The 5000th Sunday Times Cryptic Crossword

** TODAY'S PUZZLE **
A fantastic achievement for The Sunday Times which has reached its 5000th Cryptic Crossword. Apparently there were 5 authors - we presume the likes of Dean Mayer and others - who compose the crossword most weekends. There are a lot of wonderful clues in this puzzle and Simon blames his brain for not unscrambling them more quickly!
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[@birkheadc]

Me reading a clue: This is just words slapped together at random. Simon: This is just beautiful wording.

[@wildcat1227]

"Its unforgivable..." Simon, buddy, you gotta stop being so hard on yourself. We're not judging you for struggling, we're in awe you can understand this at all.

[@KumaKaori]

the only 'unforgiveable' thing about this video is Simon not hitting submit after finishing the puzzle XP!.

[@Aname550]

Man, when you got "wonga", that's when I knew I was in over my head

[@beemini3374]

Surely this is a made-up word

[@jeper3460]

I definitely thought 3 down was "golf", but then I realized that's not the type of clue this crossword has

[@Pwecko]

That was my first thought as well.

[@SnowTheJamMan]

Just like i thought "Heavy metal frontman" was Ozzy haha

[@MikoKisai]

My best explanation of 6 down is that "NOW THEN" is contained ("stays in") the phrase "know the neighbors", and you "couple" those two words together with an "and" to get "from time to time".

[@AexisRai]

generally I like to see these in terms of being able to break them into a hidden pseudo algebraic equation with order of operations, but I'm not sure how the operations pan out in this case a while ago in one of these there was this: "lost cycling getting to grips with rules - in China it depends on where you live (8,7)", for the phrase "post code lottery" break down to instruction segment and answer segment: [lost cycling getting to grips with rules - in China] == [it depends on where you live] figure out which words are taken as literal strings, as operators, and as "this needs to be interpreted as something else to get a literal string": (("lost" [cycling]) [getting to grips with] ) [in] == it depends on where you live so "lost" [cycling] means an operation to cycle the string "lost", getting "stlo" means some word or string that could mean "rules" needs to be substituted, in this case "code" , replaced with "pottery" ("stlo" [getting to grips with] "code") [in] "pottery" [getting to grips with] operator is doing something like the first thing grasping around the sides of the second thing, getting "stcodelo" "stcodelo" [in] "pottery" [in] is string insertion, getting... "postcodelottery" == it depends on where you live but for this thing... "know the neighbors" [couple] [staying in] == from time to time ??? what makes these operators make sense if they need to happen in order? it seems the [staying in] operator happens first here, which kinda breaks my idea.

[@SpencerTwiddy]

@@AexisRai he was saying "couples" is a synonym for "and", so I think in your syntax you should have something like: "know the neighbors" [staying in] == from time to time does this parse for you?

[@SpencerTwiddy]

@@AexisRai it does still feel like [staying in] does double duty, I want 2 operations, one to indicate we want a substring, and one to insert ..... any chance then that it's [staying] [in] ??? just a thought

[@AexisRai]

@@SpencerTwiddy it's basically a grammatical pseudocode, you can probably stretch it whatever way you want if you want it to apply everywhere, try applying parens and operators whatever way makes sense. In this case the only operators would be after their operands, so they have to be postfix operators, which isn't unusual. But if couple isn't [couple] but instead , then we need [staying in] to have multiple operands while still being postfix, which I'd never had to infer into these instructions before (and it seems logical that you shouldn't usually have to, because that would make you look non adjacently to connect things together) As in, (A B +), interpreted as postfix notation, means + is applied to the tuple {A, B}, so "know the neighbors" [staying in] would be asking to somehow apply [staying in] to those two things.

[@AexisRai]

@@SpencerTwiddy Like, the OP has an answer, but it seems to do ops out of order to get it, which is why I didn't find it acceptable. "staying in" is _after_ "couple", so it's less natural to think you should apply it _before._ And OP seems to interpret it as [couple], an op to _insert_ a coupling word (here "and"), not just to _get_ "and". ...if it's like ("know the neighbors" [couple]) [staying in] "know *and* the neighbors" [staying in] "now and then" it works but feels sloppy.

