Dave Gorman's Best Ever Crossword

[@EuanBCFC]

That’s Sheer/Tiffs connection was beautiful

[@fruitshuit]

21:00 That might just be my favourite crossword clue ever. For those who don't know, Dallas was a long running soap opera that after a disastrous season that outraged fans, they decided to completely delete the entire season by making the whole thing a dream. Delightfully clever as a clue, wow!

[@missioncardiac7599]

Ha ha I completely missed that reference. Incidentally the "who killed JR?" mystery was apparently spoilered the day before its UK airing by a solution to a Guardian cryptic crossword clue!

[@15schaa]

You could even make it more thematic - something like "On paper, Dallas doesn't end up going very well! (3, 1, 5)"

[@Shif80]

I thought I was reading too much into the clue when I saw that connection. Feel better now!

[@Shif80]

I thought I was reading too much into the clue when I saw that connection. Feel better now!

[@charlesstanden1685]

Also worth noting with the final clue that Essen is in the outskirts of Dortmund - as a homonym for the middle of dESCENd. Brilliant writing

[@tremkl]

Sketch pad was actually BOTH. They were roughing it in the sense that a sketch is a rough drawing, but a “sketch pad” could also mean like “a really sketchy place to hang”.

[@maribelfarnsworth4565]

A great puzzle, and as always I learned a lot from seeing your mind at work on the solution - though I admit to having been screaming "scarcer", "descend" and "dispels" before you got them...

[@iwersonsch5131]

Simon is so much more educated than me in all of these obscure words, it was refreshing to see his confidence descend towards the end

[@Surukai]

Just wow! I absolutely love how you explain how they work not just solve the puzzle!

[@davidburn4920]

Very impressed with this setter's attention to surface. Not sure some of the wordplay would have got past Torquemada or Ximenes, but "Overthrow towards slip" is a corker of a clue.

[@davidrattner9]

Awesome mid week gift!! Thank you again Simon for showcasing amazing cryptic crosswords and your love of doing them.

[@longwaytotipperary]

What a lovely surprise to see this bonus crossword this morning! Simon is absolutely amazing!

[@davidrattner9]

Was certainly a wonderful way to kick off the 1st official day of summer!! 🫠

[@longwaytotipperary]

@@davidrattner9 yes, indeed! Happy solstice 🌞

[@Brunners90]

I saw him live recently too! I'm right there with you, haven't laughed so much in a VERY long time. Few hours very well spent.

[@andyleighton3616]

The thing about 22ac is that lipsticks can also leave a mark on the cheek. So a very nice &lit

[@tomaltmann9483]

Hi Simon...your remarks regarding the elegance of the clue for philanthropists reminded me of a similarly gorgeous clue from a few years ago, in the Globe & Mail out of Toronto, on Saturdays, the cryptic crossword was courtesy of a Fraser Simpson...so the clue was, "Voice thrower made tonsil quiver at back of throat" (13) I can see you smiling as it comes to you...enjoy, my friend 🖖🏻👽

[@melismati]

it's so fun to be blown away at how quickly you solve most of those, it makes me feel more proud about figuring out 8 down on my own

[@giladooshlon]

It was very enjoyable to watch Simon being more challenged and to follow his thought process along the way. Somehow I figured out the last clue immediately after Simon first explained the Dortmund part, but I could hardly imagine solving any of the other clues in the puzzle by myself.

[@ymiros0953]

Same here, was literally the only clue I could work out xD I also figured dispels was probably the right answer, but tbh I still haven't understood why detective is di.

[@Skamba]

@@ymiros0953 A 'Detective Inspector' is a rank in the British police. They're commonly called a 'DI'.

[@emilywilliams3237]

What a nice treat! Thanks, Simon!

[@missioncardiac7599]

Wonderful. Thanks Simon. I love it when you do a Bluth. Apart from anything else his crosswords are not behind a paywall, and I can give it a go prior to watching you. I got on great in the beginning because I got the 3 long ones, 4D, 5D and then with the crossers 9A pretty quickly, then struggled in the latter part but got there in the end. 15D surface is hilariously clever as LAX is the code for Los Angeles international airport, and of course O'Hare is Chicago's airport and the final answer is nothing to do with either!

[@EmilyExplosion27]

I swear he has done a clue before with the definition of dismount and gone like "well, when you come down a mountain..."

[@archivist17]

What a great surprise! I do love it when we get a Bluth! ❤

[@crhodgkin]

The clue for 21 down (23:07) has to be my favorite of this puzzle. It's deeply buried, but utterly jaw-dropping.

