The Sphinx's Lair

Sphinx

00:06

0

The 16 movie and TV roles below can be grouped into 4 groups of 4, with each group related by a common theme. In addition, the 4 themes are themselves related to each other by a common theme: one particular entertainment related aspect. Can you identify the 4 groups and their themes, and then id...

Taco タコス

00:31

I want to write a sea shanty :D

They're so, rhythmic.

Anonymus 25

03:08

Ooooh, a schrodinger clue! Never seen those in the C4 :D

Is the other answer AIDOS, Greek God and also a word meaning modesty and shame?

@samm82

ddef

Though AIDOS is the God of Modesty and shame so not sure if considered valid...

That would make it a regular clue...

Just waiting for confirmation :)

samm82

03:29

@Anonymus25 What would the two definitions be?

Anonymus 25

Def 1: Greek Character and def 2: modest and a little sentimental

Not your intention?

Probably not

samm82

"Modest and a little sentimental" is an adjectival phrase, so it can't clue a noun - the parts of speech need to match between the definition and the answer

Anonymus 25

Ywah, I felt some thing was wrong

Jafe

08:53

crossword is uuup

Sphinx

09:14

1

Q: Fanatically following f...?

Eighteen answers are printer's devilry, others are regular cryptic clues. Can you fill in the last word of the title? Across 1. Kay's satisfied getting fortune (6) 4. Accelerate around place of internment (5,2) 8. Legendary actress who shaved her head to portray a G.I. escaped outbreak of diseas...

knowledge cryptic-crosswords printers-devilry

AncientSwordRage

10:03

@Jafe Printer's Devilry is fun, but I left my Holy Water at home, so will have to watch it get solved rather than take part

Jafe

never leave home without it

it's better to have it and not have to deal with vampires than the opposite

AncientSwordRage

@Jafe No body wants to deal with reverse vampires

Eripmav are only weak to ekats and retaw yloh

@samm82 anything to do with this?

Mode (music)

In music theory, the term mode or modus is used in a number of distinct senses, depending on context. Its most common use may be described as a type of musical scale coupled with a set of characteristic melodic and harmonic behaviors. It is applied to major and minor keys as well as the seven diatonic modes (including the former as Ionian and Aolian) which are defined by their starting note or tonic. (Olivier Messiaen's modes of limited transposition are strictly a scale type.) Related to the diatonic modes are the eight church modes or Gregorian modes, in which authentic and plagal forms of scales...

AncientSwordRage

11:47

@samm82 is a double def for MORAL ? Greek Character (trait in philosophy) and the everyday meaning

Jafe

running out of ideas for crossword themes, any suggestions?

msh210

12:01

@Jafe geography? I don't think you've done that before

Jafe

bold choice

hehe

Stiv

12:26

Today's crossword @Jafe was another excellent one, I must say. I'm not sure I've ever done a printer's devilry one before, so I took my opportunity. I spotted the theme after solving 3 of them (SUNS, POWER and BLUES) and twigging that these were likely sports team names. Ending up learning more about Aussie Rules than I've known before! :)

Jafe

glad you liked it! i'm not entirely satisfied with some of the p.d. clues where the surface is just nonsense (and you can therefore immediately guess the clue type)... some of those words just turned out to be pretty hard to fit into a sentence nicely :)

Stiv

Perhaps true. I did enjoy the image of Pitbull dog-sitting however :)

Jafe

also i have still to watch a single match of AFL so i'm not exactly a fanatic myself... but i've been trying to learn something about local sports so i thought i'd kill two birds with one stone

Anonymus 25

12:47

@Jafe MORE GLADYS IM IN LOVE

Jafe

hehe gladys might come back at some point but not for a while, those take a lot of planning ahead

Anonymus 25

Btw, I didn't understand what printer's devilry clues are

How exactly do they work?

Jafe

in a printer's devilry clue you have to insert a word of the specified length into the clue so that it still makes sense

you're allowed to change spacing, punctuation and capital letters but not the order of the letters in the clue

they're not really cryptic clues, it's an entirely separate clue type

Anonymus 25

I'v never seen those before, those must be devilish (pun intended)

Jafe

they're pretty rare... looks like the tag has 12 puzzles as of now

Anonymus 25

12:58

Also devilish to make, to make sure they don't have multiple solutions

@Jafe Most of those are yours, I could see

Jafe

yeah

AncientSwordRage

14:10

@Jafe I've written one, but I'm not sure how fair it is, I'll have to double check crosswordsunclued at some point

Jafe

cool

samm82

14:28

@AncientSwordRage Nope on both accounts, unfortunately

Is it time for a hint? (I think this is the first time I've had a CCCC last this long lol)

AncientSwordRage

@samm82 if you don't mind

Jafe

"the fifth letter is S"

:P

#fakeC4hints

samm82

CCCC Hint 1: The fifth letter is S

:P

Jafe

nooo~

samm82

I was thinking of another hint, but I honestly think this would be more helpful and also I couldn't resist XD

Jafe

14:39

heheh

Jafe

14:52

eligible bachelors from greek mythology: aidos, anius, argus, atlas, attis, bakis, cacus, chaos, coeus, comus, corus, crius, dolos, eleos, elpis, eurus, gelos, geras, hades, iamus, keres, limos, lycos, metis, midas, mimas, minos, moros, mylas, myles, nilus, nomos, notus, oizys, ponos, poros, talos, tenes, thoas

Chris Cudmore

Still leaning towards an -AS ending. MIDAS was the best guess so far.

Prince North Læraðr

what is 5 or 5?

@AncientSwordRage Mode! But I've never heard of mode as MODEST

Jafe

22 hours ago, by samm82

with (5 or 5) meaning that there are two solutions - I think that's the right syntax for that

Prince North Læraðr

Ah

Do we need both answers?

samm82

One answer has been found already (I can't figure out how to quote a message lol) so whoever finds the next one is up next in the chain

Prince North Læraðr

14:59

What was the first answer?

