The Times Crossword Friday Masterclass: 10 May 2024: Hardest Puzzle For A Year

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** TODAY'S PUZZLE **
In the 65th edition of our attempts to solve a Friday Times crossword, Simon tackles today's puzzle, which is a beast. It's rated by the Snitch as the hardest puzzle for a year!!
The puzzle is available to play on The Times crossword club website (which is behind their paywall):
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9 май 2024

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Комментарии : 160

@koura7883 Месяц назад

I did not think of top quark even though I know what they are. In case they ever come up again, the other quarks are bottom, up, down, strange, and charm. You are definitely not stupid Simon, thousands of people come to watch this channel because of how smart you are. I always love watching the videos, especially when you’re nice.

@steveamsp Месяц назад

Agreed. I figured out Top Quark once he got TOP?U?R? but, I had to go check the google to learn that Quark is a type of cheese. No feeling stupid, Simon. That was brutal if you're not into sub-atomic physics AND obscure cheeses.

@David_K_Booth Месяц назад

@@steveamsp When Murray Gell-Mann named the particles, there were thought to be only three types - up, down and strange. It brought to his mind the line "Three quarks for Muster Mark!" in James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake". Joyce's wordplay turns "three cheers" into "three cheese" and then translates "cheese" to "quark". So the subatomic particles were actually named after the cheese.

@vinyl1Earthlink Месяц назад

@@David_K_Booth - Very few people know both physics and Finnegan's Wake. Those who do are probably pretty good at cryptics.

@stephencolwill148 Месяц назад

Top and Bottom quarks are sometimes, rather more poetically, referred to as Truth and Beauty.

@David_K_Booth Месяц назад

@@stephencolwill148 I remember a photo in New Scientist decades ago that showed some physicists chatting at a conference. The caption gave their names and added something like "Dr. X has a delightful speciality: she is an expert on charm."

@Kradlum Месяц назад

Lilliputians were either Big Endians or Little Endians, depending on which end they cracked their boiled eggs. It was a satire on religion in Britain.

@LedSomeFlops Месяц назад

I forgot about that! Makes me want to go watch the Ted Danson mini series. Was one of my favorites as a kid.

@steveunderwood3683 Месяц назад

Some say the use of the terms bigendian and littleendian in computer architectures were adopted from that.

@mikechappell5849 Месяц назад

If Simon had noticed Big-endian in his crossword window just below big end, he would have found the answer

@markgillespie3971 Месяц назад

@@mikechappell5849 The most frustrating part of these videos is when you can see what he's looking for in the dictionary and he skips past it!

@alltradejack Месяц назад

I thought the big end vs. little end of the egg conflict was the point of contention between the Lilliputians and the Brobdingnagians. It has been decades since I read Gulliver's Travels and I could be misremembering.

@Skree238 Месяц назад

Please don't feel stupid Simon! Quarks aside, some amazing knowledge and fantastic solving today. Edda, Amice, Titus Groan, Adenoidal and Big End all very tricky from where I'm sitting and solved brilliantly 😊 Thanks as always for these Friday videos!

@longwaytotipperary Месяц назад

I ❤ these! Don’t be hard on yourself, Simon - you got 99%of the obscurity! And brightened the day of thousands of us!!!

@davidrattner9 Месяц назад

These constantly brighten my Fridays..as do you knowing how much you love these also!! 🩵💜

@longwaytotipperary Месяц назад

@@davidrattner9 🧡💛❤️🩵

@squallleonhardtt327 Месяц назад

Gist just means point, which you are then "sticking" into rear, along with the r for right

@suewilliams7091 Месяц назад

You didn't let anyone down Simon, you are very far from stupid and are much too hard on yourself. som of us can't solve three quarters of the clues you do. Please, please, please stop being so hard on yourself my lovely, it is totally misplaced. you are a wonderful, intelligent man and we love you for it x All of these videos are good as they help me with solving cryptic crosswords with tips and techniques for sorting throught the clues. please keep them coming. have a great weekend x

@perennialshelf1832 16 дней назад

Honestly this was brilliant and although it always a joy seeing you get excited when solving puzzles it is refreshing seeing you show you came close to solving. It takes someone truly great and humble to upload this despite the defeat.