[@stevebills5716]

That was fascinating (I didnt even know Dave Gorman was a crossword setter). I did get scarcer and descend, but only because you'd done all of the work and explained what to look for. (And even knowing the Down clue started with a C long before you did, you saw Coupon before I did 🙂. Anyway - absolutely fascinating and I will come back to the channel for more 👍

[@alphadog5676]

Missed all the airport references/misdirection in 'Lacrosse' - LAX is well known abbrev for LA airport, O'Hare is Chicago airport and 'terminal' suggests airports too

[@davidotoole9328]

Never have so many viewers got there before you (8dwn)!

[@AlRoderick]

It's not that much of a stretch for me to think of descend as a synonym for dismount, because I am familiar with someone being described as "descending from his horse" as a stock phrase but I can't tell you exactly where it's been used.

[@phillipcarlroberts4640]

Great stuff, all of this channels content is superb, thanks.

[@zyxxy]

I didn't understand Spoonerisms until my friends Mary Hinge and Cupid Stunt explained them to me 😀

[@thescrewfly]

Please take the town drain immediately!

[@DevilboyScooby]

I was screaming 'descend ' for ages without really understanding why until just before you got it 😂

[@Elaine-OHara]

What a lovely surprise! Made my wednesday :D

[@PhroXenGold]

Thanks for getting me excited for a few seconds thinking it was Friday.... But anyway this was an excellent crossword. Some really clever clue in there. Hoping for some more from Bluth and maybe the Independant in general on here. The Times is obviously the iconic cryptic, but I do enjoy seeing the variations in style and setting rules from other publications.

[@garybrittain8210]

2 down. TV Show Dallas, one series ended, because it was All A Dream when Bobbie died

[@toasttnt7053]

Bit late to the party, but 8 down there is an arena called NEC... party of the clue?

[@henrymarkson3758]

I got DESCEND, but for the wrong reason. DD for outskirts of Dortmund + ESCEN as a homophone of ESSEN which is a town near Dortmund. Cycling SCENE, the correct view, was far too tough!

[@tonyroberts3926]

I hefted in Descend from the definition and thought the "arena" was the NEC backwards (cycling) but could not justify the other ES letters. Obviously SCENE cycling to ESCEN is the correct & intended wordplay but like Simon, when you see something that's nearly there it gets fixed in your brain

[@Ruddigore]

A Cryptic Crossword on a Wednesday... I'm in heaven.

[@andrewgrant6516]

Wednesday does look like the answer to a cryptic clue. Married to mousequake with AI aftershocks.(9)

[@SpencerTwiddy]

Proud to say I did get dispels and descend just before Simon did😁

[@glum_hippo]

An unexpected bonus. How lucky can we get?!?!

[@glum_hippo]

I found the clue for 'descend' to be very fair. One of the _very_ rare times that I got a clue faster than Simon. It's not uncommon to think of 'descending from one's steed' - as in 'à l'âme de descendre de sa monture et aller sur ses pieds de soie'

[@Anne_Mahoney]

@@glum_hippo Yes, but I'm not sure French is one of Simon's languages.

[@richardlyons7582]

Thought I lost a few days and I don't drink, had to look at the day and found it was a nice surprise. Wow that sound like a cryptic clue ?

[@uncluckable6535]

All dismounts are descents but not all descents are dismounts

[@DrChrisF]

Proud of myself for getting Lacrosse before Simon!! Admittedly it's the only one I managed to get alone.

[@stephenjames2951]

Sketch pad was my favorite

[@ahouyearno]

When you get off your bike, you descend from your bike.

[@headoftss]

Fantastic crossword and great solve. When alphabet trawling descend, did I hear Simon say “zee” rather than “zed”? Very unexpected from an English person.

[@tonyroberts3926]

Ssh. Keep shtum! And otherwise shut-up! We don't want everyone to find out Simon's really a French mole working for the anti-Brexit EU resistance.

[@joetinsley9552]

Was shouting Gospels so hard! 🤣

[@theunamiable]

For 25a, I think a more natural reading is the SADDLE is the covering, and it is cut by W.

[@rosiefay7283]

Hm. Not sure. It seems iffy to me. To me, the clue suggests that "bandage", covering W, is "cut". But in fact "cut", covering W, is "bandage".

[@damienknapman2308]

I do have a question - when you "gave in" and did an "alphabet trawl" on 3D, you seemed to start at E and F. Curious why you didn't start closer to the start of the alphabet, or did you do so without vocalizing it and still miss coupon?

[@leedsjoegeoguessr8789]

I thought an extra element of confusion for 8-down is the fact that Essen is a city on the outskirts of Dortmund!

[@sh4dowchas3r]

The last one I had the answer for ages, then I actually got the slightly play-on-wordsy clue. What happens between being on a mountain and not being on the mountain ie you dismount?

[@martinwilson5210]

Thank you for sharing this with us, thoroughly enjoyed the solve had sussed those last 3 clues and was willing you to get them, which in the end you did well done, is there a snitch rating for it or is that just for the Times?

