The Times Crossword Friday Masterclass: Episode 10

** TODAY'S PUZZLE **
In the tenth edition of our attempt to solve a Friday Times crossword, Simon takes on today's puzzle which is a bit of a monster (Friday is usually the hardest day of the week in The Times and it certainly is this week!).
The puzzle is available to play on The Times crossword club website (which is behind their paywall):
www.thetimes.c...
You can find more information about the SNITCH rating here:
xwdsnitch.hero...
** ORDER OUR UPCOMING BOOK HERE **
www.kickstarte...
** NEW CONTENT ON PATREON **
As well as the Phistomefel and Jay Dyer extravaganzas, Simon's solve of Magnus Josefsson's new puzzle Castle Wall Yin Yang #1 is now available as a bonus video. You can play the puzzle at the link below (and the logic-masters link contains an example):
app.crackingth...
logic-masters....
Joining us on Patreon costs as little as $2 a month.
Remember that patrons gets access to their own special channel on the CtC Fan Discord server - where you can find hints ;)
/ crackingthecryptic
** NEW GAS PACK IS OUT **
The new GAS pack is out on Steam for PC here:
store.steampow...
It's already out on Android and App Store. 60 original puzzles by Sam Cappleman-Lynes, Clover and Philip Newman!! Earn party hats and dinosaurs with these brand new puzzles!
We've also released a FREE app full of handmade puzzles to celebrate reaching 500k subscribers - simply download the Cracking The Cryptic app on Android, Steam or App Store and then select the 500k pack. We're streaming a playthrough of this app and you can watch all seven episodes
▶ Contact Us ◀
Twitter: @Cracking The Cryptic
email: [e-mail]
Our PO Box address:
Simon Anthony & Mark Goodliffe
Box 102
56 Gloucester Road
London
SW7 4UB
(Please note to use our real names rather than 'Cracking The Cryptic'.)
▶ SUDOKU PAD - Our New App ◀
You can input classic sudoku puzzles into our software and help support Sven, the programmer responsible for the wonderful user interface we all use to play these puzzles everyday. The app also comes with 12 handmade puzzles from us:
iOS:
apps.apple.com...
Steam: store.steampow...
Android:
play.google.co...
ALSO on Amazon: Search for “SudokuPad”
**************************************************************
▶ CTC FAN DISCORD SERVER◀
/ discord
▶ OUR BACK CATALOGUE - ALL CATEGORISED WITH LINKS!◀
tinyurl.com/CT...
▶ NEW CRACKING THE CRYPTIC MERCHANDISE◀
teespring.com/...
▶SEND US PUZZLES TO SOLVE/CONTACT US◀
[e-mail]
▶FOLLOW US◀
Twitter: #crypticcracking
@crypticcracking
Instagram (for how to solve daily clues from The Times): www.instagram....

[@markbennet9058]

"Steaming" was the name given to a phenomenon where violent criminals with weapons would steal from the occupants of a train carriage between stations.

[@MatthewLenton]

I always associate steaming with being drunk

[@craftsmanwoodturner]

They would charge through in a gang, mugging all the passengers in a single carriage in one go.

[@David_K_Booth]

Yes, the word was in common use in London in the mid/late 1980s, but it seems a bit obscure now. Unless it's come back into use in the last few years, while I've been out of the country.

[@chrisclark4813]

VICE......... A Bench Vice, is a device for hold material to be worked on. For academics, remember back to 1st or 2nd year woodwork or metalwork

[@orosma868]

Highlight of my chemo day! I'm going to be having a treatment break so I'll be able to enjoy them earlier in the day for a couple of months, and not just when I can't sleep. Thank you Simon.

[@Alex_Meadows]

Speaking of the Times quick cryptic, I completed my first one unassisted last night, and it's all thanks to these videos. So thank you both very much!

[@willjohnsnow]

The Quick Cryptic is a favourite lunchtime treat, many thanks to this channel for getting me into them!

[@HonkeyKongLive]

These are quickly turning into my favorite thing on this channel.

[@MoD366]

It is a great iujustice that Simon's result was ruined by a simple typo.

[@bibliopolist]

Well, since we have to watch him typing in about 100 wrong numbers each day just because he won't use the numbers pad, it's kind of nice to see him a little bit punished once for mistyping ...

[@eddeh0772]

I was screaming at the screen for about 40mins, but I guess he couldn’t hear me

[@davidrattner9]

Bring on one of the best Friday traditions!! Absolutely love these from you Simon!!