@stevewood8 Месяц назад

Top quark came to mind, though I hadn't heard of quark cheese. I couldn't possibly fast-forward though - it's just so compelling to follow Simon's thought processes as he battles against the clue that stubbornly refuses to yield. I also love Simon's ironic catchphrase - 'I don't have a clue'. Hugely entertaining as ever.

@JyotiDas-72 Месяц назад

Funnily enough quarks are actually named after quark cheese

@Anne_Mahoney Месяц назад

@@JyotiDas-72 I thought the name comes from Finnegan's Wake, where there's a line "three quarks for muster mark." Nothing to do with the cheese, IIRC.

@KeiFlox Месяц назад

As soon as Simon placed the Q in that cheese one, I got it and started shouting at the screen ahaha. And I got the physics ["tiny"] reference in that one, too. What a sneaky, clever clue!!!

@phyphor Месяц назад

I still think of them as truth and beauty so I was not going to get it without having to remember the "correct" name

@mikechappell5849 Месяц назад

In 8 down the definition of gist is just point, not 'sticking point'. You have to read the clue as 'if you stick point and right in a word for behind you get a word for doctor'

@bphillips907 Месяц назад

Truly a wonderful video. Please be kind to yourself, your skill is exemplarily

@jimcameron6803 Месяц назад

In "Gulliver's Travels" the major conflict among the Lilliputians was between the Big-Endians and the Little-Endians, referring to which end they chose to crack their breakfast egg. (A conflict deliberately encouraged by the neighbouring kingdom of Blefuscu, which took in many Big-Endian refugees.) In computing, "big-endian" and "little-endian" refer to the order of bytes within a machine word in memory, obviously in homage to Swift. (edit: the unspellable race of horses were the Houyhnhnms, while I've got my copy of the book to hand)

@vinyl1Earthlink Месяц назад

At the political level, Swift is referring to England and France, and the exile of the Stuart pretenders and their followers in the French court. However, as an ordained priest in the Church of England, he did not think the differences between Protestants and Catholics were trivial, but as a satirist he is willing to cut back against himself. There is a lot of this in Tale of a Tub.

@chitraagarwal8259 Месяц назад

When you said quart I was rooting for you to get quark!!

@callmemarcy77 Месяц назад

I don't know if you got back to this later in the video, but Titus is one of the smaller and less quoted Epistles in the Bible

@bobblebardsley Месяц назад

RU-vid must REALLY hate crosswords, today I got a notification for Wordle In A Minute but not for this video, despite having your channel set to notify me of ALL uploads. I was literally wondering if you'd decided to skip it this week. Haven't watched the solve yet but I'm about to!

@jadeEpeace Месяц назад

Love these videos. ❤ except when you are so hard on yourself!! This was extremely impressive. So many words I’d never even heard of. 🎉

@suelawrence188 Месяц назад

Really enjoyed this and was willing you to get it but your genuine humility is so refreshing compared to u tube celebrities thankyou Simon

@CK28989 23 дня назад

Sometimes when I watch these I will on occasion make a realisation about a solution just before Simon, rarely without his assistance. I did it once in this puzzle and it was as the Q went in. Every time Simon said quart, I prayed something would click. I was aghast that Simon had never heard of a quark, until I realised that I have absolutely no idea why I have any such knowledge of sub-atomical particles as a graphic designer. Excellent solving, as always!

@LieutenantMoustache Месяц назад

Great video. These have basically gotten me addicted to cryptic crosswords to the point I think I'll have to subscribe to The Times to access theirs as I am currently limited to The Guardian's free ones. I did get 'STAIR' almost immediately, likely because of my newbie and unattuned brain just thinking of the litteral alternative to taking the lift.

@finlayrivers9839 Месяц назад

Likewise, was the only one I beat Simon to!

@Alex_Meadows Месяц назад

It's worth knowing that you can subscribe to just the puzzle section of The Times for £5 a month (or, presumably, your regional equivalent) which is about a fifth of the cost of a full subscription.

@vinyl1Earthlink Месяц назад

If you just want the puzzles, the £5 a month limited-access deal does give you full access to the puzzles and the Crossword Club. You can start with the Times Quick cryptic, which is a little more challenging than the one in the Guardian. When you've finished, or given up, you can read the Times for the Times Quickie blog and see all the parsings and comments from other solvers.

