letters. I always appreciate that Simon doesn't use "nothing else will fit" as a satisfactory reason to give a particular answer, no matter how cryptic the clue may be.
I got a few before Simon, my guess is that Simon always thinks of any answer as the complicated version of it. I went for the easy answer in the ones I got before him. Good solve
I _think_ that the reason all the meanings of "standard" are grouped together rather than being separated into 1, 2, 3, etc. is because all of the "standard" meanings have the same etymology, but when things are separated it's because the different numbers correspond to different etymologies. Maybe? I'm not sure.
The musical reference to me is the only meaning I know of the word evergreen, though it would also be a plant that always has leaves make total sense 😂
is 4 down a double definition? Because the wordplay doesn't quite work if you just take path traced back = descent and Peruvian empire = Incan, because the words are the wrong way round. It does work as "path traced back to Peruvian empire" being (of) Incan descent.
I don't think it can count as one. An & lit needs the whole clue to be a definition, but the whole clue is a statement about the what a wage increase does. If you inserted "that" before "accommodates", it would be a definition, but it would be overspecific - an increase that didn't satisfy the union would still be a raise. And the whole clue needs to be the wordplay indication, which it can't be unless you can justify A as the "union's core requirement" to go inside "Increase in wage level" = RISE - RASE as a verb has nothing to do with "increase".
"Taxa" does just literally mean "categorized groups"; it's the plural of "taxon" and is used a lot in biology. It is the root of the word "taxonomy" of course, which literally means "the naming of categories": taxon (category) + nom (name) + y ("act of" suffix). I'm more of an astrum (star) + nom + y = astronomy nerd but I know a bit of bios (life) + logos (thinking/knowledge) + y = biology and it always pays to know your Latin and Greek root words when you're doing scira (know/distinguish/cut) + entia (-ing) = science.
Nonpareils are also known as hundreds and thousands. Sugar sprinkles! That's what the confection definition was pointing to. It also refers to a chocolate disc covered in said sprinkles.
I couldn't help wanting to quote your own advice back to you for the abound clue. You accepted "full of anger" as a phrase, when you should have considered just the words and split it after "of". Be full of/anger having lost almost everything=a/for sure=bound. I think your disapproval was just sour grapes. You've seen plenty of examples of similar wordplay and never batted an eyelid. You made the same scanning mistake with the taxation clue - categorised groups = taxa/into different=tion/types of duty. Given that you knew that taxonomy was the process of categorising groups, I'm surprised you didn't know (or could guess) that those groups were called taxa (plural of taxon). Lolita was a fantastic clue, very clever and apposite wordplay. I think "evergreen" refers to standards like "All of Me", or "April in Paris", and a shrub grafted onto a vertical stem is a standard (e.g. a standard rose looks like a rose tree, but the rose is not naturally a tree. The rose shrub is grafted onto a tree stem to make it look like a tree). Tradescantia is a trailing plant, often found in indoor hanging baskets. Capuchin is the origin of cappuccino, because the monks wore dark robes with white hoods. I was surprised it took you as long as it did to get cobble; "work at last" just screamed shoemaking to me. All the clues you struggled with I thought were easy, but you instantly got some line nonpareil that I struggled with. (For me, broadcast is a homophone indicator, it doesn't suggest an anagram at all. Broadcast means to disperse, not jumble, or reassemble, or reorder). If you wanted to moan about any of the clues, rather than "abound", the "core requirement" for me went beyond just making the clue scan. It could just as easily have been "union's core" and still made sense. For "requirement" to be there suggested it was a vital part of the wordplay.
"We've done a reasonable jon in the north west".... very generous of you to include me, but I'm afraid I was as much use as a glass cricket bat
How does the usefulness of a glass cricket bat compare to that of a chocolate teapot, I wonder?
Absolutely love that BROMANCE was an answer haha!!
