Hubris: Five in a Row

On Radio 4's Brain of Britain, if you answer your five questions in a row you gain an extra point. 

My achievement last week was far more modest - but I did at least achieve it.  I solved all five of the weekday cryptic crosswords (in the Guardian). (Wow!)

Quite astonishing, for me. 

I guess in part it just shows the extent to which solving crosswords is a learned skill, and is much less to do with inherent wonderfulness.  I started regularly attempting the hard crosswords at the back of the paper about 2-3 years ago.  And at that point, I didn't solve them - or only very, very rarely on my own. Perhaps one every 2-3 months.  Instead if they did get finished it was because I collaborated with others, sharing and pinching answers.

But you improve - or I did, anyway.  And I also started to become more entertained: I began to enjoy the wordgames more as I became more able to solve them.  Eventually, and in a sad way, I even gave clues little exclamation marks if I thought they were particularly witty or graceful. (I'm not proud of this).

And then a few months back I realised I was solving one a week on average, and then two.  Usually the easiest ones of course - which I think often occur at the start of the week.  The tough ones can be really tough, for me (and I'm not discussing the Saturday prize grids here - they seem to be more variable, somehow).

Actually cryptic crosswords go back much further with me.  I remember sitting in the school library in the mid-seventies, with mates who shared the same free periods, finishing an Arucaria.  You remember stuff quite randomly sometimes: I remember that the last clue we solved of that puzzle was 'Begin description of dining room. (8)'   (*).

So I've kind of known how the cryptic clues worked and occasionally solved them, or attempted them with friends for many years.  Doug Gray, Neil Frowe.

But it is harder on your own.

A year or so ago, I also discovered the Fifteen Squared Web site (see links).  I never look there beforehand, but sometimes it helped me after I'd given up to see how a particularly knotty clue worked.  So, thanks to them also.

Anyway, here are the five.

Monday, 22nd November

I think it is fairly easy to see that I found this one quite straightforward.  You can see I even wrote down that it only took me 40 minutes.  Since I tend to try my hand at them on the train journey coming home from work, there is usually an upper limit of around an hour and a half or two hours.  After which there is no time left in the day.  Still, 40 minutes is not bad, even for the first grid of the week. Redcoats seemed difficult, and Audience took me a while.

Tuesday, 23rd November

I found this a little harder, and it shows - not just because it took longer (50 minutes plus), but because of the big question mark I'd left by 15 down.  I did enter the solution correctly in the grid (without help, honest), but I didn't know that 'foramina' was a word meaning little openings.  It just had to be the answer from the rest of the clue.

Wednesday, November 24th

This was easily the prize of the week.  Amazing.  A clue in French (with an answer also in French), with some Italian, German, and Latin used elsewhere.

I vaguely remembered Amoretti was a little cupid/cherub/putto (ie fat boy).   Gourde was the last solution - I had no idea it was Haitian currency (settler is a stretch I think), and had to construct it from the rest of the clue. Quatre Bras was also hard, as I only had the faintest of memories of some kind of battle and had, again, to construct it.  And Crucible took a while because of the brilliant misdirection.

Altogether it took me well over three hours - but I had the time as I was in town seeing someone. 

I was pleased to finish it, but it had been hard.  So when I looked at the comment in FifteenSquared I was pleased that many other people also said they found it tricky.  It wasn't just me. 

Then someone pointed out that not only was it a pangram (all of the letters), but it also, if you looked carefully, contained the French integers from Un to Neuf scattered around the grid.  Amazing, indeed.  (If I'd spotted that it would have made Gourde easier to solve!)

Thursday, November 25th

Again, you can see I found it really tough.  Clues full of unforgiving surfaces, I thought.  I went down to Southampton Uni with eldest that day, so I had the three hours+ it needed for me to complete the solution, whilst sitting on the train. 

But in all honesty more than half of it came in about an hour of the journey back.  I needed to make the odd correction along the way, as you can see - but more because of simple spelling errors than major mistakes.  8 down was a joy when I spotted it, but 15 across I disliked (Father Christmas as a Ho-Ho-er?)

Friday, November 26th

You have to imagine how tense I was by Friday.  I was on a full house, or a hat trick, or whatever, having finished two tough crosswords during the week that would normally have defeated me.  Whether that was only because I had the time for them, by chance, was neither here nor there.  They were both realistically challenging.  It hadn't been an easy ride.

So anyway there was this new goal, which made me try extra hard. 

I think you can see that I was quite stressed by this one.  With several solutions, although I worked out the answer, I couldn't get the clue to make sense (9 across was a case in point - only when I later read FifteenSquared and saw 'Bess' in 'Pub, Essex' did it seem logical to me).  And I struggled for far longer than was necessary with Eclair.  On the plus side, I quite liked the 'shops' theme, which I spotted early and it helped a lot.

To be honest, however, I nearly gave up right at the end with one clue left.  For some reason I drew a blank on 9 down (which at other times might have proven to be pretty easy).  Indeed, it only got solved when I saw, belatedly, that it formed 'John Lewis' with 16 down.  Altogether, just under two hours. 

But what next?  Last week felt like a real achievement, but also like something completed.  Something over. Time to move on?  But where to?  Harder crosswords? Shorter solving times?  But those options partly miss the point - the pleasure and enjoyment of the wordplay.  (Of course, it is also unquestionably true that I'll probably fail horribly at the next puzzle I try. Too much hubris just at the moment).

Or stop.  Draw a line, and use the time released to do something different - more 'meaningful' or 'creative'?

I don't know.  But I do know that this week I've gone cold turkey- no crosswords.  And I'm having a think.

(* - Ans: "Initiate")