[@dkosmari]

Nautilus was the name of Captain Nemo's submarine in Jules Verne's novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."

[@mxspokes]

The USS Nautilus was also the first nuclear submarine in the world

[@Ibuiltatower]

The best known species of nautilus, Nautilus pompilius, is commonly referred to as the "chambered nautilus" which gives the chamber reference

[@oscarbarnes2130]

I love the cryptic crossword content, wish there was more but I'll take what I get

[@hoagy_ytfc]

Me too. Although I'm screaming FAMILY PLANNING for ages at this one! (I'm not claiming I'm better, there are plenty that Simon got that I'd never have worked out)

[@oscarbarnes2130]

@@hoagy_ytfc I don't see how you could get half of them but I love the sense of pride I get when I'm so confident about answers like hearing aid and I couldn't tell you why it's the right answer.

[@TomHickey]

As a regular viewer of the sudoku solves - but not so much the cryptic crosswords - it was deeply unnerving not to see you "click tick" (submit) at the end, lol! Fun solve. I'm still dreadfully hopeless at these.

[@dew217]

You didn’t hit submit SIMON YOU DIDNT HIT SUBMIT

[@bibliopolist]

I like how "five thousand", "record player" and "cardinal number" all somehow match the jubilee theme. And I wonder if doing those crosswords also helped with some "family planning" in many British homes in the last century, since it gave puzzlers something to do on Sundays...

[@longwaytotipperary]

I think you are humming "O mio babbino caro" as you work out "o sole mio"

[@leanne7265]

This is the first time I've completely gotten a clue on my own without any of Simon's letters already filled in (pangolin), and I was also proud to have gotten hearing aid before Simon, even though I only got it once he already had the N, A, and D in there. I'm usually so bad at cryptics but they are so fun to watch :)

[@Knoxie.]

Hearing the thought process and reasoning is my favorite thing about these because my brain will read these clues and go absolutely no where. But they make complete sense afterwards. Love these videos!

[@kevinmartin7760]

A nautilus (the sea creature) is in fact sometimes called a "chambered nautilus". Its shell contains air chambers to control buoyancy. The other definition refers to Captain Nemo's craft and the first US nuclear submarine (IIRC). If you are having a powwow, you are often planning something, so "having powwow" = "planning" The melody to O Sole Mio has been recycled many times since, notably Elvis's "It's Now or Never"

[@BigAsciiHappyStar]

I always thought the plural was NAUTILI not NAUTILUSES, which sounds way too clumsy.

[@k1llwizzy]

@@BigAsciiHappyStar The plural of the animal is nautili, but Nautilis class submarines likely cant follow that same logic.

[@johnsouza4391]

"O mia babino caro" was the aria you were humming. Was it "o sole mio" that finally worked though? That puzzle was immensely hard. Amazed you got it...but in that nothing new.

[@shifttheshaman]

I loved shouting out the easy clues for this one. Thanks!

[@bibliopolist]

You were remembering O mio babbino caro... (so glad I got one solution way before you, leading also to 12 across, but they were pretty much the only ones).

[@SimonSideburns]

I can't believe I got a handful of clues way before Simon did. I was able to shout out 4 down, 11 across, 12 across, 16 down, and 25 across before Simon got those answers, but for the rest, I'd have been staring at the clues for hours without getting anywhere.

[@NFSHeld]

I got the "O Sole Mio" instantly when you said "one single love song" - but that's about the only thing I got of the whole puzzle. As for the whole rest - it absolutely eludes my understanding how to get anything done.

[@tremkl]

I couldn’t resist putting pen to paper and confirming the bit about removing the letters of apostles from “to put loaves and fishes”, and even knowing it had to be the correct answer, was blown away to discover you were 100% correct. Truly can’t imagine how you could come up with a clue like that.

