A Cryptic Crossword with an Expression of Genius ...

[@AhsimNreiziev]

I just want to say how much I appreciate that we finally got some more Mark-related Cryptic content on the main channel again. Don't get me wrong, watching Simon solving Cryptics is also great, but there is just something special about Mark.

[@maxstunner100]

Love seeing Mark solve crosswords.

[@Mark199201]

Only four minutes in and we've already got a "Where am I going to put my head?" Not a normal question Thanks for the bonus video, Mark!

[@louisesuth8141]

but what a missed opportunity for "Thats me in the corner"

[@emilywilliams3237]

It used to be that I would listen to you or Simon do a cryptic crossword the way I would listen to a foreign language tape that was several units ahead of where I had actually studied. I recognized many words, but had little to no idea what was being talked about. But now I actually can say things like, "That could be an anagram indicator" or "that means take the middle/starting/ending letter of" and at least feel like I am in the same restaurant ordering the same meal - even if I end up with a plate of plain rice with a side of capers while you have a perfectly cooked, juicy, tender steak with a fine baked potato and asparagus topped with garlic aioli and a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon ... Thanks, Mark, for taking this on. It was very fun to see your reactions as the pieces began to fit together. Another example of how perseverance plays such a role in puzzle solving.

[@Anne_Mahoney]

I love that food metaphor!

[@emilywilliams3237]

@@Anne_Mahoney thanks! I had fun imagining the scene.

[@clairerothero724]

Wonderfully described 😊

[@Alex_Meadows]

Note to self: never go to a restaurant with Mark and Simon 🤔

[@emilywilliams3237]

@@Alex_Meadows Actually, the person you might not want to go with is me, as you might end up with something incomplete or that you didn't expect!

[@thedrunkenelf]

I love these, I’m getting better at solving cryptic crosswords with your help!

[@David_K_Booth]

Sending crosswords to Araucaria must have been like sending a demo cassette to John Peel. It speaks well of him that he answered with some constructive comments.

[@Ruddigore]

What a brilliant solve, and wonderful to see mark do a cryptic on the standard channel.

[@michaeldubery3593]

What's the non-standard channel? You mean the Patreon?

[@zealot2147]

Reindeer also subverts I before E for the theme (for go down in history, as mark referenced Rudolph)

[@Tahgtahv]

I'm not sure it's even really fair though unless you compare words with same sound. Reindeer has an 'a' sound, Einstein and science an 'i' sound, received an 'e' sound, and view a 'u' sound (I think, but not entirely sure.)

[@SpencerTwiddy]

@@Tahgtahv literally, it’s fair

[@cathybryant5119]

​@@Tahgtahv Good point. I did learn the mnemonic as "I before E, except after C and when it says A(eh?)"

[@johnhantsuk8461]

That was a tough one! I remember trying to do the Araucaria crosswords in my late teens and scouring Chambers to find the obscure words. I remember I did finish it once. Got the rocket clue straight away, but it helped that I am a botanist. Incidentally although a general botanical term I think 'costa' is mainly used in bryology to refer the nerve (or midrib) of a moss leaf, so e-cost-ate = without a nerve.

[@michaeljarcher]

I've not finished the video @ 6.46 , but if 2 down is "E equals M C squared" it's the first answer i think I've ever gotten watching these wonderful crosswords.

[@LiquorStoreJon]

Same here! I was proud of that one, even if I couldn't get 98% of the rest of the puzzle without Mark's guidance

[@MulberryElmham]

A brilliant puzzle, superbly solved. Very unusual to have a puzzle constructed around four very long multiple word answers. Cracking one of those early might (or in my case might not) get one to the end quicker. I saw e equals mc squared very quickly but just ground to a halt thereafter!

[@Hemigoblin]

28:11 “I can put my face back in the corner, but it doesn’t get a song.”

[@Raven-Creations]

This was a toughie. For someone with your credentials to struggle, it says a lot. I did get "it's not rocket science", not by knowing the plant was rocket, but by thinking about what a phrase for "this is basic" might be, then realising that "the biology of" suggested "science". It was a good clue, but I'm not a fan of clues which depend on not-so-general knowledge. As you said, to fit all of those long phrases into one grid is an impressive feat. Finding words to fit in with them probably accounts for some of the difficulty.