Thank you so much for making these videos! It is such a pleasure to watch you solve these difficult puzzles every week and I'm learning so much from your explanations. Incidentally my Tradescantia plants are taking over my garden and it was a buzz to finally solve a clue before you did, but also very impressive to watch the way your brain worked to come up with the correct answer!!
I managed about half of the crossword before giving up and deciding to watch Simon work out what I'd missed! Thanks for the video - always a treat at lunchtime on a Friday.
As always, the Crossword solves are amazing. I have no idea how they work, but it is so much fun to watch the language twist and turn like this.
Once again, Simon’s lack of knowledge that I knew about and outstanding knowledge of other things I didn’t leaves me bemused 😂 thanks for the entertainment. I’m still not planning on solving any of these crosswords anytime soon, but I have been solving sudokus like a fiend!
Great solve. Some really hard ones in there. Very happy to get "tradescantia" immediately, since I have several of those chilling in my kitchen window. :)
so lovely hearing the birds singing in the background. im in New England in the us and we are not so lucky as Old England for spring weather right now
In biology at uni the term Taxa was used quite a bit to describe the ecology of an area, e.g. this forest comprises several different Taxa. 😊 loved the video!
It always makes me chuckle when Simon reads a clue, declares "I have no idea what this is!" and then declares one second later "I know what this is!" His brain moves fast! :)
11:24 is a great example of this :D
@@katy-music See also - "I haven't got this, but... okay, I HAVE got this"!
The eye roll with 'Crossword Compilers LOVE C- G-' was the best!
I love watching the difficult ones and seeing simon's thought processes at work. Fast becoming thr higlight of my friday :)
Thank you for the masterclass. Today was a good example of why I like to solve puzzles with my wife. She can often explain the “why” when I have got the answer, and vice versa. It’s much harder on your own. :-)
Crossword solving is a team sport in our house, too. It's fun to bat the clues around, and share the “a-ha!” moments.
And, yes, the many times that one person goes “I think I've got the answer, but why is it ___?”
I'm growing to appreciate these videos even more than the sudoku videos and I hope the algorithm grows to appreciate them as well!
Didn’t get much before heading to RUclips! Thanks for giving the explanations before the answers - gives us a chance to take a little bit of the outstanding credit!
Well done! Thanks to following Simon's crossword solves I must be improving, because I was able to beat him to getting "purser" and "taxation". and to seeing the justification for "Loire"...
Congratulations on making 60 of these weekly gems! 😺
My favourite ones are when you don’t know the word but get it correct by the word play. I’m so impressed! Love these videos!
The ones Simon struggled with I saw quickly, and vice-versa. He got redolent almost at once, and had little trouble with tradescantia, while I put in hunter and taxation as soon as I read them.
PS: You didn't go far enough in your standard/evergreen search - while you saw that evergreen could mean a song or piece of music that is popular for a long time, you overlooked nearly the exact same thing in the definitions of standard.
that's common with Simon, he looks things up but doesn't read the whole entry
I think Simon was familiar with that definition of standard, but not for evergreen
Enjoyed this thanks. I too was stuck on STANDARD and others.
It'a always a great Friday with this Masterclass series! 🙂
Tough day at the office this one! I love/hate when Simon reads out his understanding of the clue and it makes me get it immediately, but seems to then reject that understanding himself! 3 of these in there this time.
57:20 the latest Chambers does split meanings numerically!
I was flabbergasted at a good half of these, genuinely. Cryptic crosswords are certainly one of the most outwardly difficult puzzles out there.
The notification literally put a smile on my face.
Edit: Who could forget Duncan McKay, the crooked purser who is drowned by the kraken in Return of the Obra Dinn!
Always a pleasure!
Without an absolute doubt!!
@@davidrattner9 😉
Great way to get Fridays going!!! 😁
Looked for this an hour ago. So happy when it showed up! Happy Friday!
No standard solve. Well done. Very enjoyable, as ever.
Simon is always warning us that the compiler is trying to get us to split clues up in the wrong way, but today he seemed to get fooled by a lot of such clues.
