62 comments on “General Discussion”

  2. Torridd @1

    So far as I can determine, The Globe and Mail is a Canadian publication and Fifteensquared is a UK site covering UK cryptic crosswords.

  3. I am used to printing your daily independent puzzle with clues on a single page and 2 or 3 of us do the puzzle on paper.

    It stopped working today.

    has something changed?

  4. John @3

    Someone else has reported a similar problem on today’s Maize post. I have just tried and had no problems printing the Independent cryptic using Chrome on Win10. If you let me know what device/OS/browser you are using when unable to print I will feed it back to the person responsible for the Indy online puzzles.

  5. I don’t know if this can possibly be related to this issue but I had to reduce the size to 90% (a record for me) in order that it fit on one page (Safari on iMac).

  6. I am a bit of an Australian dinosaur, running windows 7 and internet explorer.

    I was going to retry on the lap top with Google Chrome but the last 2 puzzles have printed OK in the old method.

    Thankyou if my query resulted in some change. Our group struggles at times but thoroughly enjoy the puzzles and the Blogs

  8. Can someone help me parse 1d for today’s New Yorker cryptic? (link) The clue is “Animals face wet ears (5,5)” and the answer is (rot13’d for spoiler reasons) “cnaqn ornef” but I don’t get why.

    Words: 1
    Characters: 3

  9. Khitty Hawk @8

    PANDA BEARS – PAN (face) DAB (wet) EARS

    The latter half of your comment appears to be nonsense.

  10. @9 Gaufrid

    I guess? I’m still hazy on why pan=face and dab=wet. Does pan=face because ‘panning’ refers to the way a camera is facing, and dab=wet because you can dab something with a moist towel to wet it? Those seem a bit weak, so I figured I’d come here and see what I was missing.

    I don’t know why my browser sometimes adds a word and character count to my posts. Sorry about that.

    Words: 5
    Characters: 25

  11. Just trying a couple of things, please ignore.

     

    From wiki:?????? (Bo?pis) ‘Cow

     

    From page source: ?????? (<i>Bo?pis</i>) ‘Cow-Eyed’

  12. I was trying to copy and paste the greek characters from a wikipedia page; on this site it doesn’t seem to work. However I tried on another site (www.kfo.org.uk), where it does seem to work. Any ideas Gaufrid?

     

    Dave

  13. Dave @12

    The other site you mention is not running on WordPress. Unfortunately I have no control over which languages/symbols WordPress will or will not display.

  14. First, some background to my topic.  Twice recently, and probably on other occasions as well, a setter has relied on the Chambers definition of W as an abbreviation, used in Physics, for ‘weak’. The only other dictionary I have to hand is Collins Dictionary, which does not have that definition, and I speculate that other published dictionaries do not have W = weak either.

    The first problem with the Chambers entry in question is that, in Physics, ‘W’ is not an abbreviation meaning ‘weak’. The second problem, a consequence of the first, is that ‘W particle’ is defined in the wrong place: instead of having its own entry under the ‘W‘ headword (and thereby be consistent with the entry for ‘Z particle’ under ‘Z‘) it is clumsily ‘defined’ inside a parenthetical comment supposedly in support of the definition of ‘W or W. abbrev‘, meaning ‘weak’.

    I wrote to Chambers in late December 2019 requesting that they review the entry for W = weak and recommending that they actually remove it altogether and make a new dictionary entry for the W particle, following the example of the clear definition and proper placement of the entry for the Z particle.

    If there is any interest in this topic I’ll give more detail of my reasoning as necessary.  At this stage, I’ll just emphasise that ‘W particle’ is the complete name of that hypothetical entity in Physics.  It is not short for anything – it is not called the ‘weak particle’, for example, which is why the Chambers entry in question is wrong.  Meanwhile, we may see ‘weak’ indicating ‘W’ again in more crosswords, and while Chambers still has it it’s not wrong for setters to use it!

  16. Hi, not sure if anyone can help me understand this clue:

    Clue: looked into request, being pleased with this (5)

    Why is it ‘nosed’? Aside from ‘looked into’.

  18. I think I used to remember a very regular poster on the Guardian comments called R C Smith, I have not seen a post from him for a very long time.  Does anyone know what happened to him?  As a general question do we have any way of knowing the well-being of members of this community?  Is there any follow-up when posters fail to appear for a while?

  19. I’ve always assumed that 15 squared doesn’t cover The Times crossword because it is behind a paywall. Is that the case? The newsagent delivered Mr Murdoch’s organ yesterday morning rather than the Guardian so I did the cryptic there, which turned out to be very easy. Is that generally true these days?

  20. Tyngewick @19

    We don’t cover the Times because it is blogged elsewhere. I cannot answer your query regarding the degree of difficulty because it is many years since I solved the Times each day and things might have changed since then.

