The Sphinx's Lair

Sphinx

12:00 AM

1

Solve on Penpa+ Across 1. Past prog rockers (RIP) drinking whisky (10) 6. Acting award for Mr Hopkins, according to inside source? (4) 9. Clean up after last bit of tofu remaining on plate, perhaps (7) 10. Mystical life force is miles out in a novel (7) 12. With, ultimately, colour like famed, m...

cryptic-crosswords

Jafe

the next gladys puzzle is further delayed as it's proving particularly difficult to clue... meanwhile have a standalone crossword instead

Sphinx

12:22 AM

0

Q: Knights, Knaves, and Spies

I need help understanding this problem. I keep thinking about it and haven't found a solution fitting to it. If you could help me that would mean a lot, Thank you. An island has three kinds of inhabitants: knights, who always tell the truth, knaves, who always lie, and spies, who can either tell ...

logical-deduction liars

Sphinx

12:44 AM

0

Q: Colombian Sudoku, Cows and Bulls again…

Fill the sudoku on the left so that each column, row, box, and colored box of the same color contain the numbers 1 to 9. The dots show how many numbers in the row or column of the grid on the right match the solved sudoku on the left.

colombian-sudoku

Stevo

1:51 AM

@Jafe annoying im up to see the question but not smart enough to answer it

Stevo

2:02 AM

(well i did get one clue but thats it)

juicifer

(so far)

Stevo

2 but idk anything else so i gave up :shrug:

oAlt

same I'm trying to not look at online sources for help and there's still a lot of clues I haven't figured out

juicifer

ah rip, only had 7 left

oAlt

Oh I just saw

I think I had 1/4 to 1/3 of the grid filled

Gareth McCaughan

2:37 AM

Like juicifer I had almost all of it. These things happen.

(and I've been on the other end of them often enough)

Jafe

3:58 AM

i first read that as "like lucifer i had almost all" and was like man, that's poetic as hell

msh210

4:12 AM

Like Lucifer I had almost all / then Jeremy Dover caused my fall.

oAlt

4:48 AM

That was embarrassing... I had said 26d was intended as a ddef but the comment right above mine literally said it wasn't. Ugh... reading always beats scanning

Jafe

5:26 AM

that's actually correct though

don't like "of" as def-def separator

M Oehm

5:52 AM

Getting back to the aquamarine angle to the C4: "in" can be a noun meaning a position of influence or sway. But a (night-)mare is a bad experience, not a poor performance.

oAlt

6:07 AM

@Jafe oh

wait

@Jafe which is?

Jafe

double def

Stiv

CCCC hints: 1. In life, some words that are nouns can also be verbs, and vice versa... 2. The intended answer has already been suggested...

oAlt

!

Jafe

plot thickens!

aquamarine looking stronger and stronger

oAlt

@Jafe ahh, I'm assuming the split is right after "of"

Stiv

6:16 AM

Ohp wait, just spotted a recent comment that basically has all the components now... You just need to realise how.

Jafe

@oAlt yeah

oAlt

👌

I wonder if a poor performance can be a nightmare after all, since it is an event in which many things go wrong unexpectedly, to the horror of the performer?

But I can see how it's still not exact and may need a question mark at the end

Stevo

@Stiv time to backread

grr this is like the 50th failed attempt at making a combined miracle sudoku

M Oehm

51th time lucky.

Stevo

got up to a point hwere the contrictions dont allow any more numbers to be placed

M Oehm

6:29 AM

A mark E could be a bad performance, but there's the extra K, of course.

Stevo

this is painful

closest attempt i had

Stiv

Where's juicifer when you need him...?

Stevo

had astupid idea where blue = democratic and went down a rabbit hole

M Oehm

6:47 AM

Okay, so IN is during, E is poor performance. If AQUA are the Europop group (and aquamerine is the answer), MAR must be clued by sway somehow.

(Where's Yuri Gagarin when you need him?)

2

oAlt

@Stevo oh wow

Stevo

(doesn't work, can't work but was kinda close) the highlighted cells are the ones that fails the restriction butthen after this (all from logic) everything else is failing the restriction

@MOehm how did you remove night?

oAlt

@Stevo A shortened version that is apparently in usage according to Wiktionary. But I don't think it's common (personally I just say the full thing)

Stevo

ah ok

M Oehm

Yes, like here under Etymology 2. So the (night-) was just explanatory, no part of any wordplay.