[@bobstreet2491]

I've never shouted "family planning!" at a screen quite so often before, and hope to never do so again.

[@elLooto]

You should do #1. Just to see what 100 years of time has done to the clues.

[@emilywilliams3237]

I am an American, and find cryptic crosswords .. inscrutable for the most part. But having watched you and Mark do these from time to time, and going back to older videos that feature cryptic crosswords, I am getting so I might possibly agree that you guys and these puzzles are from Earth at least. I have no idea whether taking 52 minutes to solve this is a long time or not. In fact, since I follow the sudoku content of this channel very thoroughly, I know for certain that apologies are rarely, if ever, warranted there, so I am going to take a guess that you needn't in this content, either. Brilliant, and so interesting. I enjoy the Cryptic part of Cracking the Cryptic just as much as the sudoku, even if I am far from ready to tackle any cryptic crossword whatsoever. Edited to add that I enjoy the sound of children playing in the background of some of your videos. 😊

[@clffliese26]

I'm living in Montana, Emily, and "inscrutable" isn't the word for it. Confusing jibberish is the phrase I'd use. I keep watching Simon and Mark doing these puzzles, hoping they'll make them understandable. So far, no joy, but I keep coming back. The sound of children playing = LIFE. Where I live, there are no families within hearing distance, so no children playing. Oh, well, maybe someday.

[@firesandflowers]

I really enjoyed watching this! I'm terrible at crosswords - the only clue I got before you was "family planning", which may be a more common US term phrase around contraception & deciding when to have kids (and I may not have gotten that if you hadn't said the word contraception lol)!

[@bluerizlagirl]

"Issue" is a common bit of "crossword-ese" for "offspring", as in "Deceased Without Issue" (or its Latin equivalent) sometimes appearing in potted biographies.

[@ZevEisenberg]

And if you get your family together to plan something, you’re engaging in a FAMILY PLANNING session, i.e. a powwow.

[@Kelters]

Definitely not easy. However, Simon is not on top of his game today. It is the first time I've got ahead of him on over half the answers. Although resolving out the "why" was not so simple, at all! So very glad you chose to showcase this one. Thank you.

[@Alteram]

I got the "Heavy Metal Front Man" clue instantly because I was already thinking about the other clue with Lead and Tungstan thinging it was the metal while Simon insteadly went with 'the lead of..' So kinda interesting that going the other way around both forms of lead were the answer to a different question, which could lead to thinking of the tungstand one differently.

[@blunderbusssi9587]

My initials are PB and I used to be in a heavy rock band so I got this instantly! (yeah but not the others though...! 😂)

[@davidhulmes4481]

I have learned so much from these crossword videos that I am finishing them in a fraction of the time now. I actually got many of the clues before you today. Thank you.

[@ConManAU]

Don’t worry Simon, for every “easy” clue I got before you, you figured out ten other clues that I had no idea about.

[@andrewbowman4611]

I get the feeling that if you were able to identify O Sole Mio sooner, you might have got 'milestone', 'family planning' and 'pangolin' a lot quicker. Possibly 'hearing aid' as well.

[@peterbiddlecombe1939]

I've only just discovered this, and I was interested to see how Simon struggled with it. I was likewise baffled for a long time by 1A even though I'd seen an empty grid with a preliminary set of answers. When you've got 5 setters all trying to show how clever/fiendish they can be with about half a dozen clues, I think a hard puzzle is very likely. A solver also has very little chance of tuning into a particular style. One of the expected quintet had to drop out, so I put myself on for their clues, and you can blame me for TEST, MILESTONE and COUPLE among the ones that took a long time. Peter Biddlecombe, ST crossword editor.