@OUdarling Месяц назад

As RU-vidr and science educator Hank Green once sang: “Up, down, strange, charm, top, bottom: if you don’t know what a quark is, it don’t matter, you still got ‘em!” Thank you for a very entertaining video! It’s oddly reassuring to see that not everything is automatic and even the greats still struggle at times.

@Zihuatanejo- Месяц назад

I got CENOTAPH! The anagram indicator was also part of the cryptic def!

@MattSwain1 Месяц назад

I eventually got quark but not familiar with top quark and very notably I only got that because you’d solved the rest of the grid which I wouldn’t have managed given a month of Sundays! The Times crossword is too hard for me but I do learn loads from watching these videos. Thanks

@bradleyshannon7894 Месяц назад

Appreciated the speed run at the end, like last week! Nice work. I saw top quark in the comments and, I had a vague idea what that was, have no idea how you’d get that from the clue. Cheese? Amazing work with a tough puzzle.

@debrabowen4276 Месяц назад

I LOVE these cryptic videos. And Simon, you are a GENIUS!

@francesT5877 Месяц назад

I think this was a valiant effort Simon. It was a beast. You have helped enormously with my being able to solve these I can now often finish the QC and the early week puzzles on my own after watching these for several months. Also congrats on being number 3 on the leaderboard for today’s concise, that was a good time. Thanks.

@aarondobbe8400 Месяц назад

This was a brutal puzzle for sure. I had no clue on top quark, even if I was aware of the term in physics!

@paulellingham9358 Месяц назад

As soon as Simon put that Q in, I got it. Brutal puzzle overall. I don't think you can be sad about not knowing a cheese when you do know obscure medieval Irish texts!

@icecreamandsadness 29 дней назад

I've heard of top quarks and quark cheese and I still didn't get it, you didn't let anyone down. Yet another extremely enjoyable video. Looking forward to the next one:)

@janet-dn2ot Месяц назад

Don't beat yourself up - you did brilliantly! Very informative as ever, thank you!

@Prazzie Месяц назад

I once read about Quark as a substitute ingredient in a Delia Smith cookery book, so I was familiar with that type of "cheese". I knew that "quarks" were particles, but I did not know that some of them were "top" quarks. That I got from the crossing letters. I managed to fully solve this one, but I had to use the dictionary more than once. I think you did a phenomenal job in this video, well done and thank you for uploading it for our enjoyment (and education!).

@B1GB1RDB4G3L Месяц назад

My favourite video of the week

@peternamey4430 Месяц назад

Liking doing the quick too. Thanks Simon. I could get only a handful on the main puzzle - now I know why!

@d4r4butler74 Месяц назад

I love the Crossword content! You didn't even look to see your Time or Place on the Quick Cryptic after you were done.

@melodat4 Месяц назад

I’ve seen lots of signs warning drivers of “not a thru street” around here in America. Well done Simon!

@davidrattner9 Месяц назад

Hour and 10 minute crossword!?!? What a treat to ring in this Friday morning and have Simon dazzle us with his solving. Absolutely adore and cherish everything about these!!

@Anne_Mahoney Месяц назад

Always the high point of the week! 😺

@TheMajorr86 Месяц назад

18:18 I think something that is often overlooked when you debate the inclusion of an article in the clues surface reading is whether the clue remains sufficiently cryptic without it. "At home opening wine pipe" gives too much away on the surface even without checking letters.

@edwardleigh-wood1540 24 дня назад

Genius!! Thank you!

@mariusnafe26 Месяц назад

Quark is a pretty common food in Germany, however I'd consider it more akin to yogurt than cheese, which is why I don't think I'd have guessed it. I'd also heard of quarks as subatomic particles, but I wouldn't have guessed it from that either, because I just can't wrap my head around these English cryptic crosswords, even though I haven't missed a single one of these videos.

@Doomblah Месяц назад

Watching you blitz through that simple puzzle at the end was something special. You really hold yourself back in these solves sometimes, watching you go with little restriction is just phenomenal.

@DontMockMySmock Месяц назад

"NOT A THRU STREET" is a common sign in the USA to indicate the entrance to a street that dead-ends.

@grenvillephillips6998 Месяц назад

The very high snitch-rating certainly soothed my blushes!

