109 comments on “General Discussion”

  1. Hi. May I join the discussion from SM@135 and 137 and Widdersbel@136? Think I can give a perspective.
    I used to do a lot of cryptics and commented on some, mostly FT which has long been in print here; but lately I’ve mostly stuck to US puzzles, especially New York Times which are syndicated in many cities. Just more familiar. I still like the cryptic challenge occasionally.
    The difficulty with British puzzles is both the cryptic aspect and the general knowledge. There are a few guides on the web that have helped me a lot with references to rugby, cricket, standard UK abbreviations, etc. It can be pleasant to grow my knowledge occasionally – and I appreciate the Fifteensquared bloggers!! Thank you all with your explanations.
    The FT US puzzle was enjoyable, about like a typical NYT daily puzzle. NYTs are themed Monday-Thursday and unthemed but harder on Friday-Saturday, with a giant themed Sunday one. (NYT’s Wordle game is also engaging.)
    Lately NYTs have been featuring more devious clues and cryptic definitions/puns, even hidden words, though not anagrams or rebuses. Several of their setters have worked on cryptics before. I think there’s a cross-influence happening.
    Also, US crosswords have never had length indicators, but they used to say “2 wds.” or “hyph” – not happening now. Makes it harder to solve – if I weren’t familiar with cryptics, I’d think this was cheating – now I look on it as an extra challenge.
    The only regular pubs I know of here with cryptics are The Nation (weekly and usually easy) and Harper’s (monthly). Harper’s are difficult, often without clue numbers or with “find the placement” challenges – like some of Julius’ FTs.
    An online article once theorized that cryptics didn’t catch on in the US because the setters are often really snarky. I do see more “adult” puns and humor in British puzzles, not always to everyone’s taste here I think.

  2. jeff – sorry not to reply sooner, only just seen your comment. Thanks for the insight, good to get another perspective. I’ve had a look at the NYT crossword in the past and I like it, but I find the US-specific knowledge too much of a hurdle – more so than the lack of familiarity with the style. I agree there is definitely some cross-pollination of ideas going on – and this is a good thing in my book. Cryptics seem to be catching on in some places in the US too.

  3. Jeff,

    Games (now styled as Games World of Puzzles) publishes four cryptics per issue, usually. Two are plain 15×15, and the other two are barred puzzles with a gimmick. They’re the gold standard for American cryptics. They publish nine issues a year (I forget which three months they skip at the moment). Check them out. Games also does about five standard American crosswords per issue, plus the usual assortment of other puzzle types.

  4. Should probably add that Games is a pale shadow of what it was 20 years ago. But isn’t everything?

  5. Today for some reason there are no copies of i to be had in east Reading. I invested in a month’s digital subscription, expecting to be able to print out my and my wife’s favourite puzzles to tackle over lunch as usual. But Cryptic and other crosswords are apparently playable only online and Inquisitor — to which I am hopelessly addicted — doesn’t seem to be there are all. What a swiz! Am I missing some download route that would be obvious to a five-year-old but not to me?

  6. @5: A PDF copy of IQ 1813 has reached me by email! All thanks to a certain unofficial benefactor.

  7. David @5: I have a digital subscription (yearly), which works out cheaper than buying i each Saturday for Inquisitor. Right clicking on the page where the crossword appears in the paper (not in the playable games section) gives me the option to download the whole page as a jpeg. In Photoshop I cut out the relevant section, save it as jpeg or png and then open that in Acrobat and print from there.

  8. John @7: Is that using the app? In correspondence with a helpful iNews editor I was first advised to download the app to my “device” — which is a desktop computer not recognized as a device, so no go there — and then given an alternative URL which unlike the default browser option gives access to the actual page images you describe. So I can now do as you suggest, using Gimp rather than Photoshop; but how to get there wasn’t obvious.

  9. This may be helpful to someone sometime: I kept finding that, although I had clicked the “Remember me” box, I was still having to put in my details when leaving a comment. I’ve discovered that they are removed whenever I delete my Google search history. Even more annoyingly my instruction not to show trending searches is lost at the same time but that’s not relevant here. It seems to be a new practice by Google. I use Android on a tablet.

