The Times Crossword Friday Masterclass: 17 May 2024

[@bobblebardsley]

"No excuses," says the man who was under aerial assault for the first half of his speed solve. (Not by Maverick, for once...)

[@Frankacy40k]

Best part of the week! Thanks Simon!

[@angec9908]

Having to use “crossword-ese” while solving a crossword is as outrageous as having to use sudoku while solving a sudoku puzzle.

[@stevewood8]

"I hope you learned something.", says Simon in his closing words. Well, we certainly learnt that it's hard to concentrate with a wasp buzzing around your head. Another great solve, having weathered that particular storm.

[@jamestaylor961]

Finished this earlier without any help from the web or the reveal button and felt as proud as if I'd just run a marathon. Your videos have been a massive help in learning the intricacies of these puzzles so for that, thank you. By the way, absolutely loved 9 across, beautiful clue with very clever misdirection.

[@girlfromthedwarf]

I've been watching these for a while and I think I'm starting to get it! Not ready to attempt one by myself but I'm starting to see how the clues are put together. Managed to get a few answers today. Brilliant as always!

[@valentinagambetti167]

I remember the first time I came across cryptic crosswords as a kid. I was capable of solving regular crosswords in Italian (my mother tongue) and could speak English fairly well. I couldn’t make sense of the clues and got really frustrated. I still can’t solve a cryptic crossword puzzle on my own, but thanks to Simon’s masterclasses I am at least improving in understanding the structure of the clues and I’m very proud to say that I got one across straight away! Love these videos, please keep them coming!!!

[@emilywilliams3237]

I love these. I want you to keep doing the occasional at-speed solve along with these wonderful fully-explained versions. Thanks, Simon.

[@finbarrswords]

This is the first Friday cryptic I've solved on my own! However, it took me two and a half hours over the course of the day. AND I had to use a dozen grid checks towards the end for the clues I just didn't understand. Anyway, huge thank you Simon, I would never have developed my love of these crosswords without this series ! ❤

[@angec9908]

I appreciate how thoughtful your explanations are in these videos and the sudokus.

[@ThecrystalwizardCoUk]

"You have hissed all of my mystery lectures, and tasted the whole worm!" (Spoonerism)

[@Emmibean77]

I look forward to these videos all week! Well done, Simon

[@creaghant]

Fantastic solve Simon, and your breakdown of clue 4 down was particularly excellent. Watching you associate 'bars' with Musical notation so quickly was astonishing (and one for me to file away and remember). Thank you for another magnificent masterclass. Best video of the week.

[@Donrafa189]

Thanks for doing these.

[@nsrikand1]

Learnt a lot and enjoyed. Thanks Simon.

[@Kradlum]

Was clue 4 down specifically put in for Cracking the Cryptic 😄

[@mjhughes]

Was wondering the same 😂

[@Anne_Mahoney]

That occurred to me, too! 😸

[@makienxhemmiktar]

Keep these coming please! love them.

[@VonBlade]

The clueing for 16D is glorious. Really lovely.

[@d4r4butler74]

Thank you for doing these for us! I love the Crossword content and look forwards to it every week.

[@ericslavich4297]

Really like the solve-one-slow, solve-one-fast fomat.

[@longwaytotipperary]

Always enjoy these - particularly the explanations! Simon, you can get partial window screens that expand to fit your window between the window sill and your partially raised window pane. They are great and don’t require any tools to install. That would keep out pesky pests.

[@Alex_Meadows]

Well done, Simon! Please don't feel too bad about the quick cryptic, you still only took a third of my time and I wasn't being menaced by a wasp. Thank you as ever for continuing with these videos.

[@jimcameron6803]

There are two notable musical Scarlattis. Alessandro was an operatic composer, but the one Simon is thinking of is his son Domenico, who emigrated to Spain from Italy and there wrote several hundred keyboard pieces. There's a strong Spanish influence in a lot of the younger Scarlatti's music, so it's natural that many of his pieces have been transcribed for guitar.

