# Crossword Puzzles



## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

I found a London Times crossword puzzle clue today that I wanted to post. To my surprise we had no crossword puzzle thread.

I love cryptic puzzles. I buy the London Times collections of both its regular and jumbo puzzles. I can rarely complete them: in particular my knowledge of British geography and cricket are often insufficient. But that makes the instances when I do complete one much more satisfying. 

The Sunday New York Times includes a cryptic puzzle about once every two months. Those - such as the one this past Sunday - I can almost always complete.

Also for true fanatics, in the late 1960s, Stephen Sondheim created a handful of devilish puzzles for New York Magazine. Those were more like The Listener puzzles (and the ones that used to be published in The Atlantic and Harpers) as they have themes. I found the Sondheim puzzles on line. A warning, though - you have to know what was going on in NYC fifty years ago.

And the clue that triggered this post:

Composer of silent music can shut up!

Answer: John Cage


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Taggart and I adore crosswords and do two cryptic ones every day, working on them together. 

What a great idea for a thread. I look forward to reading some more clues that people have found interesting. Composers figure in our crosswords fairly often.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

I used to quite often do The Grauniad cryptic (it is free online) and sometimes I tackle the Spectator's one but recently I've gone off them a bit.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

I have a mail subscription for crossword puzzles. I enjoy working these in my spare time at home.

Helps keep my brain alert/active.


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## Taplow (Aug 13, 2017)

I love cryptic crosswords, but consider myself somewhat of a neophyte. It's a great shame the cryptic crossword is virtually unknown outside of Britain and Australia. Won't ever see them here in Europe, I don't think. Not that I've been looking. Would be very pleased to know of any online that provide a modicum of challenge.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I rarely buy a newspaper these days but some years back I used to have a go at the cryptic Daily Telegraph crossword puzzle about three or four days a week - if memory serves my record time was just under fifteen minutes but on those occasions when I completed it I usually had to labour for far longer than that. Unlike some newspapers there was never anything to say who the compilers were but after a while you got to know the different characteristics for each day's grid, and I remember one of the regular ones being an absolute stinker with no longish answers and barely any anagrams. I occasionally bought the DT cryptic puzzle books as well.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

I began to learn how to do cryptic puzzles with the Telegraph many, many years ago.


BTW, re: completion times, on the rare occasions that I have finished a Spectator crossword it has usually taken me about a fortnight. 

Allegedly there was a woman who took 46 years to complete a New York Times (?) crossword.


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## Annied (Apr 27, 2017)

Another fan of cryptic crosswords here. I was first introduced to them many years ago when I worked shifts at Heathrow. In the middle of the night, there were often 3 or 4 of us with nothing to do and crosswords helped to while away the time. (We were mostly in our early twenties then and also had some rip roaring debates.) When I'm in the UK, I still do the Mail crossword every day. A friend has now started to save the cryptic crosswords from The Telegraph and I bring them with me when I'm in Bavaria.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Dr Johnson said:


> I began to learn how to do cryptic puzzles with the Telegraph many, many years ago.
> 
> BTW, re: completion times, on the rare occasions that I have finished a Spectator crossword it has usually taken me about a fortnight.
> 
> Allegedly there was a woman who took 46 years to complete a New York Times (?) crossword.


You have my sympathy with any puzzle in the _Spectator_ - I thought they were the creations of some pretty twisted minds. Did they still have that impossible spiral puzzle last time you read it?


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## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

BBC Music magazine has a prize crossword puzzle that I used to attempt every month, with miserable results.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

elgars ghost said:


> You have my sympathy with any puzzle in the _Spectator_ - I thought they were the creations of some pretty twisted minds. Did they still have that impossible spiral puzzle last time you read it?


I don't recall a spiral puzzle. Maybe before my time as a Spectator crossword attempter.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Music director presenting opera dishonoured Niobe repeatedly (9)


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

jegreenwood said:


> Music director presenting opera dishonoured Niobe repeatedly (9)


Nice!

that's a bit harder than 'Dutch cheese made backwards' .... until you work out what to do with it


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

I try to do the Grauniad cryptic each day with varying degrees of success. I think (though they don’t say) that they get harder through the week. I can usually manage Monday’s fairly easily, but Saturday’s are fiendish - sometimes themed, sometimes alphabetical with the answers placed where they fit. Bank holiday ones are usually both themed and huge! It helps to know how individual setters’ minds work.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

The New York Times has one or two spiral puzzles each year (with one set of answers spiraling in and one spiraling out). But like virtually all American crosswords, they are not cryptic puzzles: the clues are straightforward definitions or fill in the blanks. I can usually either finish them or almost finish them.

If nobody else posts the answer to my clue above, I will do so tomorrow morning.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

jegreenwood said:


> Music director presenting opera dishonoured Niobe repeatedly (9)


Opera = Tosca
Dishonoured Niobe repeatedly = nini (2 x Niobe without OBE)
Music Director = Toscanini


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