  10. David @8: No, my phone is very old and basic and I don’t think it would recognise an app. (It’s due to be replaced due to impending switching off of 2G/3G services.) I use a laptop where you use a desktop computer. I’m glad the method worked!

  11. Are the Financial Times Saturday puzzles prize puzzles? In the online version, we can check or reveal the words (solutions) as in other weekday and Sunday puzzles. What I mean to say is that the solutions are available online for the Saturday puzzles in real-time.
    I have a question here:
    Can the blog related to every Saturday puzzle (FT) be published on the same day?

  12. KVa @11

    They used to be prize puzzles until three years ago. You can probably guess what caused the change.

    I believe that they plan to reintroduce prizes but no decision has been made as to when. We will continue to treat them as if they were prize puzzles just as we have with other former and current prize puzzles.

  13. Kenmac and KVa I have been told they have no intention to reintroduce prizes but I fully support the current policy. It is nice to have one puzzle on a weekly basis, no need to rush the blog or to think about reading it or commenting on the day. For some people it may be their only puzzle , they may be beginners and like to spend the whole week on it.
    The answers are printed one week later in the paper and some people, like me, never do anything online.

  17. Following Charles@10 on the Jack blog today , I have some fairly objective thoughts on Guardian difficulty level. First of all I am not getting better, I time myself for Azed and my average time has stayed the same for 6 years. I have a 20 minure slot for the Guardian each day, if I do not finish I put it away and try it later, I class this as HARD. I know roughly if it takes 10-20 minutes MEDIUM or 0-10 minutes EASY.
    HARD first, so far this year , none. Last year 2, previous year 3 . We seem to have no really hard setters now that we never see Enigmatist. He was easily the hardest setter in recent years, using him as a control variable , in years gone by he would not have made the top 5.
    Overall though I think the Guardian has got slightly harder the last year or two on average . We have fewer easy puzzles and the newer setters tend to be in the upper range of medium for me.

  18. Roz@13, thank you for that. You are more scientific than I, as well as being faster! I have no such objective measurement, it’s merely my impression that fewer Guardian puzzles are detaining me for very long than was formerly the case, and that some setters with whom I was fairly familiar (Qaos, Pasquale and Boatman, for example, though we don’t seem to see as much of the latter recently) seem to have entered a less formidable phase.

  20. The actual time bands do not matter , all solvers have their own idea of easy, medium and hard.
    I do think we have lost the really hard setters, Enigmatist was the last. Bunthorne, Gemini , Fidelio etc have not been replaced.
    The Guardian used to have more easy setters, Custos, Janus, Quantum , Crispa etc, all really good setters and perfect for people learning.
    Everything seems crammed in the middle now.

  21. Charles, Roz and others (also on Jack-crossword blog): I agree with observations concerning Guardian’s average level of difficulty having decreased. I’ve been doing them for 50+ years, and after factoring in all the personal variables, my intuition is that they are rarely a brain-chewing challenge.

  22. Charles, Roz and others.
    I find that these days I don’t finish as often as I used to, but feel that’s more down to me rather than the puzzles getting harder. Some weeks I struggle more, others (this week for instance) I find more straightforward, though I may have ended up an answer short.
    One thing I have thought, however, having been away from the crosswords for a couple of years, is that the prize puzzles are much easier than they used to be. I used to keep coming back to them several times over a weekend, but now they tend to take up one or two sessions.

  23. Crispy and Nametab , when I was learning a Bunthorne Saturday would take all week and still not finish. I think the Prize puzzle is the major change , Araucaria is much loved for good reasons but he could produce fearsome puzzles when he wanted to, usually for a Saturday.

  24. Crispy, Roz, nametab, I am absolutely in agreement about the Prize puzzles. Ten years ago (an entirely arbitrary date) I would expect them to be the toughest of the week and fail to complete a significant percentage. Now, except for special occasions, they seem indistinguishable from the usual midweek fare.

    I’m no great solver. I used to dream of the day coming when I could complete a Ximenes. But I’d like it if the Graun hosted a couple of puzzles a week that were at the limits of my capacity, and that seems to be happening less and less.