@andrewgrant6516 Месяц назад

I only know this because my sister eats it, and I have to buy her some if I'm ever in Asda. There is a cheese called Quark.

@skasperl Месяц назад

Don't feel stupid. For the last answer it was an advantage to have German as a first language. Thank you for the nice start into the weekend!

@iaincook5835 Месяц назад

A joke about big ends (in car engines...oooh, you are awful!). Man goes to a motor dealer, looking for a car. Dealer says: "Sorry, sunshine, go nuffing left...except for this Morris which is pulled along by a giant Hen!" Man is sceptical, but the dealer assures him that it goes like the clappers. So, he takes it out for a run. "Get going", he urges the giant bird. And it miraculously starts off at a steady 20mph. "Faster" he urges, and it's up to 40mph. Astonished, Man yells " as fast as you can, Hen!", and the towed vehicle reaches 65mph, before tragedy strikes, and the Hen stumbles and lies down, motionless. Devastated, he flags down a passing AA vehicle and relays his tale. Man asks "what is the problem with the car?". Mechanic replies " Sorry, Guv, your Big 'En's gone".

@Harrizeb Месяц назад

Thank you for the wonderful crossword masterclass. I remember my Grandpa trying to teach me about crossword clues and how to break them down. Seeing you do this has really helped me understand what he meant. A wide range of knowledge was necessary for todays puzzle and that you were able to have so much at your fingertips is very impressive. Please don’t dwell on the ‘one that got away’ although I understand completely how frustrated you feel when you can’t find that one word.

@CaptainHandsome Месяц назад

Im far from the first to say this, but I imagine most people know nothing about quarks of any kind (other than the barkeep on Deep Space Nine), and I'm reasonably confident that the venn diagram of people who knew that quarks are subatomic particles and those who knew it's a type of cheese is two circles. Also it's Edda to rhyme with header

@GordonjSmith1 Месяц назад

Oddly I got the last three clues on first reading, and then had to wait, watching as Simon worried over them! Slow signs of improvement from me! Bravo Simon!

@andyhanson4235 Месяц назад

Wow that was a tough puzzle. Your quick solve was mesmerising

@tealbaron2808 Месяц назад

(someone has probably already mentioned this, but) it's worth noting that for your concern with 27 across - Clarinets are divided into types based on the note they're pitched around (plus size, among other things). If I remember correctly, the two most common types of clarinet are A and Bb, so "a pipe" could perhaps be taken as "A Clarinet." It gives at least some justification for the "a" in the clue

@davidkay1612 Месяц назад

Wow solved a clue that Simon couldn't solve mind you he got all the others that I couldn't 😅

@bibliopolist Месяц назад

Remember Fawlty Towers where Basil thinks "burro" (Italian for butter) is also Spanish for butter and Manuel doesn't understand and goes "i ahh i ahh". There's too much butter on those trays... un dos tres...

@peterbiddlecombe1939 Месяц назад

“a pipe” rather than “pipe” in 27A: I personally have no problem with this. In everyday English, we sometimes use a noun with an article and sometimes not. If you showed people a clarinet and asked them what it was, I feel sure that the majority who gave you a correct answer would say “a clarinet” rather than “clarinet”. I don’t know where exactly the idea that “any word that isn’t vital to the logic must be erased” came from, but I doubt very much that it was Ximenes. It’s not easily to tell, as his book doesn’t present all of his principles in a clearly organised way. Looking at later authorities …. In his A-Z of crosswords, Azed says, under “Don’t waffle”, that there should be “no superfluous verbiage”, but doesn’t provide any examples of superfluous verbiage. In chapter 19 of the latest version of Don Manley’s book, he mentions a clue (labelled [7.3]) which uses “a sailor” to indicate AB, and says that although the A is strictly redundant, “by a long-standing tradition we may allow ourselves to introduce an article when defining a noun”.

@Alex_Meadows Месяц назад

Thanks Simon! I could never have got anywhere in the main puzzle and, for reference, you managed the QC in a third of my time too. These videos are a reliably lovely way to finish the working week and I look forward to them immensely.

@rainerzufall42 Месяц назад

There were two occasions, when I screamed at the screen very loudly: STAIR and TOP QUARK.

@rainerzufall42 Месяц назад

(those were the only two, that I had solved clearly before Simon, except for maybe AMICE, where I had the ICE fast!)