[@wossaaaat]

Wuut... bonus cryptic. And it's Mark! Noice. Thanks Mark.

[@Anolaana]

I was so excited by the "expression of genius" clue! As soon as Mark said it was one letter words I immediately cottoned onto it.

[@missioncardiac7599]

The rule that I learnt in school, (oh, many decades ago) was "I before E except after C when IE is pronounced "EE". This has very few exceptions I think, the one springing to mind is "SEIZE" ( but not siege).

[@kempisthomasa7311]

huh, that’s weird.

[@Anne_Mahoney]

The way I learned t was "I before E except after C, or when sounded as AY as in NEIGHBOR and WEIGH," which gets some, but not all, of the exceptions. It's English -- did we really expect consistent spelling rules? 😸

[@Anne_Mahoney]

Delighted to see a bonus crossword when it isn't even Friday yet! This one seemed harder that some from recent videos, and it was great fun to watch.

[@nonagrey3422]

More of these please!

[@radscorpion8]

this is really mind blowing. You and Simon are some of the smartest people on youtube

[@peterdunlop7691]

Love the cryptic crosswords.

[@timking4625]

Loved it! Many thanks to Mark and to Io

[@altreusplays]

“Something Einstein said?” was frustratingly close for him not to get it from that

[@SpencerTwiddy]

This was monstrously difficult

[@faddy91]

I did better at that one than a lot of other cryptics. The long anagrams really helped me get a lot of letters. Still couldn't finish it.

[@hoagy_ytfc]

That was tough!

[@de8o]

This video got my hopes up. I thought it was Friday as there was a crossword video.

[@daylightsleeptight]

I also noticed that the word "John" in the puzzle intersects with the letters "io" in another word.

[@lxjoe96]

Wish I had a quid for every time you or Simon says very matter-of-factly "well, x is an anagram indicator" and I'm left staring at the screen thinking "how in God's name is that an anagram indicator???"

[@grenvillephillips6998]

Awesome!

[@GordonjSmith1]

Wow. OK I was really a passenger on this solve. However I really enjoyed the journey! More please.

[@robinstyles9997]

Excellent

[@nickloader3184]

Once crossing letters were in place I got beer gut and overkeen and realised overknee seconds before Mark haha. Very difficult. Excellent solve. Brilliant grid. I did notice 'I felt that' but could only think of the classic comment: when Mark dismissed the arguable brilliance of beer gut in desperation to solve the grid, I felt that 😉

[@SpencerTwiddy]

You seem like a cool person, this comment gets a like from me

[@nickloader3184]

@@SpencerTwiddy As do you and hence does yours 👌

[@SomeRandomGuyOnYouTube]

Took me ages to parse ONE IN A MILLION . I think it's because if you put I ('one') in A MILL ON ('single factory' = A MILL, 'operative' = ON) you get A MILLION ('megabucks'). So the second 'one' (the second I) in A MILLION is what has changed it from the factory thing to the megabucks.

[@chrislewis-n3v]

that was amazing how he solved that-he looked totally beaten after 5 minutes

[@henrymarkson3758]

IMO appeared on both Simon's and Mark's crosswords this week.

[@lizzyvv447]

I only got nine across. Fitting answer. Not that I was expecting to get any more, with my skill level.

[@VonBlade]

Wow. This is obscenely difficult.

[@ktuluflux]

The word science is an i before e after a c so it refuted the rule. Btw calling an arugula ‘biologist’ a rocket scientist is a GOAT clue.

[@HeroDarkStorn]

According to QI, there are more words that break the "I before E except after C" rule than there are words that follow it.

[@oldinion]

omg I got beergut before Mark!

[@Codes__]

I was expecting the puzzle to be a pangram, but I think there's no Z? Beautiful puzzle though!

[@aly_b]

Oh, wonderful!