[@Anne_Mahoney]

There is at least one recording of D. Scarlatti's sonatas on guitar, and they are really fun. He's one of my favorite composers -- I play through the whole 500-odd sonatas in order every couple of years (piano, though: I don't have a harpsichord). Simon, you have a treat coming!

[@David_K_Booth]

@@Anne_Mahoney I love the Scarlatti sonatas - can't play keyboards to anything like that standard, but I have the Scott Ross boxed set of all of them. Having heard them on harpsichord, I find it annoying when some pianists go way overboard with the rubato and dynamics, playing them as though in the style of Liszt or Chopin. Evgeny Kissim is a bit of a serial offender.

[@Anne_Mahoney]

@@David_K_Booth I like the Ross recording. I also like Trevor Pinnock's, though I'm not sure he ever did a complete version.

[@David_K_Booth]

​@@Anne_Mahoney I think 525 would make a great soundtrack for Simon trying to concentrate when a wasp has flown into his room.

[@debrabowen4276]

Thank you Simon, I LOVE the cryptic crossword videos!

[@paulellingham9358]

Enjoyed the Quick Cryptic and wasp (mini-Maverick?) dodging as well as the main event.

[@paulellingham9358]

I really should read a few comments before posting my algorithm alterer. Every week, I'm getting less original with my comments!

[@philipbrooks402]

A must watch every Friday. Thanks.

[@icecreamandsadness]

I really feel for how discombobulated Simon was by that wasp, total brain down. I would be the same if it was a bird. Another great video, thank you! I'm getting closer and closer to completing a full crossword without any help, all thanks to Simon and this brilliant series of videos 😊

[@glum_hippo]

There were two famous composers named Scarlatti. Domenico wrote over 500 beautiful keyboard sonatas, many indeed transcribed for guitar. Alessandro was more in the opera and choral sphere

[@glum_hippo]

My favorite Spoonerism is ‘The Lord is a shoving leopard “

[@grenvillephillips6998]

Thanks for the help, I definitely needed!

[@peterp9918]

Love these videos. Managed to complete 67% of this one which I was very happy with, considering the Snitch level and as a bonus I thought for a while that my QC time was going to beat Simon's which would have been a once in a lifetime event. I'll have to settle for being just below him on the leader board. Happy days.

[@B1GB1RDB4G3L]

I love these videos, thanks Simon!

[@archivist17]

I do feel that there should be a separate leader board for those solving under threat from aggressive fauna 😂

[@chitraagarwal8259]

Simon you are not bad at the quick cryptic.Its just that your brain is now in a different orbit where obvious stuff like hiddens in crossword clues and well normal Sudoku in sudoku puzzles just don't find a place. Don't be hard on yourself. We understand and appreciate it. In fact your videos are entertaining precisely coz of this - you help us see these impossible pieces of logic that we would never have thought of and then give us a few opportunities to shout at you for simple things you miss so we can feel a bit better about ourselves!

[@B1GB1RDB4G3L]

Simon you forgot the wasp diff in the quick cryptic! Please don't feel bad about your time, your harsh comments to yourself stung worse than anything that wasp could have done to you. I truly love your videos, your enthusiasm and enjoyment and appreciation of the craft shine through and it makes me feel happy when I watch you cracking the cryptic :)

[@lindasteffers8004]

Things flying into the room? Must be Maverick's minions

[@peterdunlop7691]

My favourite video of the week.

[@debrabowen4276]

Simon’s mind is like a vending machine. Put in cryptic coin, out comes answer. Very cool.

[@nakorbluerider]

I think G for Good and VG for Very Good come from grading systems (used for collectible things like coins or vinyl records). NM = Near Mint, VG = Very Good, G = Good, F = Fair, P = Poor, etc.

[@Draedaja]

Wow, Mark's 6:11 seems insane!

[@SeanKearney-q3n]

Abolish is a beast of a clue. I wouldn't have got that in a month of Sundays

[@pirukiddingme1908]

Apologising for taking a whole 8 minutes on a crossword. Simon that would have taken me a year, be proud of yourself

[@rpe10538]

I would be delighted with 8:08 for the QC, my best ever so far is 8:06 including typo, or 8:37 typo free, both achieved without a wasp distracting me. Strangely the first clue that you solved (pardoner) was the first that I got stuck on. Also that was the highest Quick Snitch rating (120) since March 8th. Please keep the excellent crossword content coming as it has really helped with my solving "skills".

