It's rare but every now and again the Globe and Mail messes up the Saturday cryptic crossword puzzle and mismatches the clues and the grid. We love Fraser Simpson's Saturday morning cryptic over here, as I've said previously, so it's a bummer when we're forced to miss out.
This morning was one of those mornings: the grid started with 1 Across but the clues started with 7 Across. We mourned the lack of puzzle, then moved on to other things. Until my husband said: "I wonder if we could figure it out for ourselves."
This morning was one of those mornings: the grid started with 1 Across but the clues started with 7 Across. We mourned the lack of puzzle, then moved on to other things. Until my husband said: "I wonder if we could figure it out for ourselves."
Normally, I wouldn't even bother trying to reverse engineer a puzzle from the clues but these clues were special: there were six "Down" clues before a single "Across" clue appeared. Given that Fraser Simpson always uses 15x15 grids and never spaces his answers more than a single blank apart, I immediately had a good sense of what the puzzle would look like. I solved the clues to 1, 2 and 3 Down, then solved the first Across clue (labelled "7") and checked out how they might overlap. Bingo: the overlap was obvious. Going on the length of the answers, the typical Fraser Simpson construction style, and a few additional solved clues, I had the full puzzle in no time.
When you're learning a new skill, you move slowly, figuring things out in small increments. There are "Eureka!" moments but mostly you are quietly absorbing. You don't even realize how much you have learned, or even what, exactly, you've learned, until your skills are called upon.
And then you realize that you do know a fair bit after all.
And then you realize that you do know a fair bit after all.
Were you bummed about missing the cryptic this morning?
Download my corrected grid here:
Download my corrected grid here:
| saturday_cryptic_grid.pdf |
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