[@kaiseremotion854]

this should be much higher

[@nomophobe]

I am just in awe at cryptic crossword compilers in general, and the ones behind this one specifically. For 1 Across, who even realises (or thinks to put it through an anagram solver) that the letters of "five thousand apostles" make "to put loaves and fishes". Absolutely ludicrous, in the best possible way

[@widgetb]

Getting flustered by cryptic crosswords is usually how I start and end cryptics. Watching the channel means I'm getting (a very tiny bit) better. At some point you posited 'AID' for the end of hearing aid and I realized what it was, but was then so curious to know how on earth that came out of the clue (also where Family Planning was coming from, since I sorted out Family eventually, but was stuck on the rest or how the clue worked). Thank you for persisting, Simon, so you could explain all of it to those of us who might get lucky with some words, but still not know how they work!

[@MisuVir]

Yep, I got "hearing aid" really quickly but have no idea how the clue was supposed to help except the "amplifier" part.

[@GQSmoos]

I know I’m super late to this, but I actually got 11 across! That’s the first cryptic crossword clue I’ve ever understood

[@Boonda-p]

It was a shedload of fun watching this today 🙂

[@AngrySanta]

Possible explanation: [[Know the neighbors, K (now then ) eighbors Couple could be cluing the word 'and' (is in they are a couple, Him and Her) The couple stays with that string of letters So you would get from all that 'Now and Then'

[@th.nd.r]

Love the cryptics, you’re a genius Simon!

[@MisuVir]

"A slang word for money is 'wonga'"... ... ... sure, if you say so. I'm starting to realise why it's so difficult to do puzzles from different regions. ;)

[@lexyeevee]

oh you have NO idea how pleased i was to figure out 9-A at around the 30-minute mark, and immediately realize 1-D afterwards - but i couldn't have done it if you hadn't already explained "issue avoided" :) bravo on solving the whole thing!

[@sudofrou]

I took a random video to be able to thank you. Even if I only learned the expression "As useful as a chocolate tea-pot", I'd be full of gratitude. So, imagine how grateful I am :)

[@petehevans]

As well as being a sea creature 22a is also the name of the first US nuclear powered sub and the name of the fictional sub in 20000 leagues under the sea - hence the pluralisation.

[@TrekBeatTK]

Im usually terrible at these but pride myself on being ahead of Simon for a bunch of them!

[@andthepharaohs]

This is the first time I've watched someone solve a cryptic puzzle and it was a fascinating experience - highly impressed with some clues, but screaming at you for others (4D in particular!), but mostly I felt as if I was looking in a mirror at a much cleverer version of myself. Thanks! I must have missed the breakdown of 1A (getting the answer was the easy bit), but I'll have to look at it again later.

[@ParksandPosh]

11 across, the first time I’ve ever managed to get a clue before Simon. What a time to be alive 😂

[@apdj94]

I had no idea what was going on here until he got to 11 across and I started yelling it at the screen😂. I've never seen a crossword like this and it seems like a lot of fun

[@richfield4405]

MerPeople... Nicely done, nearly spat my brew out !

[@peanutbuttercracker1]

Last month I practiced cryptic crosswords on an app (well, the non-paywalled portion of the app anyway...) while on a flight and apparently it's starting to pay off! With the help of your commentary and spitballing, I managed to piece together "Family Planning" - and consequently "Lead" and "Pangolin" - quite a bit sooner than you! Fantastic job as usual, maybe someday soon I'll be able to complete a cryptic on the level of one of the Times'. :)

[@zaliendagust1671]

as a non english speaker this type of puzzle is so hard but interesting indeed and the only one i got immediately is O Sole Mio lol

[@Ogrecrusher]

I got Accept, Hearing Aid, Nylon, Oral, Milestone before Simon did! It's a miracle!

[@withoutlaughts]

Looking up the definitions of powwow, in american slang its either: "a conference or meeting for discussion, especially among friends or colleagues." or "meet or confer.". Hence, Planning could be refearing to some sort of conference to discuss a planning within a firm. At least, that's my interpretation of the clue :S

[@dinassaur9890]

As an American, I was confused by Simon's confusion. What's the British definition?