  21. Many thanks Gaufrid@20. A useful resource from which I discovered others found yesterday’s Times very east too.

  22. I live in the USA and rely on the Guardian cryptic on my iPhone to maintain mental agility during isolation. The link to today’s offering seems broken (as have been the last few Quiptics). Can anyone shed light on this most disastrous turn ov events?

  23. I was packing up to move the other day and came across a mostly incompleted set of Araucaria crosswords (Monkey Puzzles, vol.2).  It’s been a lot of fun doing them but it took me two or three to get back into the drift of his setting: so wonderful and so different from more recent cryptics.  There’s a lot more allusiveness in the cluing – it’s not about figuring out every last piece of punctuation or turn of phrase as is now common.  Does anyone know of an article about how cryptic cluing has changed over the decades?

  24. I wonder if anyone can help me find the Guardian crossword with the Nina ‘not know your arse from your elbow’. I really enjoyed it and want to share it with a friend.
    Anyone able to help?
    Incidentally I really value your excellent service to the crossword community! Many thanks.

  26. Hi Gaufrid – since the FT has suspended the prize crossword for the time being, can we expect an early blog of today’s weekend puzzle 16,443 from Mudd? Thanks.

  27. Steve @26

    For various reasons, it has been necessary to retain the existing blogging schedule for prize puzzles that have had entry submissions suspended. In the case of the FT, in the interest of future searches etc, it didn’t seem right for the blog of today’s puzzle to appear before the one that was in the FT last Saturday.

    If you need any clarification of today’s FT just email me at the admin address.

  28. Thanks for the explanation Gaufrid. All was clear today – I just enjoy reading the blogs and was hoping that one slight upside of the pandemic might be not having to wait 10 days or so for the prize puzzle blog (by which time I’ve forgotten any questions unless I made a special note). I was happy when they did away with having a prize puzzle on Mondays and would not be at all upset if the same happens with the weekend puzzle when this is all behind us!

  29. Pandean!! Thank you SO MUCH for your help and web site gymnastics! I shall send the puzzle to my dear friends Geoffrey and Robin in London who will be delighted and elevated by the ingenuity of this challenge for at least six hours…. . I thought it was much more recent than 2008 but it just proves how time flies when you’re having fun.
    Thank you so much
    Jonathan from Nottingham

  33. Thanks muffin, I thought this was a good puzzle from Anto although there are a couple, EINSTEIN and MUSKETEER, that I could not parse.  I guess I will just have to have patience!!

  35. Re Sarah Hayes/Arachne – apologies if I’ve missed something but it’s a few months since I’ve seen a puzzle of hers anywhere (unless her Times puzzles are still appearing anonymously). Is it temporary or has she even retired?

  36. Can anyone help me…?  During lockdown, I started doing Guarding Genius puzzles to keep me occupied.  I must have gone a bit stir crazy cos I decided to go back through all the old Genius puzzles that are on line – way back to 2003 – and do them in order.  OCD?  Moi??  Never!  But it has turned out to be more challenging that I imagined because none of the ‘special instructions’ are included on the webpage!  I call it ‘Genius Jeopardy’ because you have to try to solve enough clues to be able to guess the ‘question’ (i.e. the theme, link etc) before you can solve the whole puzzle. Amazingly, working with my other half, we managed to complete most of the early puzzles … but some of them have left us totally baffled.  The first one that stumped us was Genius 10. But then we hit a really rough patch and Genius 25, 29, 30, 34 and 35 have all yet to yield a single solution!  Is there anyone out there who knows how we can get hold of the Special Instructions and have a chance with these crosswords?  My sanity may depend on it!  with thanks for any help anyone can offer

  38. A long shot this, but just out of interest, which setters don’t use crossword software to construct puzzles? Or perhaps use a combination of manual with some computer help.

    I’m fairly sure Azed composes his by hand, but he’s the only one I know of.

  39. Original, hard enough for cryptic solvers, and free.

    Hello. A couple of years ago I dreamt up a novel word puzzle. I’ve called it Lazy Dog. It’s quite challenging. I have now turned it into a not-for-profit app – free to download and free of adverts. You might like to try it.

    The app is for iPhones and iPads, so it’s on App Store. Here is a link to it: https://tinyurl.com/lazy-dog-game

    Thank you

  40. Hello

    I worked a crossword from a different website. The clue was “Arguement with a redhead”, the answer “Blue”. Please could you explain why this could be, it makes no sense to me.

    Many thanks

    Chris

  41. ChrisP @40

    It’s a double def. From the ODE under ‘blue’:

    Australian/NZ informal an argument or fight
    Australian/NZ informal a nickname for a red-headed person

  42. Gaufrid @41

    Thanks for the rapid demystification, I don’t speak Oz/NZ unfortunately. What is the ODE please, Googling it produces about 30 possibilities!