Jafe

mu + shy

Prince North Læraðr

Ah

samm82

Originally found by Chris and then found again by Jafe lol

Jafe

you can quote a message by posting the permalink

Prince North Læraðr

>

And then text

samm82

15:01

21 hours ago, by Chris Cudmore

@samm82 MU + SHY is one solution.

Ayy

Prince North Læraðr

Ah

@samm82 MIM+A+S(-entimental)?

MIM: Chiefly Scottish: "affectedly modest or demure."

Jafe

the scottish strikes again

Prince North Læraðr

LOL

Chris Cudmore

Scots isn't english!!! It needs an explicit modifier like "The french" for "LE"

Prince North Læraðr

Hm

That's cap

Jafe

15:07

wiktionary has "(Britain, dialect) demure, shy"

MW has just "(dialect) affectedly shy or modest"

Prince North Læraðr

Huh

Google, scamming me telling me it's Scottish

The Thesaurus strikes again

Stiv was one letter away >.< I just took the A+S idea

Jafe

they may take our freedom but they'll never take our miiiiiimmm

Prince North Læraðr

LOL

Would you say that this is probably the answer?

(should I start working on a clue?)

Jafe

yeah

Prince North Læraðr

Coolio

AncientSwordRage

15:27

@ChrisCudmore Scots !== Scottish English

samm82

@PrinceNorthLæraðr You got it!

Prince North Læraðr

Let's go!!

Sphinx

16:18

0

Q: Math puzzle: I know the answer, what is the equation? Use all digits 1-9

A few years ago, my child brought a puzzle home from their 6th-grade math teacher. The solution was to use all the numbers $1−9$ only once and make the equation true. Using a spreadsheet, I was able to calculate the 2 answers: $631892754$ and $631472958$ My problem is I found the spreadsheet and ...

mathematics calculation-puzzle formation-of-numbers

0

Q: Locked in an alien crypt: Jewels on the floor

Dazed, you slowly regain consciousness. You don’t know how you got here, but one thing is certain – your exploration of this otherworldly planet has reached an ugly end. Trapped in an alien crypt, what hope is there of escaping? There is only one door, and in front of that lie a physically innume...

word knowledge enigmatic-puzzle visual story

Prince North Læraðr

I'm proud of this one:

CCCC: Wagner libretto disguises king in German song! (8)

Stiv

17:25

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Does this clue Erlkönig? ERL being a substring hidden in (-wagn)ER L(-ibretto) and 'könig' being 'king' in German?

Prince North Læraðr

@Stiv Yup! I tried to do some misdirection with Wagner :P

Stiv

18:00

Well I definitely did spend a fair few minutes on the Wagner Wiki page, I'll grant you that...

M Oehm

(8) is definitely too short for a Wagner opus ...

Jeremy Dover

"Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind? Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind. Er hat den Knaben wohl in den Arm. Er fast ihn sicher; er hält ihn warm." Took German 30+ years ago, and that poem still sends chills up my spine.

Avi

18:37

You have a video game cheat that only slaps your opponents in the face...

...

Is it a smack-ro?

... I'll leave

Sphinx

0

Q: How to solve seating arrangement questions with two directions?

Question: "Ten friends Ajay,Riya,Ravi,Ritu,Hari,Raju,Shweta,Arun,Shiv and Deep are sitting in a row in such a way that five persons are facing north and other are facing south. Ajay sits third to Shiv. Ravi sits second to the right of Shweta, who sits third to the left of Ritu, who sits facing no...

visual lateral-thinking calculation-puzzle

Sphinx

19:38

0

Q: The cow and the butcher

Lets have 12 stalls spaced equidistantly. In the 12th stall a butcher is waiting with a sharp knife. So the farthest stall a cow wants to reach is the 11th stall. In each stall is a trough which contains 4 liters of water. When the cow drinks water from the trough it has to drink all 4 liters. T...

logical-deduction optimization

Stiv

CCCC: Improperly enforce tailgating legislation; air base leaders break into song, bringing about war - drama! (8,2,6)

M Oehm

19:56

@Stiv LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (war-drama) = LAW + ENFORCE* + A(ir) B(ase) in AR.IA

Stiv

20:12

@MOehm Indeed it is :)

M Oehm

The law helped me to break into this one.

CCCC: The third page of bombastic script's missing - "ciao" for fantastic film (3, 6, 4, 2, 5)

I guess the re-pin of the C4 explanation is the most visted chat post. No one really clicks it, except when formatting a clue ...

Prince North Læraðr

20:32

@MOehm Hahaha

That's an understatement

Sphinx

20:53

1

Q: A frugal canal-crossing

You've been sent out to round up some escaped animals. While you have some of them under control now, you've ended up trapped on the wrong side of a canal. Currently, you have 5 animals: A perivine, a large leafy snail that's harmless to other animals An aras, a small flute-horned antelope that ...

story river-crossing

0

Q: Predict the Sequence

What is the next number in the following sequence: 2, 4, 3, 10, 5, 5, 28, 11, 7, 8, 82, 29, _? I can't figure this out and would really appreciate some help XD

number-sequence

Stiv

21:46

@MOehm THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (film) = THE + PURPLE (-p)ROSE + CIAOFOR*

Those second and third words took me aaaages before the expected words fell out of the wordplay!

AncientSwordRage

23:19

Third page/third word???

Stiv

'Third page' = third instance of letter 'p'; 'bombastic script' = purple prose

My comment immediately after the solve referred to the fact I knew what the answer was, as I had resolved the last two words and the first one. But how to get 'PURPLE ROSE' from what remained took me quite a while...!

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