[@bruceyanoshek626]

Yes. It's commonly called a chambered nautilus, and the Nautilus was Captain Nemo's submarine in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

[@leojs5673]

11:25 that tiny moment the die hard ABBA fan over here giggle

[@vicstick75]

I wasn't shouting at the screen, but I was singing "just one Cornetto" at you.

[@bristolrovers27]

Great puzzle very tough Happy trampolining

[@iabervon]

A tribe having a powwow would be a family planning. It's a second definition, just not one with the answer being a set phrase with that meaning.

[@mukboy6594]

Very Excited for this. Love these

[@insectbah]

Incredible respect for your persistence!

[@GordonjSmith1]

Actually this was really entertaining! Great puzzle and really interesting to hear your thought processes. Well done!

[@nickloader3184]

Got quite a few before Simon today which was a nice change but I think it'd be very different on the other side of the camera, pretty unnerving facing a grid this difficult. I think NOW AND THEN, while unprecedented to my knowledge, works like this: kNOW THE Neighbour. Couple stays in... - a couple of words can be found inside: 'NOW and THEN' which is the answer - defined by 'from time to time'. Excellent grid and great solving by Simon :)

[@NetMaple]

Haven't seen anyone mention it, but "family planning" is a "tribe" having a powwow (meeting) "planning" (which is something that may avoid an issue)

[@lukeluke583]

quite impressed with myself for getting 1 down and 11 across

[@ktuluflux]

Family planning as in contraception. Ie preventing or avoiding an issue ( a child). Good clueing,

[@ambbarnes9839]

As a cricket fan, “test” absolutely is the right answer for 3 down, and its a great clue

[@orosma868]

That was painful to watch, partly because I felt smug getting the easier clues before Simon, but I also knew if I sat in front of that for a week I still wouldn't finish it! Such mixed emotions...Simon you're a genius.

[@SteveDavison777]

For a moment 1D could have been family guidance but planning made sense thinking of issue as child.

[@erinschloeffel]

Reassuring to see in the comments that I'm not the only Sudoku fan to find these cryptics impossible

[@roxirossetti6250]

"and" is the "couple" staying in between the "now" and the "then" found in the first part of the clue. "And" is a coupling word. That's how i figured it works, anyway.

[@blackonyx9842]

With respect to 32 across, the Nautilus is also the name of the submarine from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

[@puritan745]

I told my children 1 across and my 16 year old got it instantly! - I guess with age comes over thinking things!

[@timothybexon6171]

I got Five Thousand quickly but had no way of confirming it. Only because it's the only thing associated with apostles and loaves and fishes. Nothing to do with the wording of the clue. If someone just said apostles, loaves and fishes, I'd immediately think Five Thousand.

[@puritan745]

@@timothybexon6171 LOL, if it was my 11 yr old I'd think that was the case with him but I asked him why and he said because the Apostles didn't want to feed the five thousand and it fit with 4-8 that I told him were the letters - when I explained the Anagram he said why do you need that? It's the answer to the question :D

[@timothybexon6171]

@@puritan745 I always thought they massively doubted Jesus about feeding them, but did it through faith. I never thought they refused to hand out the food.

[@puritan745]

@@timothybexon6171 No, they didn't but I think his point from the way he said it was that they initially could be thought to refuse because of their lack of faith when they said "send the multitude away" and then Jesus said "give ye them to eat" and they answered "Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat?" then when Jesus said "How many loaves have ye? go and see.", they answered "We have here but five loaves and two fishes"

[@timothybexon6171]

@@puritan745 Logical argument. That makes sense. I haven't read the story for about 10 years, so I'm definitely forgetting most of the details.

[@masheroz]

I am so lost not knowing the cryptic crossword nomenclature.

[@TheArseen]

Having powwow = doing planning. Right?

[@DevilboyScooby]

Spent most of this video singing "Just One Cornetto..." to myself XD

[@bethelliot7140]

Clue 1 across, is easy for me and anyone who knows the Bible 🤣 reading as a normal crossword clue rather than a Cryptic one 😉🤗 Anyway, I couldn't do any of the others 🤩

[@charliesteiner2334]

If you can't finish it with aplomb, just put down the plum :P Nicely done despite the snags!