[@longwaytotipperary]

Ditto!

[@rpb424]

For 'vices' the definition is all of 'tools to get hold of', given that a vice is a tool for holding things being worked on. Then 'instead of' and 'spades' gives you 'vice' and 's' respectively. .. and was really hoping you'd spot the errant 'u' before submitting !

[@333name]

I like how that's the definition when he first looks it up but immediately jumps to 2+3 to justify it lol

[@chime1998]

Vice1 definition showed “grip” too, as in vice grip, a tool.

[@tomh1760]

These videos are fascinating, and I would adore a daily version!

[@andersondamasceno]

Best time of the week is when a cryptic crossword video from Cracking the Cryptic comes out.

[@koda90]

I love these weekly crossword videos! Thanks for making them :)

[@MarcMcMillin]

I enjoy these Masterclasses so much!

[@longwaytotipperary]

Ditto!

[@bryanroland9402]

I got the reference to A Fish Called Wanda. Those who didn't probably think you're losing it but never mind. Great to have a regular crossword video. That's what attracted me to CTC when you started out.

[@heatherallan9767]

✨this is still a spectator sport, but we learn more every week ....thanks for a fun time 🎈

[@puritan7473]

Awesome, another crossword masterclass! - I am at 19:20 and I really hope Simon notices the typo before submitting!

[@phyphor]

You and me, both!

[@hypotheticalhippo2327]

Narrator: "He did not."

[@xxsolidsnakexx3676]

Fish called Wanda quote I’m subscribing 😂

[@keithlewis7205]

Love all the puzzles but look forward to these every week!

[@mauefw]

Great to see you doing more crossword content. 8m 03 for me today - too late to feature in your video - which probably marks the first time I've ever solved faster than Mark G.

[@CrackingTheCryptic]

Wow. That's a great time!

[@itsyaboi8798]

I look forward to these every Friday 😊 thanks Simon!

[@longwaytotipperary]

Ditto!

[@riotblob]

Tritto!

[@longwaytotipperary]

@@riotblob 😄

[@Ruddigore]

I love these Cryptic solves.

[@archivist17]

That was great fun, and sold us a few dummies along the way! 😀

[@wedgwoodswepston9449]

Thanks to these masterclasses ive discovered i can improve my solves by at least 50% just by looking for the abbreviations.

[@chrisclark4813]

VICE......... A Bench Vice, is a device for hold material to be worked on. For academics, remember back to 1st or 2nd year woodwork or metalwork.

[@francesbardsley5332]

Really look forward to these. Keep up the good work. Thank you.

[@adrianchavez4199]

I genuinely subscribed years ago for sudoku but I got into XWords this month and now these are my most anticipated videos. Please make these a guaranteed video!

[@ConManAU]

Spelling "adzuki" as "aduki" is due to the variety of ways you can romanise (i.e. write in our alphabet) Japanese characters. The character づ can be written as du, dzu or zu depending on the system you're using.

[@nickloader3184]

So happy I managed to get universe before Simon. Just from def and then, same as him, realised unverse(-d) and the rest was history. Excellent grid and fantastic solve Simon 👍

[@wossaaaat]

Bit unfortunate, but excellently done as always. Thanks for keeping up the cryptics.

[@marcusj60]

Love the crossword vids. Learning alot. And I promise I wasn't shouting, just silently hoping you would spot the typo. Cheers

[@longwaytotipperary]

I look forward to this every week!!!

[@mccabjo]

Thanks for the entertaining video. Getting GASTROPOD, TWO-SCORE, PROLIFERATION and WOLVERHAMPTON quickly really opened up the grid for me. Not that anyone ever calls me this out loud, but mohn was intended to rhyme with John rather than Joan.

[@robertosecco983]

I have no clue about how to solve it (I am Italian -too difficult for me) but I enjoy how his brain works. :)

[@GordonjSmith1]

I really look forward to Fridays! My inner OCD was screaming at the spelling snafu , but I loved it all none the less!

[@craftsmanwoodturner]

I reckon that Simon and I would make a great team for solving cryptic crosswords together - he works out the answer, and I work out why it is right!

[@emilywilliams3237]

Always enjoy these - thanks, Simon, for the video, and for destroying your statistics for our sake every week! (I know it's not the same, but the occasional NYT crossword would be interesting, too!)

[@nightwishlover8913]

Vice - it gets hold of things...

[@phyphor]

Nineteen minutes in and I'm already fretting at the typographical error. Oh, Simon!