  25. Charles @24. I think I agree with you. It would be nice (?) to know I couldn’t finish a puzzle because it’s too hard rather than I’m being dim.

  26. @Roz et al – I’d agree with the lack of really difficult setters like Bunthorne, who, while I was crossword solving as a student, I could never solve unaided, and how chewy Araucaria could be – those alphajig and double puzzles he used to produce were never achievable in one sitting. But I solved this week’s Io in the FT (Enigmatist by any other name) and started solving it with my beginner daughter on the tube, so some I think is practice.

  27. And coming back to add that I finished this week’s prize from Tramp, but it took me a couple of goes to finish, and Tramp is someone of the recent setters I find more challenging than others.

  28. We’d agree with the thesis that there are no really difficult setters in the Guardian now. We hardly ever have to spend more than 30minutes at a single sitting. Unlike Roz we do everything on line, and miss Azed (one of our favourite setters) because the print version doesn’t work, either it misses the end of clues or the print is too small to read. We long for something to get our teeth into! On balance we find the FT more interesting, and Io a good challenge.
    The independent we only do when really short of something to solve, and then we cherry pick because we don’t like clues which rely less on word play and more on Lego construction of a first letter here and a last letter there.

  29. Just a footnote to this discussion. Paul’s puzzle in today’s Guardian (5 August) was one of his easiest, a very rapid solve for me, and one can only wonder at the editorial decision to put it in the Saturday Prize slot.

  30. Panthes@28 , I think there are some harder puzzles online, including the Guardian ?? but I do not know for sure. The FT does have some good setters IO, Bobcat , Basilisk…
    Shanne@26 one point I was making was that IO/Enigmatist would not have been considered really hard 20 years ago.

    Final thoughts , the Guardian has a stated policy of 2 easy, 2 medium, 2 hard puzzles per week, however you define them . Most of the setters are in the medium band , we rarely get 2 puzzles suitable for people learning. The newer arrivals seem to be towards the upper end of medium and this has increased the average level in the last few years. The setters are generally very good but the difficulty range is very narrow and neglecting both ends of the spectrum.

  31. Charles @29. Therein lies the problem. Here I am on Sunday morning, and I still haven’t finished yesterday’s puzzle. I found it tough.

  33. Nuthatch @32: Cryptic Sunday hosted on twitch by Rachel (Angel in the Indy) and Matt gets a regular crowd 12-2 most Sundays. Tends to focus on puzzles from MyCrossword setters rather than nationals but that site does includes a number of published setters. Cracking the cryptic on YouTube does the occasional Times crossword as a break from sudoku.

  37. What’s happened to the Independent Jumbo General Knowledge crossword this weekend (Sat 19th Aug)? Anyone know, or care? I’ve got withdrawal symptoms.

  38. Does a definition need to be a synonym of the word defined, or substitutable for it in a sentence? (As commenters often suggest.) I don’t think so.

    Firstly, to be clear, I think we all agree that a simple part-of-speech mismatch is wrong – for example if the definition is “courage” and the expected answer is BRAVELY.

    But beyond that I think there are various ways that definitions can be more in the nature of descriptions of the thing defined:

    “Fashionable, but lacking some French — it mustn’t be forgotten! (5)” for ALAMO (Azed, 2,652)
    (Definition = “it mustn’t be forgotten”)

    “Small tame animal swallowing cold drink that’s colourful (8)” for SPECTRUM (Brendan, Guardian 28,948)
    (Definition = “that’s colourful”)

    “One’s in bed with female from another planet? (5)” for SHEET (Picaroon, 27,067)
    (Definition = “One’s in bed”)

    And some dictionary definitions are not synonyms or substitutable but rather explain how the word works. For example, from Chambers:

    not adv a word expressing denial

    ouch interj expressing pain

    the demonstrative adj called the definite article, used to refer to a particular person or thing already mentioned

  39. Jeff@1
    Thank you for your very helpful comments on US puzzles. I am sorry to respond so late but have only just seen your post.
    I fear that , like Widdersbel, I lack the cultural background to solve them without spending an inordinate amount of time. I also prefer more cryptic clues.
    Thank you again. I greatly appreciated your insights.

