Jason has been kind enough to post a reply to the complaints about extremely difficult puzzles on Friday. Here it is:
I do read TftT on a daily basis. In general, I will only comment or respond if we have published a faulty clue, but I think the comments on Friday’s puzzle warrant a response. I do want solvers to enjoy the puzzles we publish and clearly a significant proportion of TftT solvers didn’t enjoy last Friday’s. And I certainly don’t want to discourage people from solving the Times Crossword.
However, I would also like to put my point of view across and defend the puzzle.
I think difficulty and enjoyment of cryptic crosswords are not mutually exclusive. Many people enjoy solving more difficult puzzles. Also a puzzle can be difficult and one may fail to solve it, but one could admit to being outwitted by the setter and admiring the setter’s ingenuity.
The main criterion for me as an editor is whether a clue is fair or not. It does not have to be easy, but it has to be solvable once it is read in the right way. (This is the basic rule of crossword setting.) Ideally, a clue should also be concise and have a compelling or amusing surface reading.
I think it is reasonable for a puzzle to contain some obscure words, provided they are clued fairly. Indeed, one of the pleasures of solving cryptic crosswords, at least for me over the years, has been learning new vocabulary. That said, a puzzle shouldn’t contain too many obscure words. And I am particularly careful about the clues for any obscurities, to ensure that they can be derived from the wordplay.
Friday’s puzzle was written by someone I regard as an excellent setter (not me, I hasten to add!). His clues are thoughtfully and carefully worded, and have clever and misleading surfaces. (The clue for HERITAGE, for example, has simple wordplay – HERMITAGE without M(oscow) and an excellent surface reading.) The puzzle is difficult, not through obscurity but through deceptive wording. I would urge commenters who said the clues were convoluted or wordy and long to revisit the explanations in the blog: very few of the wordplay elements are unfamiliar and the clues are not especially long, compared to other Times puzzles.
I do appreciate the feedback that TftT provides and I will try to be responsive to it. So, I will aim to make Friday’s puzzles a little less difficult in general and to ensure that the frequency with which real stinkers appear is reduced. Nevertheless, they will continue to be at the more challenging end of the spectrum.
Makes sense to me, I like the ascending level of difficulty throughout the week.
Thanks for responding.
Thank-you for the response, no quibbles from me about what you say.
I would opine, the odd obscurity is no problem, but I much prefer puzzles with stock words clued wittily than words you’ve never heard of that are finally solvable with all the crossers and a guess at the most likely wordplay for what might or might not be an actual word. And – you avoided it Friday – obscurities clued with anagrams are the worst clues of all.
Picking out one comment: “That said, a puzzle shouldn’t contain too many obscure words.” For me CACODEMON, SORDINO , MAKE BOLD and PHILOMATH fall in the obscure category. OFLAG has appeared in previous puzzles and stuck in my memory but others complained of it (no-one alive today was in WW2, it’s not a word anyone born after 1925 knows outside crosswords – 6 or 8 times solvers). PADRONE got some complaints, so potentially 6 obscure answers. OFLAG I wouldn’t have been happy with if I didn’t know the word. I had to take on trust Medoc was claret (puts on tin hat as oenophiles PSHAW in disgust), so for me it was obscurity clued by obscurity.
As you can guess, it wasn’t my favourite puzzle ever, even though finished correctly.
But in general: The Times crossword is the best crossword in the universe, for the wit and the challenge and being able to do it with a reasonable vocabulary but not needing a dictionary. The highlight of my day (exaggeration), keep up the good work.
Further: two most favourite puzzles, from memory were 25011 which took me 3 days to complete but I was determined to finish it I enjoyed it so much – and also had HOME MOVIE in it; and 24463 with the clue Back to back defeats in a couple of cups upset rugby winger in Australia. Neither puzzle included obscurities, but both were very difficult.
You have encapsulated one problem .. I wouldn’t even give houseroom to anyone who hadn’t heard of the Medoc! If I may make so bold.
What we think of as obscure, seems to have shifted a great deal in my lifetime.
Teetotallers do exist ( so I’ve been told) who would have no idea of the colour of a medoc.
A certain level of general knowledge has to be accepted. You will be saying Pomerol is obscure next 😉
I didn’t think the words you list are that obscure, particularly if you know the languages they derive from. A cacodemon is a direct translation of evil spirit, the sourd and sordo are found in French and Italian, and philomath is pure Attic.
The sorts of people who tackle these difficult puzzles do tend to have a knowledge of several languages, or at least know some of the principal words.
Born 1961. Very happy with the word “oflag”. A bit of reading and TV and it’s just more general knowledge.
Thanks Jason.