[@sebastienlecoq3956]

I might not watch all the sudokus due to limited time. But I'm sure to take time to watch all the cryptics. Thank you for taking the time even if it feels less popular than miracle sudokus

[@nonagrey3422]

More of these please

[@ericbright1742]

42:48 "A Fish Called Wanda" reference? I see you are man of culture!

[@therickestric]

Would be great to see Mark solve the same crossword, but without the explanation just to see how he manages to do it so fast

[@bryanroland9402]

A video of Mark frowning then smiling and typing furiously doesn't sound so interesting.

[@timothybexon6171]

​@@bryanroland9402 And that is where you are wrong. I know I would find it fascinating to see where his mind goes when solving. And he could always do a voiceover like he's done before.

[@samuelwoodhouse1796]

If I’m not mistaken, thus puzzle was only an X away from a pangram. I was rooting for it

[@andyleighton3616]

One other thing Raita for "course in India" is a bit dodgy IMO (the wordplay was fine - the definition not so). I would imagine anyone would be put out if they were served just raita as a course in a meal even for a starter.

[@ineedausername124]

This is confusing but fun to watch, I have no idea how anyone would be able to solve this

[@bobblebardsley]

I wondered if 'furious' could be an anagram indicator and noticed that 'steaming' is an anagram of 'mangiest' but that has nothing to do with the actual answer, I was just happy to find a one-word anagram of it.

[@michaelpdawson]

I have a problem with the definition for 2 Down: whether counting forwards or backwards, those are the EVEN letters. I suppose a case can be made for "odd" just meaning alternate, but I think that's weak.

[@SomeRandomGuyOnYouTube]

He didn't explain it correctly. It's PICKOUTDHAL omitting the odd letters ('oddly passing'), which gives you IKUDA, and then that has to go 'up', giving ADUKI. Rather tortuous wordplay.

[@michaelpdawson]

@@SomeRandomGuyOnKZbin Ah, now I get it. Thank you!

[@martinwilson5210]

Really enjoyed that puzzle it eas so difficult

[@sh4dowchas3r]

I got to Calm via C from collected and Alm as a short synonym for money.

[@grenvillephillips6998]

Flippin' 'eck, I needed help with that one!

[@d4r4butler74]

Always enjoy the Crossword content, thank you! You could make a new Account just for making Videos for the Channel. That way your "real" account doesn't reflect you trying to teach us how to do Cryptic Crosswords in your times. And yes, I was yelling at the screen that you didn't notice that you had not put in 'Injustice'.

[@djohnson6585]

Party, drink, to sink (Do) (port) (sag) Picking UP (reverse) Gas-Trop-od

[@andyleighton3616]

Yeah I would have said stuff-up is hyphenated as well. Some very tough clues on this one. I would have just biffed the answer for a number of them (like Gastropod) if I was doing it for real. Clue of the Day - 1ac, but I also liked 4ac

[@bibliopolist]

Wow, I got that city anagram at the first go, long before Simon (made my day, since as a German, I am not even sure where this city is...). That made 4 across also quite easy (thinking of a famous Lincoln speech). Everything else: no chance...

[@aljones27uk]

Steaming is a type of robbery on the train - get on at station, go through carriage robbing everyone who can't get away and then hop off again as train pulls into next station.

[@baie_nuuskierig]

completely forgot OS works for sailor...saw the "heavy metal" part, saw the 's', and my head went ozzy osbourne, thus osmium. 🤦

[@johnpauladamovsky86]

This Channel should change its name to: *THE MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, AND HIS FAIR-WEATHER FRIEND, NAMED SUDOKU*

[@n0ahr0sner]

Yes!❤

[@Sarahr98998]

I’m pretty good at regular crosswords, but I just can’t wrap my mind around these. Can’t do it lol

[@Juanchodh]

* Insert Walter White screaming from the back of the van since the 19th minute. Simon! Injustice! Is injustiiiice!

[@stewartnuttall8897]

INFORMAL the practice of a gang of thieves moving rapidly through a public place, stealing things or robbing people on the way. "steaming is not restricted to tube trains" Guess we are the wrong sort of people to know this ?

[@bobblebardsley]

So it's a... triple definition? Furious / drunk / committing crime on Tube? I guess that explains why it has the question mark on the end.