[@rpe10538]

Edit, just recorded 7:55 on an earlier puzzle for a new PB

[@vinyl1Earthlink]

I had two checkers for 6 down, and saw that the anagram could make postage! It was only the literal that stopped me - how could postage be a terrifying force? Yes, I am a US solver, but I have been solving the Times of London puzzle since the 1980s, so I know nearly all the British bits like EC, TA, OBE, etc. I did take longer finishing than I should have, but I quite enjoyed the puzzle.

[@TheMajorr86]

No excuses on the quick cryptic? How many of those other solvers were under duress of a GIGANTIC WASP for the first half of their solve!??!

[@assassin01620]

I like the rotational symmetry this one has.

[@SeanKearney-q3n]

What was the brilliant clue from earlier in the week?

[@danecarter5454]

Pedantic I know, but: At 33.20, a child is either described as “A dependAnt” or “dependEnt”, but not “A dependEnt”.

[@MarushiaDark316]

Simon needs to get a bug zapper for his room.

[@finlayrivers9839]

I demand a Simon Scarlatti Guitar recital

[@iaincook5835]

As a scientist, we used to abbreviate "with" as "c" when taking notes in class, shorthand for Latin "cum". I still do it to this day, 40y later.

[@David_K_Booth]

Lowercase "c" with an overbar to represent "with": a tour guide pointed that out in a letter that Elizabeth I wrote over four centuries ago. Probably at Hatfield House? Like you, I was familiar with it from taking lecture notes. (I eventually used "c" with a double overbar for "without".)

[@Anne_Mahoney]

My mother used to do this, too. She'd done a lot of Latin in school and then majored chemistry in college, and worked as a research chemist until she got married. Back in the day, of course, women always stopped working after they got married. 😾

[@infinitylake]

Writing in 'Tambourin' after Simon explained the clue to me did so much to validate my music degree lol

[@jacksonreynolds7433]

I knew what a Caravel is. Going Merry is a Caravel!

[@jamessmalley-bu2xw]

What was the clue you wanted to tell us about from yesterday’s Times crossword?

[@CrackingTheCryptic]

I'm sorry I forgot to mention it in the video. (I did Tweet about it just now!) It was: Weakened through heat? (9)

[@phyphor]

I am stunned that Simon has never played Civilization V or VI computer games, as otherwise he would know the word caravel

[@michaelpdawson]

There were two notable composers named Scarlatti, Domenico and his father Alessandro.

[@debrabowen4276]

I’m thinking the wasp took a couple of minutes off the quick cryptic!

[@Chippy569]

has there ever been a pangram in one of these Friday videos? I feel like it gets mentioned every week but I can't recall ever seeing one.

[@angec9908]

I love “whatsit” but I’m waiting for you to solve a clue with “thingy” which a much more appropriate word for you.

[@heatherallan9767]

🌱thank you ✏ ✨

[@raspberrypug]

Wow I wish I could do crosswords like this, but I still need to learn a bit from the best solver. also I think Niobe is greek mythology? You might have been thinking of Lot's wife in the Bible, who was turned into a pillar of salt (which may still count as a rock of some sort being a mineral and all, but I digress).

[@Anne_Mahoney]

Right. Niobe's story is Greek, not Biblical. She had 7 sons and 7 daughters, and bragged that this made her better than Leto, who only had 1 of each. Of course, Leto is a goddess and her two children are Apollo and Artemis -- so she was not at all happy with Niobe. So she suggested her kids avenge her. They did so: Apollo killed all the sons, Artemis killed all the daughters, and Leto gloated in a manner decidedly unbecoming a goddess. Other gods took a bit of pity on Niobe (well, by the standards of the Greek gods) and turned her into a rock -- but Niobe did not stop weeping, and the rock has poured out water ever since, they say.