I rather liked Friday and agree with Jason’s assessment of it. I felt the complaints were more due to the cumulative effect of a tough week and maybe a longer term trend of increasing difficulty.
I thought Dvynys made a fair point about work. Just because us retirees are prepared to spend hours on these things does not mean everyone can.
OTOH, being at the lower end of the ability scale I expect a few defeats. I occasionally do the Telegraph puzzle when visiting family and would hate to see the Times made as trivial as that just to buff up their readers self-esteem.
Thank you for taking the time to reply.
For me it’s a skill issue (as the kids say). I normally have 30 mins or so to do crosswords. I can do easy ones quickly enough (though nowhere near the top solvers), but as the difficulty climbs, so does my solving time. Likelihood of unaided completion also falls. I normally look at the snitch, and if it’s much above 120, I will just not attempt the puzzle unless I’m on holiday. It’s my lack of skill and time, not the difficulty of the puzzle that’s the problem. Whenever I do one of the stinkers, it is satisfying to winkle out the answers, but it’s entertainment at a glacial pace. There are plenty of crosswords out there, plus all the old ones, so I can normally find something to fill my crossword quota for the day.
There is a crossword hierarchy.. sun/mirror, then the mail/express, then the telegraph/ft. The Times is at the top, with the Grauniad somewhere alongside, and should not even be attempted until you are confident with the others.
I sometimes do the Independent in the middle of the night when sleep is elusive: I’d put it towards the top of the spectrum, usually taking me about the same time as a Times.
I am in my third year of frequenting the QC, and have recently started attempting a few 15×15 puzzles. Every once in a while I take a stab at one with a startlingly high snitch rating, and it’s always rewarding (no comment on Friday’s in particular as Thursday’s was quite entertaining enough for me this week). Of course I never finish those. I’m accustomed to a range of QC difficulty that has me, at this stage of my learning, sometimes needing five times my personal best time to finish. And I don’t see why the Big Guy should be any different.
Thanks for engaging in conversation with us!
This is interesting, and I am so grateful that we can now have a dialogue with the powers that be 🙂
– I’ve been solving The Times cryptic since the mid 1960s. The difficulty level has varied a lot in that time, and I don’t think they are any harder at present than they have sometimes been in the past. The 1950s seem the high spot in terms of difficulty. I’ve done quite a lot of those for one reason or another, and they were pigs!
– the idea that crosswords should be easier on Mondays and get sequentially harder is quite a recent idea. Last five years or so, maybe? I think it is very hard to hold setters and editors to that, because one person’s quite easy is another person’s so difficult, especially if you do several a day. Well done if you can keep to it but I for one won’t criticise, if it doesn’t always seem right.
– Quite a lot of the current criticisms derive from the idea that they shouldn’t take long to do. A number of the commentators on TfTT devote 15m or 30m and then give up, blaming the crossword. Instead they should just put it to one side when the time they allot is up, and try again later whilst watching Eastenders.. your predecessors Jason, had none of this to cope with! It is a function of the internet age.
– I also think that “general knowledge,” is not what it was. Historically the cryptic has assumed that you have a certain level of knowledge of latin, Greek, foreign languages, the bible, Shakespeare, and so forth. I think this is a relevant area.. once we allow beyonce, rappers and other living people, then it seems only fair that the likes of Homer must be ejected. Who can be expected to know both? I almost never complain about obscurities. Either you have heard the word, or you have a learning experience. Happens to all of us, but I always take the trouble to look the word up in the OED or Wikipedia or whatever, and try to add it to my waning memory..
I love the daily Times Cryptic. I see it as a national treasure, a world heritage site, and a site of outstanding natural beauty. Don’t fiddle with it! There are lots of other puzzles available that you can use instead, to attract young people or whatever. Change does not necessarily mean better. Leaving things exactly the way you found them, is usually a compliment ..
Hear hear!
Thanks Jason.
I’ve come to a place (after decades of cross-wording) where I can tackle most days and therefore look forward to the Friday challenges. Having attempted the odd Mephisto and Listener, I would say that the latter two remain far trickier than any given Friday and I tend to steer well clear of them.
Learning new words and new tactics has taken me a long time but that’s part of the lifelong crossword journey AFAIC. My train journey, too, is plenty long enough that I relish the Friday onslaughts, am happy to see them continue, and view the subscription as well worth the price because of this rather than in spite of it.
Thank you for engaging.
May I respectfully suggest that you use Dean Mayer and Robert Price (in the Sunday Times) as a benchmark. They vary in difficulty and are sometimes hard but are always of a consistent quality. They always match your (and my) ideal of clues being concise and having a compelling or amusing surface reading. It can be done.