  40. Lord Jim @38. I agree almost entirely with your argument. And you’ve made your point well with those examples of allusive definitions, as I like to think of them. These come in various types, such as what the target word does, is used for, is often described as, and so on.

    Certainly there are times when the setter has given a straight equivalent that can be substituted in a sentence, or found in a thesaurus, and as you say, we can agree that part of speech and tense are important in these instances. Although it’s easy for solvers to be misled (noun used as verb, and so on) in some cases!

    I’ve only just finished Paul from last Friday (I was too busy to look at it then) and this has a lovely allusive definition, ‘body in garage’: definitely not in the thesaurus or substitutable in a sentence – unless it’s a poem. 🙂

    Luckily we’re not in a position to say what is or isn’t acceptable. Personally I enjoy it when setters like Paul, and Araucaria before him, and plenty of others too, stretch the boundaries of what solvers are likely to think is fair. I think it’s right that the boundaries are constantly being redrawn, stretching both setter and solver.

  41. Thanks SH. And yet we quite frequently get comments criticising clues along the lines of “I can’t think of a sentence where x is interchangeable for y”. This may be a fair point sometimes (the wrong part of speech scenario for example) but it’s often not! (IMHO)

  43. Lord Jim @41 – surely people only use that argument when the definition is intended to be a straight synonym? In which case, the substitution test is a good check of the validity of the definition.

    That said, people are often far too quick to complain and use this argument even when the clue is sound because the definition is not a sense of the solution they are familiar with.

    Don Manley lists three ways of defining a solution in his book – straight definition, cryptic definition, definition by example. I think this holds broadly true but the categories can be further refined – straight definitions might be further broken down into: synonyms (for which the substitution test would be valid); dictionary definitions (“resembling stone” for LITHIC, to pick a recent example); category definitions (eg “river” for SEINE, or “bird” for SPARROW). There are many further ways you can refine the categories, but the point is that the substitution test only applies to a limited subset of definition types.

  44. LJ – by the way, the “descriptive definitions” of your examples probably count as a further subcategory of straight definitions, though the line between these and cryptic definitions is often blurred.

  45. Widdersbel: I totally agree that “the substitution test only applies to a limited subset of definition types”. It’s my impression that people try to apply it where it doesn’t really work.

    I’ve had a look at the part in the Chambers Crossword Manual that you refer to. With great respect to Don Manley I think his three-category division is too simple, and doesn’t in fact cover the sort of allusive definitions (as sheffield hatter puts it) in the examples I gave @38.

    In practice Mr Manley himself does use a wider range of definitions, in fact going so far on occasion as to define a noun by a verb phrase – regarded as very dodgy by some! –

    “Politician caught in trick covers head (6)” for WIMPLE (Pasquale, Guardian 24,590)
    (Definition = “covers head”)

  46. To be fair to Don M, those three broad categories are fine for the purpose of his book, which has a lot of ground to cover. An exhaustive list of more refined categories would be too long – not to mention boring to read.

  47. A general question, when do the solutions/explanations for Everyman crosswords appear? I’m after last Sunday’s one, 4009.
    Many thanks

  57. Hi, Independent cryptic won’t work on my android phone since yesterday, and it has disappeared from Google play store….any idea what is going on?

  60. @Admin

    I’ve been visiting this site for many years now but was oblivious to there being another site that blogged the Times crosswords.

    Do the same setters who do the Guardian, FT and Independent also do the Times? I see the Times is behind a paywall which is a pity. Is there a way to get old editions for free?

  61. ^ There are many setters who set for the Times and Telegraph as well as the above.
    Just to give three examples of many, Don Manley (Pasquale/Bradman …), John Halpern (Mudd/Paul …), and Paul Bringloe (Neo, Tees) all set anonymously for the back-page Times and Telegraph puzzles, and as Izetti/Giovanni, Mara/Dada, and Wurm/Donnybrook respectively for the Times Quick Cryptic and Telegraph Toughie puzzles.
    I don’t know of any free archives, but the subs for both are good value over the course of a year, and there are occasional flash budget deals – eg Telegraph puzzles £1 for a year, or even 50p recently.