[@briand8043]

Good job. This was a great watch!

[@Cryolemon]

I got "Hearing Aid" quite quickly, and may have got "Beau" eventually, but aside from that would have been mostly stuck.

[@jonathanfletcher2604]

A powwow can be understood as a meeting, if you’re making plans during that meeting, you’re planning.

[@billsoulta1050]

Great solve!

[@Mujaki]

For 1 Down, recall that "issue" can also refer to children. Issue being avoided -> not having children by means of....

[@necridtheschwedi]

nautilus is also the name of the submarine from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas by jules Verne. Maybe it was refering to that.

[@daveperry7050]

Yes it is, but it is also a generic term for any nuclear powered submarine. Giving a plural to a fictional item of which there was only one would be poor cluing.

[@stumbling]

"Back goes" AID DIA?

[@bluerizlagirl]

I thought, when he got to answering 4D, "It's now or never ....." And maybe it was Baldrick's cunning tribe having a pow-wow .....

[@clffliese26]

A powwow can be a conference where you do planning.

[@randomviewer896]

Man, I was totally sure 3 Down as golf.

[@leighmoom5277]

If you sit down and have a powow you can be discussing plans

[@cardiffmad]

Test - As is driving test I assume, after passing your test you can run a car

[@davidblake6889]

Nautilus was also the name of a submarine that first went under the north polar ice cap.

[@AtekomiTesuji]

I managed to get 9A and 16D and 4D before Simon ! Nowhere near on any of the others. Very tough.

[@darreljones8645]

I have skill in cryptic crosswords, but I'm nowhere near as good as Simon or Mark. Still, I somehow managed to solve nine clues before Simon in this one.

[@bertbergers9171]

As long as those kids are having fun on the trampoline i can´t be bothered with the noise in the background :P Let them be kids and let them have fun, no need for apologies. If it's trampoline wars, i fully understand you going to intervene ;)

[@RoderickEtheria]

K"now the n"eighbors clue... the couple of words that are staying in are "now" and "then"

[@nightwishlover8913]

Very good. Love the way Simon kept saying the right answers and not seeing them.

[@thomasburriss405]

Well guys killer sudoku and arrow sudoku are no more

[@bazcuda]

Pro Tip: don't start putting in letters (e.g M and I) into the squares until you're sure they're right. O Mio Babbino Caro was never going to fit 1,4,3 🤣🤣🤣 They just sat there preventing any possibility of your brain suggesting "milestone" to you. Good video though; very impressed with "skerry" and "pangolin" 😉

[@zmaj12321]

Hmm, I feel like I want to see a more detailed explanation of most of the clues, since Simon's explanations this time were sometimes not fully convincing. For example, I think he missed the reference to the submarine Nautilus from "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."

[@Ruddigore]

I was way ahead of Simon in today's puzzle. Many of the clues just came to me instantly and I spent most of this video shouting at the screen. 😁

[@sleepyheadsarah]

I like your haircut Simon!

[@stuartsotheran6279]

Nautilus was the submarine in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

[@LillaJag]

Is this mening 96 years of cryptic crossword or are I calculated that wrong..?

[@peterbiddlecombe1939]

Yes and no. Sunday Times Crossword No 1 was printed in early 1925. But that was before anyone had thought of cryptic crosswords. "Torquemada" who later wrote a famously difficult cryptic for The Observer, started to devise cryptic clues in about 1926. The crosswords in papers like The Times and The Sunday Times gradually moved towards a cryptic style. Taking a book of old Times xwds and looking fairly randomly at one printed in 1948, one clue is "Kind (7)" with the answer SPECIES - the kind of clue you never see in a broadsheet cryptic now. Peter Biddlecombe, Sunday Times crossword editor

[@ConditionOfMan]

I don't think I could even do a regular crossword, let alone a cryptic one.

[@timothybexon6171]

You didn't submit it. I assume it was correct?