Hi Mr Crampton
A simple solution seems to create a Toughie crossword like The Daily Telegraph has been doing since 2008 so you would have a choice,
1-A quick Cryptic-Entry Level,
2-Standard-For Everyone
3-Toughie-For those who like a challenge
Thanks for the engagement. I did not comment on Fridays puzzle but it did defeat me. I think there may have been a reaction from a run of tougher puzzles last week. My feeling was that all of the clues were “ fair” in that the word play was clear and could be arrived at. There were, though, an unusually large number of obscurities giving it a feel closer to a Mephisto than a cryptic ( I’ve solved two mephistos in my 10 year solving journey😊). Generally I enjoy the challenge of a tougher puzzle but so many obscurities mean that your chances of filling in the blanks are reduced because you’re never likely to biff COCADEMON.
What is considered general knowledge does of course vary from person to person. Older puzzles would have relied on a level of classical knowledge (Greek, Latin, Shakespeare quotations) that many of we comprehensively educated chaps just don’t have these days. I think it is right that the crossword reflects this and has a mix of classical knowledge with what I would call more “popular” knowledge such as today the name of a TV show I never watch but am aware of.
Overall I would say keep up the good work and don’t change too much. There’s nothing so dangerous as the knowledge of crowds as many a football club has found to its cost.
I do like the very challenging puzzles – well, I am one of the Mephisto bloggers. I really enjoy stretching to the very limits of my knowledge and beyond.
In one of my comments on Friday, I suggested treating the Friday puzzle like Mephisto – if the wordplay points to a word you have never heard of, then you may check it in Chambers. As it was, I aced all the obscure words and couldn’t get bellyacher, just because I did not look at the clue correctly and take ‘sailor in race’ as a unit.
I will admit that knowing Latin and Greek are helpful, because many of the obscure words are derived from the classical languages.
You will note that here at TftT, I have managed to get very able bloggers in the Thursday and Friday positions. Only the very toughest puzzles will stump them.
I had nothing against Friday’s puzzle, but I’m not someone who times himself to the second or even the minute. It can be disappointing not to join the Comments section early—or at all—but I appreciate a difficult puzzle and would usually set one aside for a while before tackling it again (and again and again!) rather than simply give up (though I have done that).
I agree with you – I don’t time either and often come back to it later on. Surely we should be able to choose to do this and not expect to always be able to complete a crossword as fast as possible! It’s good to be challenged and very satisfying when a clue that has eluded for some time suddenly falls into place.
I often save Friday’s until Saturday when I have more time and coffee. I remember finally figuring out CACODEMON and thinking that was nifty, haven’t seen it in forever. Just don’t take away my Tricky Thursdays!
I definitely would feel sad if the tougher puzzles disappeared or were lightened in some way. They are part of the mix. I love it that the Times crossword requires a fairly developed general knowledge, and a familiarity with the cultural canon. Where else does? I delight to see CACODEMON and SORDINO because it means the words live on.
To my mind the friday xwd conceit blows the idea that there is standardised anonymous Times xwd . After 5 minutes you just think ‘oh this is the guy who does the Championship final round jobs; it must be Friday ‘ . It breaks the rhythm of the week and is hardly some kind of preparation for the weekend. Like many being retired the idea of the ‘working week’ seems something of an anachronism. Notionally I regard myself as a Division Two player with no hope of taking any prizes beyond personal satisafaction. If I wanted an extra challenge I’d do a Mephisto and trawl through the dictionaries etc. thereby. I agree with the suggestion of there being a toughie manifestation and I’d call it The Elitist . . .
There already is a Quickie!
Thanks for the input Jason.
But I think you’re trying to cater for a group that doesn’t need catering for. Or more accurately, is already pretty much catered for by the Mephisto and the Monthly Special. You’re risking disengaging your core demographic by offering (for most of us) an unsolvable puzzle.
The top solvers will solve a standard cryptic in less than 10 minutes. I doubt any yearnings they might have will be satisfied if they have to take fifteen minutes instead of ten with a tough one every Friday.
Ok, a stinker every now and then is fine, but if you’re going make them more frequent, is the daily cryptic the right place for them? If the core aim to get as many solvers as possible engaged with the crossword, but the majority of your core solvers are simply giving up and not even bothering, then that would seem to suggest the aim is not being met.
Wouldn’t it be better to have these type of crosswords as the Saturday prize version? At least solvers would have a week to complete it with a possible prize at the end of it. If they want something easier then the good-value prize Jumbo is already available to them.
The Mephisto is a different style of puzzle from the daily. I really like the occasional very hard 15×15 regular grid puzzle, and one that doesn’t send me diving into Mephisto for explanation (or not all that often!). The Mephisto is absolutely no substitute. (And I’ve not yet even tried the Monthly Special!)
