Get To Grips With The Times Crossword

[@XZION5601]

Do you think 15 Across could also be referencing the tide in its relation to earth (third ball) and how it is caused by gavity on regular intervals?

[@Ruddigore]

Some tricky clues but doable. Looking forward to the second of your videos today. A big thumbs up as usual 👍

[@Biddlebum]

Times cryptic crosswords and abbrevs. Their prime reference dictionaries are COD and Collins, for abbrevs as well as other material.

[@cycklist]

Some very tricky ones there, although 'spurge' is the only bit of vocab that's new to me. I have a weak spot when it comes to plants and shrubs. What are your weak points, if any?

[@clcmlxl]

Where is the link to the answer of the puzzle at the end of this video, please?

[@rjh1820]

loved it

[@BlurSentinel]

I'm not sure if you have seen his (sadly inactive channel), but there are other nice puzzles like Wolves and Sheeps: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aKfIeKuhbJKMaq8 slitherlink: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a5C1qKZ9oamWrZI masyu: kzbin.info/www/bejne/d32TZXybd9yIhLc Not sure if there is a software or website which supports online solving. But would be nice to see you up to the challenge.

[@RandomBurfness]

This is not a pangram because there's no Z. (EDIT) You keep saying in this video there's really nothing clever about what you're doing, you're just relying on several years of experience of solving cryptic crosswords. But how does one start getting this experience? You can't get experience by practicing on the hardest test, that just won't lead you anywhere. If one was to get into cryptic crosswords, just where would one start?

[@wossaaaat]

I found this site of what I consider 'cryptics for dummies (like me)' lovattspuzzles.com/online-puzzles-competitions/play-lovatts-free-daily-cryptic-crossword/ Some clues don't conform to the 'rules' Simon has described in the past, but they're clues that even I can get most of the time. Don't yet know how to then progress to real puzzles though. I fear they may be forever out of my reach....

[@iTwitzHD]

We don't have cryptic crosswords in Sweden (at least I've never come across them), so I only quite recently found out about them through this channel. I've been doing crosswords on a site called simplydailypuzzles that has easy cryptics. Along with watching these videos, I do the clues I can and then I reveal the answers and reverse engineer the clues. I feel like this helps you get a grasp on how you're supposed to read the clues, which is the most important step, really. And as they often suggest on the channel: think of short synonyms for every word in the clue!

[@vinyl1Earthlink]

You can start with trying some of the easier newspaper cryptics and then reading the solving blogs. You should improve fairly quickly - if not, maybe you're not cut out to solve these puzzles.

[@freddiehand6551]

Try some quiptics on the Guardian website: they are intended to be cryptics for beginners.

[@RandomBurfness]

I tried a couple of these recommendations, I still couldn't solve a single whole crossword. I got somewhere with the puzzles linked to by the first reply but the interface is messed up and it doesn't let me delete letters, so until that site fixes its issues I guess I won't start solving cryptics. And yeah, I wasn't able to enter a single letter on any of the quiptics on the Guardian.