An excellent pseudo-intentional lesson, I'm sure
Also as regards the "why are all the definitions of standard on one page instead of standard¹, standard² etc" I think it might be because they all share a common etymology (estandart, in square brackets at the bottom of the definition) and are therefore different definitions of the 'same word' whereas some other words have the same spelling but completely distinct etymologies. I might be wrong though - I'm not sure if they do the same thing when a word has multiple pronunciations, too.
I'm sure you're right. If you have the print version of Chambers and actually read the "Using the dictionary" content at the beginning, it practically says so in the first topic - Order of entries - "this grouping of related words within an entry preserves and explains their etymological 'family' link"
Hah, yes, I just posted almost the same comment before reading yours. Including the "I'm not sure" part. :)
Thanks, Peter, for confirming us both correct in our uncertain thoughts!
Lovely puzzle. I think you missed part of what makes the wordplay of 25a) so clever. Area 51 is an area in the Nevada desert which is rumoured to store captured alien life forms and is thus something of a mecca for alien conspiracy theorists, hence 'Area 51 opens up belief in invisible controlling powers'.
Thanks for doing these. I'm learning a lot.
You are doing crosswords at a level I didn’t know was possible
"Re" for "about" often comes up, but it might be less awkward to explain if you note that it's short for "regarding"!
Very impressive.
To my amazement, as I'm really a bit of a duffer, I managed to solve this until I got to 'taxation' - a stumbling block throughout my commercial career! Ever in awe of Simon's ability!
The 'into' anagram was so hard to spot. For me , taxation just went in with a shrug. How to remember the other meaning of last though? Seen a few times, but it refuses to stick in my brain. Great solve by Simon, as ever. Always enjoys these.
"Invisible controlling powers" .... cheeky
The clue also makes reference to Area 51, a military base in the Nevada desert where, supposedly, evidence of alien encounters is being held under wraps.
Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings... didn't have a pole. But my brain immediately went to "pole dancing Gandalf" so thanks for that mental image! xD
I have some talents, but cryptic crosswords are not one of them, so I always watch these with interest and awe 😅❤️
a tough one but good to see it solved in the end.
When I went to the school in SE London in the late 90s Latin was still compulsory for the first 2 years [years 7 and 8] so you must have done some surely!
Until I was 13 I actually went to school in Cheshire... definitely no Latin!
After I touted it on previous videos, the New Yorker is no longer running Cryptic crosswords, so watching these videos is the only way I'll be getting my fix for awhile.
Quite amusing imagining Simon at a bachelors party and when he sees the pole he thinks of Gandalf.😂
I did surprisingly well on that one, and so I must be improving!
I had the same experience. Usually I watch these videos to parse some clues I didn't quite understand. This time, I was on the setter's wavelength and understood the ones that kept Simon so busy!
I know it wasn't, but 10 Across could have been 'absurd' given the checking letters. I always appreciate that Simon doesn't use "nothing else will fit" as a satisfactory reason to give a particular answer, no matter how cryptic the clue may be.
I *just* thought to check if the weekly video is out - what a lovely surprise :D
I got a few before Simon, my guess is that Simon always thinks of any answer as the complicated version of it. I went for the easy answer in the ones I got before him. Good solve
what a puzzle!
These people out here saying 7 minutes is slow and I get about 2 right in an hour 😂
I _think_ that the reason all the meanings of "standard" are grouped together rather than being separated into 1, 2, 3, etc. is because all of the "standard" meanings have the same etymology, but when things are separated it's because the different numbers correspond to different etymologies. Maybe? I'm not sure.
The musical reference to me is the only meaning I know of the word evergreen, though it would also be a plant that always has leaves make total sense 😂
Always tickles me when I see Mark on the scoreboard! 7 minutes is a surprising time, looks like I'm settling in for a hard video today.
is 4 down a double definition? Because the wordplay doesn't quite work if you just take path traced back = descent and Peruvian empire = Incan, because the words are the wrong way round. It does work as "path traced back to Peruvian empire" being (of) Incan descent.