@nsrikand1 Месяц назад

Excellent. Learning a lot. Please keep going!!

@Kanjo16 Месяц назад

Maybe "a pipe" was to clarify the noun from a verb? 18:18

@Anne_Mahoney Месяц назад

I wondered about that too.

@bristolrovers27 Месяц назад

Great video, thoroughly enjoyable

@richardfarrer5616 Месяц назад

Delighted to say I got top quark, and knew both the physics and the dairy meanings. But there were many others I didn't get.

@MarcMcMillin Месяц назад

Thanks for another great MasterClass! 🙂

@Zihuatanejo- Месяц назад

Love these!! :)

@falconcoolchris Месяц назад

The ghosts were howling at you for not getting 6 down

@tremner3501 Месяц назад

I've come to realize that no matter how loud I yell at the screen you can't hear me.

@annastevenson27 Месяц назад

LOVED IT.

@ConManAU 8 дней назад

When you put in burro you might have been thinking of burrata, which is a type of cheese a bit like mozzarella. It was still an impressive attempt with everything else you managed to work out, so don't feel too bad!

@yadt Месяц назад

Amazing how much easier the Lilliputian clue was for me because i just read it literally. (And knew of the engine part.) (This generally works badly for the rest of the crossword, but it worked here!)

@Ray_Ridley Месяц назад

When you se a 74 minute running time, you know it's going to be an absolute brute of a puzzle.

@JohnThomas-rx7eo Месяц назад

"Whipped off" is anagram indicator for Cenotaph clue.

@nathanielpranger7370 17 дней назад

I was so sure that word 2 was 'ascot', which is a neckcloth and Scott did freeze

@andrewgrant6516 Месяц назад

I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's. His waitress was perfect.

@Fractus Месяц назад

A Protoss reference is not what i expected from you lol.

@DJColdCutz_ Месяц назад

Was this the first “Bobbins” appearance in a cryptic crossword video??

@Zihuatanejo- Месяц назад

no! 😄

@theskyisteal8346 29 дней назад

Some more appreciation for 25A being an and lit. Considering that the Norse Eddas have, regrettably, suffered damage and there's lots missing

@pancrazioeuscopi Месяц назад

BURRO means "butter" in italian. It's not a cheese, of course, but at least is a milk-related product. Maybe Simon had this in mind when he guessed "top burro".

@richardlyons7582 Месяц назад

That give us all hope to do these Simon and it was the hardest for a year.

@peterdunlop7691 Месяц назад

Please be Top Quark! I get that one

@bobblebardsley Месяц назад

18:17 I asked a similar question last week and the consensus seemed to be that if the 'a' is part of the definition, and not part of the wordplay, then it's not a problem. Still seems dodgy to me but I'm no cryptic crossword expert.

@vinyl1Earthlink Месяц назад

A can be used to clue per, watch out for that!

@otterotterottercid Месяц назад

quark is a very common thing used in germany. there isn't a single person who doesn't know what quark is. BUT I did not know it was considered cheese?! it's the german equivalent to american cream cheese, so I guess it makes sense :/

@bluerizlagirl Месяц назад

I saw "vegan quark cheese" in one of the menu options for a dinner I went to. I didn't try it, and neither did anybody else on my table, so I still don't know what it is .....

@archivist17 Месяц назад

Love it (though I was shouting at the screen a bit). Great to see the gnarly ones!

@rogue5882 Месяц назад

I'm happy I got one clue - 22 down as being star with I in it ( following Simon's earlier teachings lol)

@thetaphi Месяц назад

Don't feel bad Simon. The only ones I thought of during the watch were stair and top quark, and both needed at least three letters from you, and maaaybe a Q. The rest of them _I_ stared at. "Amice. Wait, that's a word?"

@AO968 Месяц назад

For that last one, I first thought of "quart" (as in, an abbreviation for quarter) and then "top quark" suddenly popped in my head, knowing that it's one of the fundamentals of quantum physics, and a quark is a type of curd cheese. Still getting the rest correct proves that you're definitely not stupid, just that you don't know absolutely everything. And there's nothing wrong with that. Just see it as a learning opportunity.

@dizwell Месяц назад

Edda rhymes with cheddar.

@darreljones8645 Месяц назад

Not if, like me, you pronounce the "r" in "cheddar"!

