Wrong puzzle online for Saturday’s cryptic

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
The Current online version of 24257 is identical to 24247, printed on Tues 9th June. I don’t know yet whether the dead tree version is correct.

I’ve e-mailed the appropriate people and will let you know when it’s corrected. Online solvers needing something to solve could try the Jumbo puzzle or pluck something from the archives – possibly with the help of our Memories list of good puzzles.

09:45 Dave says he can get the right puzzle out of the Times site.  Like other commenters, I still get 24247, relabelled as 24257. Pity – the real 24257, now done in the paper, was a good tough Puzzle (awaits Jimbo’s report that it was standard fare dispatched in 25 minutes …).

Monday, 12:10 BST: the correct puzzle is now shown if you seek out 24257 under “Saturday Cryptic” on the club site.  No apology on the bulletin board yet.

28 comments on “Wrong puzzle online for Saturday’s cryptic”

  1. Thank you Peter – isn’t it galling to see the correct crossword in the Online Times paper but be unable to print it off?!

    Carole H
    Fermo, Italy

  3. Unfortunately, it hasn’t reached Skiathos yet. It doesn’t matter how many times I hit Ctrl-F5 on IE7, I still get the old one. Bah humbug and other words more impolite.
  5. Looking forward to comments on last week’s a puzzle. As a relative beginner, I found it quite accessible.
    1. Well, linxit will be blogging it, but Jimbo usually comments on Sat puzzles.
  7. Does raise the question of the reliability of online entries to prize crosswords. How exactly do they merge them with postal entries and faciliate a fair draw? I have yet to see a statement of elucidation from the ‘cabal’.
    1. The last statement I heard from the club was that one of the five prizes each week is chosen from the club entries, 1:4 being the closest approxmation of the proportion of :.
  9. 12.45 UK time and still the wrong puzzle. Thought I was going nuts earlier this morning when I read the puzzle on screen but luckily it only took me a couple of moments to realise I’d done the puzzle before. Perhaps they’ve decided to adopt the same approach as the TV channels and use repeats to fill the summer schedule!
    1. Or trying to boost sales of the printed paper in the face of strong opposition from the Telegraph today?
  10. Just coming up 1400 hours and still getting the wrong online Saturday puzzle here (London SW18). Extraordinary that these mistakes can’t be spotted and corrected more quickly.
  11. Bought the paper (I do anyway), solved the crossword, so quite pleased, even though there are a few I don’t understand fully, and now wait for people to say it was extremely easy.
    I also did the one online again, which for me was a good exercise. All in all a good day for me, crossword-wise.

    Isabel

  12. Still the wrong crossword online, so spent £1.50 on the real thing.

    I tried the wrong crossword and it still took me 6:40 even though I had done it two weeks earlier. Hopeless!

    1. Many thanks Angus. From all accounts it’s a good one which I shall now be able to attempt whilst she who must watches something awful on TV.
    2. After some reflection I’ve deleted Angus’s comment supplying the clues and grid for the puzzle. (It appeared here in the sequence of comments.)
      The clues for puzzles are copyright material so I’m not happy to have them posted here long-term.

      Although it’s frustrating when puzzles don’t appear on time, I can’t remember a mistake this big and long-lasting happening before on the club site during the life of Times for the Times – which is approaching four years including my original solo stint. By all means write to complain, but try to remember this as you do so.

      1. I understand your decision to delete the clues, but perhaps you could have left them until the site was rectified, probably when some journalist arrives at 9(ish) tomorrow morning!
        1. I thought anyone using the copy here would have grabbed it by the time I deleted it – seems I was right for all but one person.
    1. Ah, sorry,

      5 Benevolent proposal receives word of welcome, then matter consumes hour (13)

  15. This must be the most talked about Saturday puzzle for a long while. Sunday 8.30am UK time and still the wrong puzzle on the Times site.

    Thanks to Angus I was able to complete the puzzle last night in about 35 minutes with a guess for 5D based on checking letters, now subsequently confirmed by reading the clue (don’t remember ever doing that before).

    It’s a good puzzle and I recommend it.

    1. Oddly, having got a couple of checking letters including first and last, 5d was one of the first in (sans clue). I know you will think me impatient but I am staggered by 35 mins as I found this really hard going. But finished with only the last 3 letters of 24 down troubling me.
      Despite telling my CA (Cruciverbalists Anonymous) group that I would not do the Jumbo as part of my recovery programme (leads to taking up bowls), what was I to do?
      Thankfully today’s was a breeze even for me, coming in at under 30 minutes. (PB under 5 no doubt).
    2. I found the puzzle very difficult but 5dn was my third solve armed only with the final checking letter.
  16. Now sunday evening at 7pm and still the wrong crossword up there! I actually took the paper version to the pub to watch the rugby, couldnt concentrate, did about 6 clues and then forgot to pick it up on the way out. Didnt worry much as thought I would print off and finish it today, but then read all the above and was concerned. I guess whoever suggested that it would get fixed “next time a journalist arrived at work” was probably right – unfortunately this particular department must work monday to friday, 9-5 !!

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