[@joshkerr4958]

I think the crime on the tube is "sing", as people tend to stay silent on the tube and not enjoy it when people start playing music aloud or singing, less of a legal crime and more of a social one Unlucky on the typo! I was hoping you'd spot it in the end

[@zerocutt1650]

ZEROCUTT 0 seconds ago Great stuff and I smiled at your little 'stuffup' on the spelling. The steaming explanation someone posted put the final bit of icing on a very tasty cake.

[@mauryapatel5165]

Mr Magoo on 8 with a sub 10 🙌

[@Ozziw162]

The first part of the clue to number to 17 ("no reason not to") is also synonymous to "may as well".

[@angelicodaligny9614]

maybe i'm wrong but for steaming I was thinking that's streaming (the Tube) without r (on which a crime has been committed ie getting over of the r) but it seem a bit farfetched

[@AngrySanta]

I thought initially steaming referred to being steaming mad

[@binaaathome3759]

Yea was distracted the whole time wondering if he whould notice the typo or not :)

[@Raven-Creations]

I found this one easier than usual. I must be on a similar wavelength as the setter. I got goalie, gastropod, static, universe, vices, raita, and injustice straight away, which seemed fairly telegraphed to me. These gave enough letters to make most of the other clues fairly obvious. I got Wolverhampton easily, but I needed to write out the clue and cross out letters to realise that Liberal was just L. Is L a valid abbreviation? I would think it would be confused with Labour, which is why we had the LibLab Pact, not the LL Pact. 8D was overREACT, not overACT, but emote is neither - it's literally to express emotion. If you are disappointed by a gift, and show it, you're emoting, but you're not overreacting. I got it from the word play tome is a volume turned upside down, and the close to the word one for the e. I've searched hard for any references where emote is used for overreact and found none. I did find a couple of US references which imply overacting, but that wasn't the clue. Terminally was quite a cute clue. It could also be read as a interred being terminally in a box with restricted room. I also struggled to fully justify steaming. It seemed like only the first two words were required. I wondered whether the crime was stealing and swapping the L for an M was somehow clued by on tube. In the end, I had to look it up, steaming is a gang of thieves going through a crowd stealing, especially on a train.

[@Biddlebum]

I think L=Liberal is a bit of history - the Liberal party existed before the Labour one, so in at least some periods of time, L meant Liberal because they got there first.

[@RobertWilson-hc5db]

EMOTE means to show exaggerated emotion according to Chambers.

[@at8ax]

Maybe one week you'll stream this live, and let the viewers chime in in the Comments?

[@gargibanerjee2494]

Raita is the answer for the girl clue

[@zingerella9155]

Why is "close to one" leading to "E"? I can't understand that one

[@riotblob]

it’s the closing (final) letter of the word ‘one’ !

[@Wouter10123]

Maybe they just forgot to put the bar in for stuff up

[@davidwales2082]

vice = in place of (Latin)

[@fussyboy2000]

Can ChatGPT solve these yet?

[@romasteve7292]

didn't complete this one - real stinker

[@timothybexon6171]

To verify Steaming, I thought Tube could reference KZbin and Streaming. But couldn't figure out what would get rid of the R. Anyone any idea if this could have worked? Not sure if it's the correct reading for the clue or just a coincidence.

[@Lukenh4s]

The T in Tube is uppercase, which must mean it is a reference to streaming websites like KZbin. If you stream yourself stealing you're steaming 😂

[@AmmoBoks]

Time to pull the plug of Alexa

[@stimpyueediot]

Simon can i make a suggestion. record yourself doing the crossword as fast as you can without commentary and just go back and talk over your video while talking about your thought process.

[@Biddlebum]

There's a problem about cryptic solving commentaries. If you try to remember your thought processes after you solved at full speed, it's very unlikely that your explanation of your thought processes will be accurate - did you see some checking letters and fit them with a possible definition, or did you spot an obvious bit of cryptic clue material and work from that? In at least some cases, you won't know afterwards. Explaining as you go obviously slows things down, and the explanation of thought processes involved may give you enough time to work out a clue that you would normally have looked at for a few seconds and then decided to come back to. Until we have technology that can record and explain human thought, there's no perfect way.

[@mtginformatik3363]

An exotic journey with the most exciting, destination of free word finder! CHECK COMMENT TO PLAY Take your mind on an exotic journey with the most exciting, destination-themed free word finder! 🌎 Travel the world with Word Finder Journey, a beautiful word puzzle game with all the challenging yet entertaining word hunt features you love! Train & exercise your brain in a fun, relaxing way and stretch your critical thinking skills and IQ to a new level.

[@erickehr4475]

For “Steaming” see eg en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steaming_(crime)