The Sphinx's Lair

1:39 AM

roding is an actual place in germany but i think here it's used as a homophone indicator for "will helm" = WILHELM

perhaps because when a bird rodes it makes a specific sound?

2:20 AM

@Jafe yep!

CCCC: Moonwalker's Ranch disturbed with moist shirt (8,7)

@Jafe Harrison Schmitt (moonwalker) = (ranch + moist shirt)*

2:37 AM

that's right

I'm making modifications to this next one since I don't want to mess it up

3:15 AM

Disclaimer: I'm not really satisfied with this one.

CCCC: Drink that's sweetened most of the time, found in cold/hot form, ultimately, having like bits mixed together! (9 4)

4:10 AM

@oAlt "Drink" = COLA. "that's sweetened most of the time" = TE(a). "found in cold/hot form, ultimately" = found in CHM. "having like bits mixed together" = ILK(e)*. &lit for CHOCOLATE MILK

Oh wait, I'm missing an O. Hm.

could be COCOA for the drink but then it needs another L

wait nvm that does't work

Feb 27 at 5:03, by msh210

Re the C4: No explicit hint yet. But come on, you can do this.

4:28 AM

ah it's COLA in C HOT plus an anagram of _M LIKE

4:59 AM

oh, nice

@Jafe Yup! Your turn.

Some thoughts:
- I don't know if there's any unsweetened cola, so "Drink that's sweetened most (if not all) of the time" would have been better I think.
- C = cold (and thus H = hot) is attested to by Collins Dictionary (seen on UK faucets). That said, I'm not sure if C and H faucet caps are that common in the UK in reality.
- For clarity, I meant the "like bits" here to be the cocoa bits.

I've seen C and H on (older) faucet knobs in the States, fwiw.

5:57 AM

CCCC: Moonwalker's Ranch to always remain airborne? (9)

c for cold and h for hot is standard imo, i've even seen "tap" used to clue either of those

6:23 AM

@Jafe never land

6:34 AM

@Jafe @msh210 thx both, TIL

1 hour later…

7:53 AM

@msh210 correcto

1 hour later…

8:55 AM

Can "sometimes"/"at times"/"every now and then" be used as regular-letter-selection indicators? The use of "sometimes" doesn't necessarily imply periodicity/regularity which is why I'm hesitating to use that

CCCC: Moonwalker is very much done with following Charleston leader (9)

don't think i would use the first two but i see nothing wrong with "every now and then", especially since "occasionally" is used for the same purpose

9:13 AM

@oAlt I wonder whether French taps have C for hot.

9:31 AM

finnish ones generally have red for hot and blue for cold, which is superior in every way but also necessary since the word for both hot and cold starts with k

9:50 AM

@Jafe reminds me of my college course catalogue (schedule). It denoted Tuesday as T, Thursday as R, Saturday as S, and Sunday as U. (I've also seen red and blue in the States, and in Israel.)

@Jafe I suppose they could use the initial letters of hyinen and helteinen instead

heheh

10:17 AM

if you're over something you're very much done with it, and something -rover might be a moonwalker?

10:36 AM

the leader of the city of charleston is mayor john tecklenburg... something about that name tells me it's not going to be relevant for this wordplay

note, though, that the leader of the other Charleston is Amy Shuler Goodwin

ah right

pretty surprising that both those cities have a democrat for a mayor

but then again my knowledge of US politics is pretty slim

11:30 AM

@Jafe yeah same red and blue in here

@Jafe I considered -mover but it seems there's only dead ends in there

very much = so much = SM in texting, and there's the C (Charleston leader), so that's 1/3 of COSMONAUT figured out, but I don't think I can justify the other 2/3

no cosmonauts have walked on the moon though

Right, oops

if cuba had participated in the space race i wonder if their spacemen would have been called castronauts

1 hour later…

12:45 PM

Q: Six of one maybe?

As usual from me a Venn-based challenge. The three overlapping ellipses form seven curved regions. There are seven tiles. Place one tile in each region so that the tiles in any one ellipse can be re-arranged to solve the corresponding clue.

juicifer

1:44 PM

@msh210 ARMSTRONG is the obvious choice for "moonwalker" and ARM can be charleston leader, but I have yet to see how STRONG could be "very much done with" (maybe sense 4 here???)

tldr armstrong feels a little bit like a stretch

1:59 PM

Maybe "Charleston leader" could also be one who invented/popularized the Charleston? I'm just guessing at this point

Or maybe somehow the definition is at the end rather than at the start

4 hours later…

cipher formation-of-numbers

5:48 PM

Q: encode in encode

Today, a cryptic message was received by Area 51: Bananatexteismarvellous605185682252125223459314283216133301 2 The staff managed to figure out that some 2 digit number was being encoded, but they couldn’t find what it was. Can you help them?

Chris Cudmore

6:31 PM

Wrong CCCC answer: CALLOWAY - very much done - All Away with C at front. But only 8 letters, and an A-O issue.

Q: What do you think the answer and why ? Give explanation

7:30 PM

I tried to figure this out and reached that e (last choice from left to right) is the answer but I want to be sure about the result and explanation

pattern