[@AlonAltman]

Can you try out this cryptic clue I just came up with? Troubled ocean engulfs the sound of the sea and rules the endless grave where we are (8,3,7).

[@iaincook5835]

Yikes! I had 20 across as "head off": "go" is to head off, and "possibly to go and haunt this place" is to lose your head (in the classic middle-ages way) and return to haunt the scene. Oh well.

[@Zihuatanejo-]

Ha when Simon said flowering I misspelt it in my head as Flouring then I thought it could be flourishing because that fits. Don't know what the wordplay would be though.

[@jamestaylor961]

Think it's referring to flouring as in making flour from grain in a riverside mill which used to use water flow to power the machinery

[@jamestaylor961]

Just realised I was wrong and Simon's explanation fits better, though I do think mine fits as well with 'ish' as the annoyed expression 😂

[@DontMockMySmock]

"C" isn't just "hundred," it's ONE hundred, or "a hundred." I think that's totally valid.

[@roryjackson1524]

G for Good probably comes from the going in horse racing

[@bluerizlagirl]

I think there was definitely something a bit watery going on with those clues .....

[@longwaytotipperary]

I thought I left a comment but don’t see it. If this goes through I’ll try again.

[@DontMockMySmock]

you need to get a screen for your window, my dude

[@katiemiaana]

Wow I feel thick

[@iaincook5835]

At 16min, I'm hoping you'll look up "back-crawl" in the Chambers, as I've never heard of this phrase in 64 years.

[@Kradlum]

I think it's just a rarely used name for the backstroke.

[@lashers]

@@Kradlum As opposed to the front crawl, which is the stroke all swimmers in the "freestyle" perform.

[@Kradlum]

@@lashers Don't! I was put in the "freestyle" race at school and did the backstroke.😁

[@jansteyaert1]

Trying to solve a cryptic crossword that's not in your mother tongue is ludicrous.

[@Raven-Creations]

Once again you were suckered into falling into the setter's trap. The eider clue wasn't vicious at all. "1 Down" is not talking about FOB. It's eastern (E), [German] translation of "the" (der), inspiring (taking in) 1 (i), with the definition of "down producer", giving eider. You parsed it as "eastern translation", and "1 down", both of which were actually split. You keep telling us not to read the clues as given, but you keep doing just that and making the same mistake every week. Always assume that obviously paired words are split up (try imagining a comma between the words), and you'll usually crack the cryptic. Obviously sometimes the paired words do go together, but if your first reading always assumes they are split, you're not going to be caught out, and you can always revert to the norm if it doesn't lead anywhere. For me, this clue was a gimme, because I read it as "Eastern, translation of the, inspiring 1, down producer". Why would you think tae meant "put"? The clue said "Scot's to", as in goin' tae the boozer. This is put back, giving eat, which is possibly stuff [your face]. This was also a gimme, especially having already got the E. You always seem to hold your hands up when there's a hint of a Scottish word, but it's almost always a trivial one. Perhaps you need to read some of Robert Burns or for a laugh William McGonagall (widely regarded as the world's worst poet). There were some lovely clues in this, I really like this setter's style. There's a playful aspect to the clues, and the wordplay succeeded in catching out the unwary.

[@mmfc1958]

Perhaps you should start a channel called 'Cracking one off' and show us how it should be done?

[@Raven-Creations]

@@mmfc1958 My only point was that Simon keeps failing to take his own advice. I just suggested how he might avoid falling into the traps. His advice is sound, I would only repeat it, and on most puzzles he's better than me. It's just this one thing that keeps catching him out. This channel is all about logic and reasoning. By what logic or reasoning do you infer that making one valid criticism implies I think I can do better than Simon overall? Simon is good, but he's not above reproach, and I didn't just criticise but suggested a technique to help him overcome his main failing. If nobody is allowed to criticise, the human race is doomed; we're condemned to keep making the same mistakes and never learn better techniques. I work in software development where we all review every single piece of each other's work. Our software has improved immensely because of regular criticism. Bad habits have been eliminated, better ways of doing things have been shared, and the whole team (who were already highly competent and experienced) has improved more than we ever thought possible.