    Chris

     

  43. ChrisP @42

    The ODE is the Oxford Dictionary of English, a reduced version of the OED and SOED that I have on my pc.

  45. Anybody else having problems downloading The Guardian Saturday Prize crossword today? I can’t see a listing for it? Thanks

  46. Hello

    Does anyone know of an Android app that provides a simple anagram scratchpad?  I solve the Guardian/Observer on my phone and it really would be useful to have a nice letter arranger on my phone; as I don’t always want to be carrying a pen and paper.  I am not looking for a solver (there are lots of those) – just for an electronic version of a set of scrabble tiles in which I can type the fodder and play around with the letters.

     

    Thanks

  47. I am working through The Times Crossowrd book 9 and although it has answers sometimes I can’t for the life of me see how the wordplay works: for instance Little creature moving about in shade. answer is Chameleon which I worked out from the letters but wordplay????

    Do people on this site answer individual ancient crossword solutions queries?

  48. Hello Hilarie @47. That looks to me like a “cryptic definition” – ie one that requires lateral thinking rather than having a separate definition + word/letter play.

    I think it’s a play on ‘shade’ as a synonym of colour, and the idea that a chameleon can change shade as it moves. That had probably occurred to you, but I can’t see that there’s anything more going on.

    Maybe that wouldn’t be deemed enough for a cryptic definition clue these days – if you’re on Book 9 that must be going back 15 years or so for the original puzzle.

    I guess it’s okay to post similar queries from old puzzles here.

  49. Hello all,
    Returning to crosswording after an abscence of a few years and going to give compiling a crack. I remember reading that The Guardian had a set number of grids. If so, how many are there and do other papers employ the same policy? I’d also like to know how many different grids are used and whether empty grid templates can be downloaded from somewhere (or someone). My poor, befuddled memory suggested there were 16 different grids regularly used by The Grauniad but a quick perusal through the archive has turned up at least 18 almost immediately. Does anybody know?

  50. As a sidenote to the above, I began the inquiry into grids as the theme of the crossword I wanted to compile has several 11 letter words – and it’s surprisingly difficult to find grids with 11 letter words in. Not sure why. I guess it means having a 3 letter word on that line – or four checked squares. Is that such a terrible thing? Anyhoo, If you do see any grids with four slots for 11 letter words, do let me know. Thanks

  51. Hello Betsy. I can’t help with your Guardian enquiries, but I’ve uploaded a grid used by The Times that has four 11-letter lights here: https://imgur.com/Vfp0LEg

    Nothing unconventional there – as you probably know, the Times convention is that at least 50% of the letters in each solution must be checked, and there cannot be three or more unchecked letters in succession.

  52. Hi Lord Jim

    Thanks!

    Apart from Harlow Carr, I don’t know Harrogate very well. When my wife was still working as a GP, she had regular meetings at The White Hart. I always felt sorry for her, slumming it in a poky little pub, until she had one of her leaving dos – she had three different jobs! – there, and I saw it!

  53. Hi muffin

    The White Hart is at the bottom of the road next to ours.  Until a few years ago, as you say, it certainly wasn’t a pub, but one of Harrogate’s (many) rather up-market hotels.  Nikolaus Pevsner described it as “the best building in Harrogate” with “nothing gaudy or showy about it”.  Then more recently they converted their main function room into a pub, which is very popular.  Still not poky though!

    Have you ever thought about going to one of the S&Bs in York organised by John Henderson (Enigmatist), or is that not your sort of thing?  (Though I don’t suppose there will be one this year.)

  55. Hi Lord Jim

    Not really my sort of thing, and it’s surprisingly difficult to get to York from here by public transport. (Driving to York is a bit of a no-no!)

  56. Many thanks Michael Lloyd-Jones. That’s just what I’m after. I’m not familiar with Times conventions but The Guardian seems less keen on 3-letter words. I did find a recent Shed grid with a couple of 11s and 3s and I’ve have seen them in the past but they’re pretty scarce. Btw, I didn’t mean to say checked squares, I meant black squares… An 11 letter word sometimes means 4 black squares in a row after – which again, The Guardian seems to frown on. Anyway, much obliged 😉

  57. I’m glad it’s helpful to you. Funnily enough that grid design was used for yesterday’s Times cryptic, but I didn’t know that when I replied to you!

    Good luck with your setting.

  58. Say it ain’t so! Looks like the FT has just moved the cryptic crossword behind a pay wall. Does anyone have any more info on this development? Thanks.

  60. Looks like the FT paywall is back !

    This happened last year (?) and was changed back after a few days.

     

  61. Does anyone know of an app that replicates the guardian anagram helper tool functionality? There’s plenty out there that will solve anagrams for me, but I don’t want them solving, just want the letters jumbling up a bit! For now I stick with the tried and tested pen and paper for non guardian cryptics, but would love to find a digital solution.

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