  67. Kingsley@66 ah, yes. I did look on the website but obviously not in the right place. Perhaps they’re going to do an occasional “from the archive” slot. I’m not complaining.

  68. Hi, I’ll try once more: the Independent cryptic stopped working on my android phone a couple of weeks ago, and it has disappeared from Google play store….any idea what is going on?

  69. Sam @68

    No idea. It is working on my iPhone and I don’t have any Android devices.

    The best I can suggest is that you contact either The Independent or Google.

    Sorry!

  74. Thanks Ken. I have disabled adblocker and deleted cache/cookies but am getting an unresponsive Arkadium puzzles homepage. They are on the case but it is frustrating to be denied my morning Rodriguez!

  75. Postmark @74.
    I had the same problem. Did you close your browser and relaunch it after clearing the cookie cache? That worked for me.

  78. I don’t seem to be able to access the Independent crosswords. The front page loads partially, but doesn’t complete. Is it just me?

  79. @Admin please look at discussions on Guardian Prize 29,189 thread.
    Posts #95 and #96 are beginning to go the same way as last week – looks like your ‘Gentle Reminder’ has not brought discussion about the current prize puzzle to this general discussion part of the site.
    [Nothing yet that looks like spoilers, I’m happy to say.]

  80. [Me @79] Thank you Admin for intervening. Perhaps you could remove my comment on that thread (now at @98) because it makes no sense..
    Thank you for continuing to provide a home for this community.

  81. Crossbar &78: do you have an adblocker installed? The folk who run the Indy page seem to have toughened their stance recently and you can’t get through to the Play button if you have one installed. You either need to disable it or use a different browser. You will have to put up with a 20 sec advert at the beginning and, more irritatingly, with some slightly distracting advertising whilst solving. That’s the bit that bugs me: it shows a massive misunderstanding of crossword solving to place cycling/changing/moving adverts on a page where some folk are trying to study and think.

  82. PostMark@81 Thanks for your comment.
    I have no ad blocker installed and have been putting up with the ads. It just suddenly went wrong last week, with the crossword load hanging. I did all the usual stuff of clearing caches etc, and then it just hung on the cookies permission screen. Two days ago the crosswords miraculously reappeared, but then I was being asked about cookies each time.

    And now everything is back to normal! *shrugs*

    Looks like someone at the Inde end has been tweaking something. I’m pretty sure I changed nothing. I’m of the “if it works don’t touch it” school of programming.
    Bizarrely Mr. C has exactly the same phone and set up as me and experienced no problems. We cross-checked all our settings which appeared to be identical. We are both SO happy to be re retired from IT now. 😀
    (Sorry, I’ve gone on a bit)

  87. FAO Roz
    Hi Roz – I’ve occasionally used this page as a way of getting a message to you – normally, shamelessly self-promoting. No change there, then. You might be interested in knowing that I set the cryptic in the Indy today. I have seen you over there but on an irregular basis so thought you might like to know.
    ATB
    PM

  88. Hi Mark @87. I thought Roz was famous for not doing anything apart from 15^2 online? 🙂

    I’ve started on your crossword, though haven’t used the Indy app for a while so it is a bit of a change/challenge for me. Going well so far, though somewhat distracted by beer and chat in the pub.

    Congratulations on your first gig in a national newspaper. (Like the name btw: Mark = Postmark = Stamp)

  89. Hi hatter. That’s decent of you though I am sure I would have been distracted by the beer, were I in your shoes. I am fairly sure I have seen Roz – very rarely – comment on an Indy puzzle. So I took the opportunity. Glad the pseudonym worked for you!

  90. This comment is inspired by the Monday Guardian puzzle by Nutmeg and Arachne (No 29,202). (It’s too late for me to post it there and hope anyone would see it.)

    After solving this superb puzzle I read the blog as usual, and was struck, not for the first time, by the sense of community that comes through the comments from other solvers. In this case it was prompted by the obvious affection that we all felt for Nutmeg, and for Arachne for her contributions to Nutmeg’s last days. This was demonstrated not only by the comments from Eileen@14 and 57, Julie in Australia@24 and sheffield hatter@34, but by the responses to those comments from so many others.