Patience is a virtue. I don’t even see the point of saying a puzzle is finished before it’s all parsed, as some do (often winding up with typos).
For some reason I hadn’t got round to last Friday’s Cryptic but after reading these comments went back to try it and was surprised to manage at least half. I’m nowhere near an experienced or fast solver (in fact I never time myself – don’t think that’s the point) but completing half of any Friday crossword is a good result for me. I’m happy that sometimes finishing the whole thing is beyond me – I have improved greatly through practice and undoubtedly this blog has helped with guiding me in the right direction.
There has to be an element of challenge otherwise it becomes boring . I started on the QC when I was working full-time and have progressed on to the full Cryptic fairly successfully in the past few years. Similarly I now only concentrate on Fiendish Sudoko (which I don’t always finish) as it was too easy to complete the other ones.
And I absolutely agree that learning new words and expanding one’s GK is a huge benefit to tackling these crosswords and keeps my mind busy. Thanks for the opportunity to do so!
I didn’t know any of the “difficult” words listed, and didn’t get far with Friday’s puzzle, but in general I’m just happy to finish with minimal use of aids.
Knowledge required varies. I know little Latin and no Greek so struggle in some areas but are then surprised on reading the blog to find people complaining about what I consider fairly simple and obvious scientific terms.
Keep up the good work and thanks for engaging.
Thanks for the response, Jason. To me, the reason for doing (or attempting!) the Times crossword (rather than, e.g., the DT) is the wit — the difficulty is secondary. It’s when they are v diff >and< rather unfunny I lose interest (and there have been rather more of these on Fridays recently IMHO). That surely is what Mephisto and the Listener are for.
The best ones rival some of those set by the late, great, Araucaria in the Graun.
I’m happy with the progression in difficulty, including the occasional ‘stinker’. Over time, I have progressed through a range of crosswords, and it’s nice to think there is some improvement left in my brain! The one very slight gripe I have relates to syndication in The Australian – I think it would be helpful if syndicated puzzles carried with them the original publication date, so solvers could know what day they’re dealing with. I find there’s some inconsistency with reliably associating the days in The Australian with the days in The Times. I’d like to know that a certain day in the former is consistently associated with a day in the latter. All that said, I love The Time cryptics, and this blog. Many thanks indeed.
I think the point above about straying too far into Mephisto territory is valid. The Mephisto and Scrabble people have these huge vocabularies, but when I come up with a word like Cacodemon but don’t trust myself to put it in, this is kind of “next level”. Sordino was another. Philomath I didn’t know but took more quickly a punt on. I did finish the crossword error-free in 2 hours elapsed over the weekend, and the words I didn’t know were guessable from the clues or I’d never have got there. And I do appreciate one stretching puzzle every week. But to revert to where I started I did feel that puzzle strayed a bit too far into Mephisto territory.
I found the previous Friday (29435) much harder than the puzzle being commented on here, and the SNITCH would agree (231 vs 186). And I thought it contained more obscurities. The frequency of these extremely difficult puzzles is probably the issue, though. I quite like a really difficult puzzle from time to time, but they do now seem to be very frequent on Fridays.
Hi Jason, and thanks for contributing this interesting view.
I worked my way via the Manchester Evening News, the Daily Express, and the Daily Telegraph, until I was at a point almost 50 years ago where I would tackle The Times, The Guardian AND The Independent from Monday to Friday. I was a regular contender in the Times Championship from the early 1980’s until a couple of years ago.
It has always been my stance that the answer can be totally off the beaten track PROVIDED that the clueing is fair. Last Friday’s puzzle met that criterion and I enjoyed it. There have been a couple of recent Fridays on which I have had to resort to aids to finish, and I get irritated when I can’t understand how an answer is arrived at when “it really can’t be anything else”.
I’ve lost the edge of my solving speed at the age of 78, but I still retain my ragbag of general knowledge, and my ability to spot how most clues work. What I enjoy most is a good surface to the clue, and something that will make me smile.
I tell myself that it’s not the puzzles getting harder, it’s just me getting a little less perceptive – so no dumbing down please, I need the challenge!
Hi Phil
I just wanted to say: you are completely correct that the clueing was fair, otherwise I’d never have finished at all. The line for me is MAYBE a little bit crossed when I have the correct word but it’s so weird that I just don’t believe in it, and have to waste on that puzzle in particular really quite a long time in total just convincing myself that these words are real.
Late to comment and not one who has any hope of solving a Friday crossword. However, I do enjoy watching Simon Anthony tackling the stinkers on Cracking the Cryptic. The tougher the crossword the better it is to watch.
I would like to echo what Mr Jordan said: “no dumbing down please I need the challenge”. I love the Friday cryptics as they are – they are perfect – leave them be!