[@romasteve7292]

I was racking my brain for the longest time trying to get a French phrase from the masquerade balls :)

[@AleksanderFimreite]

I have never seen a crossword like this before. It looks kind of cool but I think I wound need to read a little about the rules first to truely appriciate it. From what I gathered just by observing this video is that the letters to fill in seems to be hidden behind two solving steps? 1. Deciphering the keywords and rules to use. 2. Combining letters from the keywords based on the discovered rules to make the final word. Does this sound about right? Any suggestions for articles or videos which explains well what the rules of these are?

[@LiquorStoreJon]

If you want more after that video, under the Playlists tab on their main page here, there are a few others videos. Otherwise, the other content creator here, Simon, has been putting out a Cryptic Crossword puzzle every Friday. He also does a very good job of explaining his thought process as he works through the puzzles

[@AleksanderFimreite]

@@LiquorStoreJon I have seen a lot of Simons sudoku videos. But for some reason I have never noticed the crosswords. I'll go on a channel dive soon then I suppose...

[@penelopep.maggie5976]

Dweebovision also does cryptic crosswords and explains as he goes :)

[@SpencerTwiddy]

The quick definition is always either at the start or at the end, the rest of the clue comprises a cryptic code that commonly involves abbreviations and words that indicate some kind of transformation of the letters of another word, such as anagrams, every other letter, first, middle, or last letter, etc. This code will build up the letters of the answer to the quick definition. Then there’s a few special clue types which can only appear once each in a puzzle, which are homophones, double-definitions, an-lits, and hiddens.

[@AleksanderFimreite]

​@@SpencerTwiddy Do you know of any beginner level versions of this puzzle type? I feel that this can be very difficult to follow along with as I have a narrow vocabulary. Thus some easier puzzles which are literally instant solves for veterans would be great to start with.

[@michaelsoremekun7053]

This is a very difficult one.

[@aucourant9998]

I gave up when I couldn't see the clues any more.

[@Teverell]

I thought it was a pangram but I can find every letter except Z, so it's not - unless I'm being more than usually dense and missed it!

[@wilburtron]

Wow I got 2 down! And before Mark!

[@archivist17]

My brain hurts! 🧠

[@d4r4butler74]

I don't know if it helps... but there is a video game called Stray that came out recently, and it is about an Alley Cat. No, I didn't get anything before Mark... And most of these words and phrases are very common. Then there are the strange ones.

[@Tahgtahv]

Alley cats often are stray/unhouse-trained cats, so it not really surprising there'd be something with that title. I assume it's just referencing the more generic term. I really only know what I get from CTC, but I think question marks in the clue normally indicate that it's looking for a particular instance of the definition?

[@thezanycat]

Why is ‘U’ fashionable? It’s bits of acronyms like these that make me hesitant to ever try cryptics

[@andrewzmorris]

Well, the one's you see on this channel are far harder than the ones you start doing. With practice, you quickly learn all the common acronyms and shortenings.

[@ConManAU]

Seeing a puzzle like this and being scared off of cryptics is a bit like seeing a Phistomophel and being scared off of sudoku. The trick is to find a cryptic equivalent of a GAS somewhere.

[@thezanycat]

@@ConManAU Why is fashionable 'U'? Nobody has been able to explain it so far

[@ConManAU]

@@thezanycat I’m not exactly at that high of a level either, but from a bit of searching apparently in 1950s UK slang it was short for “upper class”.

[@andyleighton3616]

@@ConManAU The Times Quick Cryptic or the Guardian Quiptic are the easier ones (I think there are some examples of the Times Quick Cryptic in the archives here). For the Guardian Cryptic itself Rufus is usually easier (at least for me). The Telegraph cryptic tends to be on the easier end too. Finally if you are starting out it is worth reading the solving blogs out there. I certainly agree this one had some very fiendish clues. "I felt that you changed, but only a little" was magnificent - so easy to miss how to parse it.

[@drjohnwatson9998]

Mark please put patronising mark to bed and take over the crosswords. Also I would like to see you just go for it then explain after completion thanks.

[@jarvisa12345]

2:46 There is a difference in pronunciation between ‘doyen’ and ‘doyenne’. Your pronunciation implied that John Henderson is a woman.