@deaneshort7295 Месяц назад

Thought that was a great effort, Simon - don't be too harsh on yourself - it was a bit of a beast

@oak3001 Месяц назад

Biblically speaking, you have St Paul's epistle to St. Titus -- so Titus Groan is well justified. I adored Big End, and wished Simon realised what a superb clue it was. But - a lovely end to a challenging Friday. Thank you

@darreljones8645 Месяц назад

Not easy to get - Titus is perhaps Paul's least-known Biblical letter.

@vinyl1Earthlink Месяц назад

What surprised me a little is that Simon had never heard of the book, which was still fairly popular in the UK when he was younger. American solvers like me wouldn't know it, but I did construct it from the cryptic.

@sebastienlecoq3956 Месяц назад

Wait, we are Friday already ? (this week was a small week in France).

@johnsouza4391 Месяц назад

The Top Quark is the heaviest of the six quarks so "tiny" is confusing. When you typed the Q I immediately thought of Quark but Quark as cheese? No way.

@AO968 Месяц назад

Not just tiny, but very, very tiny. it merely refers to it being one of the smallest particles in quantum physics that we know about, don't think too far into it. And I got it when I realized quark is a type of curd cheese, which I used to eat a lot.

@michaelmarsh8237 Месяц назад

I have trouble thinking of top quarks as tiny. They're over 170GeV!

@rhysbart Месяц назад

I believe Quark comes from James Joyce, used to describe the sound of a seagull in Finnegans Wake. Later adopted by physicists to mean tiny particles. What a quark is or how it works... No idea.

@ServantOfSatania Месяц назад

I think 4 down is much bigger superfluous a offender than 27 across Simon focused on, especially given it's right after the word "after" which is used in clue for positioning

@bibliopolist Месяц назад

As a German, 15 was kind of easy... Also I got 3 way before Simon. Everything else: no chance...

@rainerzufall42 Месяц назад

Same for me (almost)! Plus, when I look outside my window, I can almost see the facility, where 15 came to its glued life... Wow, TOP was found in 1995? That was 16 years later...

@chris_wicksteed Месяц назад

I did manage to complete this crossword, but not without a grumble at the godawful 'amice' clue!

@vinyl1Earthlink Месяц назад

Interestingly, we seem to solve in opposite ways - you get the answer first, and then parse it, while I build the answer from the cryptic and then see if it might match the literal. I had to build get along, Titus Groan perpetrate, clarinet, Jeremiah, tousle, and registrar from the cryptics. Unfortunately, I failed to build amice correctly, but my wrong answer does match the cryptic - it's just not a word.

@Ruddigore Месяц назад

Got 15a easy. but it's one of those things you just have to have knowledge of.

@KebbieG Месяц назад

I prefer a Top Donkey over a Quark. In my eyes you won.

@davidwiederman8841 Месяц назад

Is there a way to make the clues larger when you click on one? I can’t read them this small and would like to see it.

@Prazzie Месяц назад

If you watch the video on a touchscreen device, you can zoom in on any part of the video while watching in full screen mode. If you're watching on a non-touchscreen device, take a screenshot and zoom in on the image to be able to read the clues.

@davidkay1612 Месяц назад

They went to war over wether to open the egg at the little end or the big end

@stevewithaq Месяц назад

Quick Poll: was 15-across tough for you because of the science term, or because of the cheese? I didn't know it was a type of cheese. (Spoiler below) The answer is TOP QUARK - a quark is a tiny subatomic particle, and also apparently a type of soft cheese.

@artyonehundred Месяц назад

I spent the entire video thinking that excellent cheese was a single descriptor, but of course it wasn't excellent = top, cheese = quark (a particularly tasteless vegan abomination, not really deserving of the epithet 'cheese' :D ), still I new about top (and bottom) quarks when they were known as 'truth' and 'beauty' and I was nowhere near getting it. I did get 'big end' though - the Lilliputians were fighting a war over whether it was better to crack an egg from the big or the little end. (I was once taught English Literature by a descendant of Swift so the story sticks in my mind.)

@paulnamesa Месяц назад

I feel less bad for struggling really badly with this puzzle. some really obscure ones which I had never heard of and it seems even Simon didn't know. Although I have heard of top quarks (up down strange charm top bottom) I have never heard of quark cheese.