[@D4N1CU5]

I got 24 across and 8 down well before Simon, cryptic crosswords are complete gibberish to me but Simon often gets the answer before he understands the clue so I'm taking the win :)

[@GordonjSmith1]

That was excellent.

[@Anne_Mahoney]

Wow, an extra crossword -- I knew it would be a treat before I even opened the video. And it was. And I even got DESCEND several minutes before Simon did (to be fair, after he'd done all the hard parts...). These are cool. 😺

[@MrReading]

Here in the US, LAX is a very common abbreviation for Lacrosse. One of the few clues that an American would likely find a lot easier to solve!

[@deecewan]

Yeah, felt like "la - cross" plus the terminal letter of O'Hare for then final e

[@simonmoore8776]

I got COUPON straight away, and it is a cricket clue, the slip fielders are on the on-side of the pitch. And the descend clue, i was thinking about Essen being on the outskirts of Dortmund, but that all seems too literal.

[@missioncardiac7599]

Not quite I'm afraid, a standard slip would be on the off side (a leg slip would be onside) though on and off usually refers to positions in front of the stumps.

[@davidburn4920]

@@missioncardiac7599 I think the idea is overthrow=COUP, towards=ON, slip=COUPON. While I think the first is perfectly valid, I am not sure about the others.

[@mashpojayde-o]

I feel like this is the first time I’ve heard ‘spoonerism’ since I learnt what it was in 2000 in year 5 🙈

[@Wallopy_Joe]

Thought dispose because books could have been prose, now I'm hanging on to scarcer and descend, 3 down a mystery

[@Kelters]

Not often I get to shouting the answer to you on these x-words. 8D seemed to be so obvious to me. (However, more or less the only one. :))

[@petrjara7559]

I don't know if it's just me not being native English speaker or what but I just can't understand like anything about this kind of puzzle. "medical TV show" = ER "at sea" = letters are all over the place ... Insane

[@AlRoderick]

Well the one for ER is a pop culture thing, ER as in the abbreviation for "emergency room" was a long-running TV medical drama from the United States that saw a lot of popularity in Britain as well, it was basically the star making role for George Clooney, so if that didn't make it to your territory under its original title, you wouldn't know it.

[@henrycrun42]

I "cycled" the NEC in descend at first.

[@altreusplays]

I thought maybe there was an NEC in the south east called NECSE

[@moeafram2520]

First time I got one before Simon - Descend was a bear to solve...

[@DuckTapeGuru]

A cycling arena is a velodrome

[@ferallibrarian]

English is not my first language, so it felt very ironic that the only clue I got right away was descend. Apart from that I got almost none 😅

[@ChasePhillips7]

An arena could be a scene, which cycled would be d + escen + d

[@psiphiorg]

For 16 down, couldn't another explanation of the "MAGE" part of the word come from "a million in retirement", meaning "M" (million) + "AGE" (a retired person is usually of "old age", with "old" coming from earlier in the clue)? It's interesting to see additional layers of hidden meanings in these clues sometimes!

[@bucklecmc]

I believe 8D is as follows, Dismount = Descend (from a horse) in = es (spanish) cycling arena = NEC CEN in outskirts of Dortmund = D_ESCEN_D

[@auximenes]

I agree with Simon. Desteed should exist as as a word.

[@myfyrmadocjones]

More difficult than a Phistomefel sudoku!

[@skirwingle]

I can absolutely see how, if you've not encountered the 'cycling' device before, it'd lead to bafflement; those of us who see it semi-regularly will have been shouting the answer for 8d at the screen from quite early on 😂

[@andyleighton3616]

I think it was more working out that scene is a synonym for arena.

[@skirwingle]

That too, I suppose yeah

[@fulltimeslackerii8229]

8:30 it’s not spelled “satirized”? also how did you know to take “artis” from artist instead of taking away from “down”.?

[@bluerizlagirl]

I'm going to take a punt that you don't speak a lot of French, and Dave Gorman has spent time in France! In French, one even speaks of descending from a motor vehicle, let alone a horse or a bicycle ..... The connection between "dismount" and "descend" would come naturally to a French speaker.

[@amysteele2488]

What an amazing crossword that was! Some really fantastic clues there... Simon, well done for solving that - I felt you maybe weren't quite firing on all cylinders today, as I got there well ahead of you on 1 across, plus 8 and 24 down. It's unheard of for me to beat you to it on more than 2 clues normally - mostly I either don't get any ahead of you, or only one

[@TheTalkoftheStreetPodcast]

So chuffed I got 15D straight away! Not so much for the others.

[@DevilboyScooby]

I wonder what Jane would say about this one?