    It is a strange and wonderful phenomenon, that we can feel friendship with people we have never met (and probably never will), through a website devoted to cryptic crosswords and their solvers. Long may fifteensquared continue to serve us in this way.

  91. MrPostMark thank you for the thoughtful message and many congratulations.
    Sheffield Hatter @88 is almost correct, on my Chromebook someone has set up four pictures for me. This site , BBC , JWST and Euclid , I click on them to visit four things.
    I have commented on the Independent blog on here very occasionally without doing the puzzle. People at work do the puzzle and tell me things, for example there was once a Mars probe theme including Rosalind Franklin.
    I will stop babbling , I am pretty sure I can get this Monday puzzle printed today ?? have a go at it and then I will join the blog very late.

  92. I almost completed Mark’s puzzle, beaten by one clue in what the clock on the app told me was just short of an hour. But in fact I had to take a couple of breaks, so it it was more like two! I might have done better if the interface was not such a nightmare.

    Some tricky clues there, but not too tricky apart from the one that beat me, which was “rum drink…” (was it 9a?). When I saw the answer I wasn’t sure that the clue was totally accurate, but I haven’t read the blog on here so I don’t know if anyone agrees.

    Congratulations again to Stamp! Hope to see you in a proper newspaper before too long. 🙂

  93. Anyone know what’s happened to the printing of a completed Guardian/Everyman crossword? In both cases, there are a band of clues that do not print on my Windows computer.

  94. PS The blank grid prints OK using the ‘print’ command. However, after completion of the crossword, right clicking and using the print command gives only a partial view of the clues with a band missing. The .pdf prints OK but, of course, is just an empty grid.

  96. … It seems not! Well I really enjoyed it, Mark (if you happen to read this). Favourites were 11a (amusing) and 6d (cleverly hidden definition). I’m afraid I don’t fully understand the parsing of 2d (assuming I’ve got the answer right) – I don’t know if you’d care to elucidate?

  99. The Independent app starts to crash whenever I get near to finishing the crossword. Any suggestions about what I could do?

  100. Lord Jim – I’ve not been on this page for a while so did not see your earlier post, for which many thanks. MC did a good job of the blog which should have explained what was going on in 2d. Just a two-letter subtractive anagram. It struck me that whenever such folk appear on TV, they are hunting around to spot the queen, normally indicated by a blob of paint.

  102. Oops. The cryptic 29,227 in my print copy of the Guardian today is Tramp. On the app and the web it is Kite also 29,227. Totally different crossword, not the same crossword with a mis-attribution.

  104. Yes I found the Tramp puzzle, following the lead from the comments on the repeated Kite puzzle.
    The Tramp was good but I wonder how and when the assigned blogger will get to it. Not sure I will be able to comment on it as the blog looks like it might come up very late, if it comes up at all.

  105. Hi all, random enquiry alert…

    Does anyone fancy being a test solver for a barred thematic puzzle?

    I’m an amateur setter over on MyCrossword (as “Henri”) and have been setting regular 15×15 cryptics for about 18 months and very much enjoying doing so. I recently started solving barred thematic puzzles (Inquisitor / Enigmatic Variations) and, enjoying a challenge 🙂 have also started attempting to set them!

    I’m getting lots of good advice and encouragement from a published setter (Cranberry/Fez) but now I am in search of a test solver who hasn’t seen this particular puzzle as a work in progress, who could come to it ‘cold’ and give it a good tyre-kicking.

    I’d be very grateful if anyone were able to help, thanks in advance.

  106. Rob@105

    PM has my email address if you’d like a proper kicking from a self confessed amateur grammar nazi. He can tell you how pernickety I’ve been in the past when solving for him.

  108. Rob T good luck with the puzzle , I would like to help but it is not possible technically , glad to see that Blah has offered.
    When it is ready could you put a link on here ? I could get it printed and have a go at it.

  109. Roz @108 — thank you, but bear in mind that it’s a barred thematic and I understand you are theme agnostic 🙂 but I’ll be happy to share a link when it’s ready!

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