The Times Crossword Friday Masterclass: Episode 47

*** TODAY'S PUZZLE ***
In the 47th edition of our attempt to solve a Friday Times crossword, Simon takes on today's first Masterclass of 2024. It's a puzzle where you need to draw on a reasonably wide range of knowledge to solve!!

The puzzle is available to play on The Times crossword club website (which is behind their paywall):

The @numberphile video mentioned during the introduction is available here:

*** NEW CONTENT ON PATREON ***
Joining us on Patreon costs as little as $2 a month and includes Mark's new solve of The Times' Club Monthly special - a vicious cryptic!!

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*** KICKSTARTER - FOG OF WAR ***
Please take a look at our Kickstarter where we tasked ourselves with creating the best Xmas present for a puzzle fan. There's a novella by professional writer Peter C Hayward linked with (at least!) 10 brand new Fog-Of-War puzzles by Sandra & Nala; and this all made beautiful by the artwork of Haleigh Mooney. All delivered by Christmas Day!

*** NEW GAS PACK IS OUT ***
The new GAS pack is out on Steam for PC here:

It's already out on Android and App Store. 60 original puzzles by Sam Cappleman-Lynes, Clover and Philip Newman!! Earn party hats and dinosaurs with these brand new puzzles!

We've also released a FREE app full of handmade puzzles to celebrate reaching 500k subscribers - simply download the Cracking The Cryptic app on Android, Steam or App Store and then select the 500k pack. We're streaming a playthrough of this app and you can watch all seven episodes

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Twitter: @Cracking The Cryptic

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Simon Anthony & Mark Goodliffe
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[Elaine-OHara]

Dear algorithm, please consider these videos more. They're gold!

[bobblebardsley]

3:31 "And I think we can create nuclear fusion out of that..."
Now there IS a knowledge bomb from Cracking the Cryptic!

[MultiNacnud]

Simon gives a new meaning to wake up and spell the coffee.

[stephanieb.g.]

Robusta might be the only time that I have ever gotten a clue before Simon. 🎉 I'm taking that as a win😂

[megagarrym]

Re 22 Across, Muir Matheson composed music for many old British black and white films between the 30s and 60s

[shdowchasr]

Robusta as a type of coffee plant. Most coffee you get these days in the shop is Arabica, but in some darker stronger roasts you'll still find robusta. edit to add - It is more hardy, or if you will, robust than Arabica, which needs fairly specific conditions to do well. it is generally higher in caffeine which makes it more insect resistant too, so has a greater range of potential growing habitats than arabica.

[erickehr]

I was desperately hoping the person at the door was a cardinal, and Simon had to guess how to address him.

For the record, the correct form of address is Your Eminence.

[Sandra_and_Nala]

Dear algorithm, we like these cryptic crossword solves a lot! Keep them coming 😊 I’m always looking forward to them

[stingl]

This video didn't get recommended to me! Thankfully I remembered today was friday.

[eckandi]

In South Africa, there is a cryptic crossword every Saturday (at least) in one of the Afrikaans papers and my dad completed it every week. He would put on some music, sit in his favourite chair and start with it. When a clue was too difficult at the time he would mull it around during the week. Slowly but surely filling in all the gaps. He tried to show me the finer nuances but my brain just couldn't grasp it. This made that memory crystal clear now. I was always in awe how he completed it. What a great flasback ❤

[Emmibean]

Looking forward to these videos gets me through my week! Come on algorithm, get with it! Great solve Simon

[efreebairn]

Thank you so much for making these videos!

[sucrose]

seeing you on numberphile was such a nice surprise!

[francesbardsley]

Another great solve Simon and two more words to add to vocabulary Gam and Ukase. Thankyou 😊

[oak]

A lovely way to spend a Friday evening at the end of my first week back at work!

[davidrattner]

Thank you Simon for bringing these to us in 2024!! Wonderful guest appearance on numberphile!!

[DaShikuXI]

Oh hey it's that one guy from Numberphile the other day. Glad to see he did end up making a YouTube channel.

[britmusic]

The world needs to know who was at the door! Congrats on the numberphile appearance, my other favorite channel!

[SametHorses]

Absolute GOLD 😍 keep it up Simon please

[yehwellwhatever]

As a Swede, I don’t think I ever would’ve gotten the Scandinavian clue because Finland is not a country in Scandinavia. (Sweden, Norway and Denmark are Scandinavia. Add on Iceland and Finland and you have The Nordic countries.)