[@Raven-Creations]

It's weird how all of the clues you struggled with, I found fairly easily, some instantly, yet you got plenty before I'd even managed to parse the clue. My dad used to do the Daily Mail's cryptic crossword, and we'd sometimes do them together, but as I'm a leftie, I honed my skill on the Grauniad's puzzles. They seem to have a subtly different character from the Times. It's almost like they're speaking with different accents, in the same way Cockneys will struggle to understand a broad Scouser. For a while, I struggled with Times puzzles, like you seem to when attacking other paper's puzzles. I disagree about the difficulty of tiffs. As soon as I saw 7 in the clue, I looked at the 7 answer, and it was obvious. Maybe you have to be a 2001: A Space Odyssey fan (where HAL was allegedly IBM shifted to the left - although this is denied). Lacrosse was quite a nice clue. I didn't spot it immediately, but once I tried LA at the start, it was obvious. I got dispels fairly quickly. Like you, I was thinking about Bible books, but the clue is plural. Gospels was the only group of books which fit. For me "books" suggests Septuagint, apocrypha, Talmud, NT, OT, or as it turned out gospels. As I'm colour-blind, it shouldn't be surprising that I got 9A easily, although I take exception to the categorisation. I am able to discriminate some colours more easily than normal-sighted people. For instance, I can often easily spot a car body that's been partially resprayed, where normal sighted folk cannot see it at all. I thought arena was a pretty weak clue for scene. Something like "commotion" would have been better (as in to cause a scene = to cause a commotion). I got it because I thought it unlikely to start dis- since the definition started with the same prefix, so I assumed it was des.e.d and descend fit the bill. I couldn't understand why you were intent on thinking "dismount in cycling" was the definition. You always say not to take phrases at face value, and dismount in cycling would be a weirdly specific definition. To me, the definition had to be just "dismount", it had the form D...D, and cycling was what happened to a word for arena in the middle. Even once you got it, you continued to try to justify it as "dismount in cycling". I'm surprised you struggled with 1D. It was fairly obviously clued, albeit very cleverly. I got 1A, but couldn't justify it for a while, but I got 3D, which confirmed the answer. I was thinking that king was CR and queen was ER, and was trying to come up with SCA somehow being jokes with a bit left out. Once I realised it was cracks with the K removed, it made sense. Speaking of 3D, since when does the alphabet start at F? Had you started at A, you'd have tried C, and probably would have thought of coup, leading easily to coupon. Even though it was a really easy clue, I did like the construction of the Ted Heath clue. Andromeda had a nicely constructed clue too. The cluing for sketch pad was nice, but didn't lead me astray. It was fairly clear it was a play on "rough it" not meaning what it appeared to mean. 22A was nice, because the cryptic part can be read both analytically (lip + s + ticks) like you did, or simply as "possibly leaving small marks on cheek" - i.e. the result of a peck. It's both an &lit clue and a normal cryptic clue.

[@avz1865]

Goddamn descend was *hard*

[@livedandletdie]

I found the 8 clue incredibly easy, but it was an understandably hard clue, if one doesn't know of synonyms for dismount. Understanding why it is said word is not the easiest, as it's quite a convoluted clue. But still a lovely Cryptic Crossword by Dave "Bluth" Gorman.

[@altreusplays]

I don’t think he can hear me cos I’m telling him the answers!

[@Swisswavey]

Nice crossword. I've seen many better from him though. I still enjoyed it mightily of course. Just under 25 minutes for me.

[@thedrunkenelf]

I got the final word based on the definition and other letters rather than the clue. I’m not a purest like you: if I don’t understand every aspect of the clue I just shrug and move on while you try to figure all of it out.

[@avz1865]

I think he's only being a purist for our benefit

[@chrislewis-n3v]

not sure about descend,surely that is a play on words,not a proper solution, if that was an answer in the times, dont think simon would have been too impressed

[@andrewgrant6516]

Either I'm getting better at these or you're having a bad day. Lots of screen shouting going in here. Cheers, Dave. Well played. I do like desteed -> descend from your high horse

[@darreljones8645]

Not quite Dave Gorman's best; he misspelled "color blindness" and "demeanor". Otherwise, perfect.

[@williambarnes3868]

Whilst I am aware that not everyone is a crossword solver, I find your overlong explanations somewhat patronising.and repetitious.

[@Atticus837]

I guess that's the point of it being a masterclass though, right?

[@JonathanCorwin]

Being someone who isn't a crossword solver, I find the overlong and repetitious explanations somewhat helpful

[@Elaine-OHara]

Those are very good for beginners and ESL speakers though, which most of their viewers seem to be.

[@jmleongmusic]

I find them immensely helpful, thorough, and not patronizing at all!

[@Brunners90]

then don't watch it, sir. You know what you're getting into.