C'mon Simon, you learned about pursers in Return of the Obra Dinn 😅🏴☠⛵🐙
Be full of (abound) anger having lost almost everything (a) for sure (bound(to))
Comment for the algorithm. Also ..I got Hunter and taxation 1st. (Obviously, Simon's checking letters were of no help whatsoever). 😀
How the devil am I meant to start getting into cryptic crosswords?
Over an hour... gonna be one of _these_ grids...
When he said "watch person", my first thought was horologist...
You should have remembered Purser from your Obra Din playthrough :)
4 Down is technically a double definition isn't it? Incandescent and Incan Descent?
I think 22 Down was supposed to be an &lit clue. Workers unions often demand raises.
I don't think it can count as one. An & lit needs the whole clue to be a definition, but the whole clue is a statement about the what a wage increase does. If you inserted "that" before "accommodates", it would be a definition, but it would be overspecific - an increase that didn't satisfy the union would still be a raise. And the whole clue needs to be the wordplay indication, which it can't be unless you can justify A as the "union's core requirement" to go inside "Increase in wage level" = RISE - RASE as a verb has nothing to do with "increase".
correction: "statement about what a wage increase does"
"Taxa" does just literally mean "categorized groups"; it's the plural of "taxon" and is used a lot in biology. It is the root of the word "taxonomy" of course, which literally means "the naming of categories": taxon (category) + nom (name) + y ("act of" suffix).
I'm more of an astrum (star) + nom + y = astronomy nerd but I know a bit of bios (life) + logos (thinking/knowledge) + y = biology and it always pays to know your Latin and Greek root words when you're doing scira (know/distinguish/cut) + entia (-ing) = science.
This is a kind comment (of a kind), mister algorithm.
And this is a kindly reply to further satisfy Mr A's hunger.
Evergreen could be a standard in terms of songs...
Nonpareils are also known as hundreds and thousands. Sugar sprinkles! That's what the confection definition was pointing to. It also refers to a chocolate disc covered in said sprinkles.
Isn't "standard" a word for "flagpole", especially in military terminology?
Jazz standards are sometimes called evergreens... Oh okay, as always, what do I know that the dictionary doesn't.
I couldn't help wanting to quote your own advice back to you for the abound clue. You accepted "full of anger" as a phrase, when you should have considered just the words and split it after "of". Be full of/anger having lost almost everything=a/for sure=bound. I think your disapproval was just sour grapes. You've seen plenty of examples of similar wordplay and never batted an eyelid.
You made the same scanning mistake with the taxation clue - categorised groups = taxa/into different=tion/types of duty. Given that you knew that taxonomy was the process of categorising groups, I'm surprised you didn't know (or could guess) that those groups were called taxa (plural of taxon).
Lolita was a fantastic clue, very clever and apposite wordplay.
I think "evergreen" refers to standards like "All of Me", or "April in Paris", and a shrub grafted onto a vertical stem is a standard (e.g. a standard rose looks like a rose tree, but the rose is not naturally a tree. The rose shrub is grafted onto a tree stem to make it look like a tree).
Tradescantia is a trailing plant, often found in indoor hanging baskets.
Capuchin is the origin of cappuccino, because the monks wore dark robes with white hoods.
I was surprised it took you as long as it did to get cobble; "work at last" just screamed shoemaking to me.
All the clues you struggled with I thought were easy, but you instantly got some line nonpareil that I struggled with. (For me, broadcast is a homophone indicator, it doesn't suggest an anagram at all. Broadcast means to disperse, not jumble, or reassemble, or reorder).
If you wanted to moan about any of the clues, rather than "abound", the "core requirement" for me went beyond just making the clue scan. It could just as easily have been "union's core" and still made sense. For "requirement" to be there suggested it was a vital part of the wordplay.
"Works at last" - unlike my brain. That was a b@st@rd of a puzzle and Simon did very well to complete it.