Stiv

7:00 AM

You're killing me, guys...

2

M Oehm

(And when I wrote "51th" above, I meant one-and-fiftieth, of course.)

oAlt

@Stiv I don't know if this is alluding to the C4 or the sudoku, but I'm guessing it's the former

@Stiv I feel tempted to star this

Stiv

100% the former...

oAlt

Lol

Stiv

You literally have it all but are talking yourselves out of it!

oAlt

7:04 AM

🥴

Stevo

so it is aquamarine

Stevo

7:14 AM

maybe MARE is an acronym or something or poor somehow clues MARE inside of performance

M Oehm

"Mediocre" Assessment Really Euphemistic.

oAlt

@MOehm Hmm, if you sway something, do you mar it? Both imply change, but mar implies damage while sway doesn't necessarily...

M Oehm

No, I don't think they have the same meaning. Swaying is just a movement.

Stevo

i feel like we are overcomplicating it...

msh210

AQUA (Europop group) + IN (sway, as in "he has an in with the president") during MARE (nightmare, per above) = AQUAMARINE (blue)

M Oehm

7:24 AM

Yeah. Perhaps Stiv is just playing coy and is waiting for a ping.

msh210

or didn't see it because he's waiting for a ping

@Stiv

Stevo

what clues nightmare?

msh210

Oh, per Wiktionary, "mare" means "A nightmare; a frustrating or terrible experience", not the literal sense of nightmare, so it actually works well as "poor performance".

@Stevo poor performance

oAlt

Well, it's hard to choose between the "terrible experience ≠ poor performance" camp and "terrible experience = poor performance" camp, so I'll just go with ≈

msh210

seems like a def by example… a poor performance is a type of terrible experience

but arguably a real def… "performance" can just be any experience that was effected by some action

Stiv

8:15 AM

@msh210 Yes! (Sorry, was on my bike...) "'Mare" is very commonly used in the UK to mean a poor performance in a sporting context. The Google result for 'define mare' includes the example "Eboue had an absolute mare down the right hand side", which is (a) a bit harsh on Emmanuel Eboue, and (b) probably dates the example to his Arsenal days in the noughties, so it's been around a while...

It's definitely a British-ism though, so I'm not surprised others didn't find it quicker. My first hint was referring to 'sway' because I honestly thought that would be the hardest part to find. Everything seen through a lens though!

oAlt

@Stiv Thanks for the clarification

Stiv

Ha, no worries. I'm sure you can imagine my reactions though as everyone kept skirting so close to the intended wordplay and then dismissing it for various reasons!

oAlt

Lolll

msh210

CCCC: Miniature Look Magazine? (7)

oAlt

(Is the lack of enumeration deliberate?)

msh210

8:28 AM

oops, no, sorry, I'll edit

oAlt

👌

@msh210 Ah, this is gazette (magazine). A look is a gaze, so a miniature gaze could be a gaze-ette or just gazette

msh210

@oAlt yep!

oAlt

8:45 AM

Hold on... Gagarin still isn't ready...

msh210

Take your protein pills and put your helmet on.

oAlt

All right, we're blasting off again

CCCC: Park at base where Yuri Gagarin once served, never seeing the sun? I had captured a distant extreme somewhere in space (?)

msh210

P + Luostari - (star I) , capturing _t = somewhere in space, Pluto

oAlt

@msh210 Correct! Pluto still has a special place in my heart

Sphinx

9:01 AM

0

Q: A Professors Presentation

Me and my three rich programmer friends who also happens to be very clever have these real life puzzle games from time to time. This time I am the creator. I told them to visit a different country every week and that they would get a phone call from me at the end of the week telling them which co...

word knowledge pattern

msh210

also in Mickey's

CCCC: What hath the corn god wrought? Corn. (5)

Jafe

10:17 AM

of course there's a corn god

Daniel S

Clearly this is COB (what hath the corn) + RA (God) = COBRA ([en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBRA_(British_TV_series)](a corny product))

msh210

10:54 AM

@DanielS amazingly, that was not my intention

oAlt

11:47 AM

as expected corn has a few other meanings as well in Wiktionary

msh210

hat h (not my intention)

M Oehm

A companion to dot h (Ḣ).

Stiv

If a GIN hath the corn and 'wrought' can imply containment we can get G(RA)IN v similarly.

(Gin in the farming machine sense)

msh210

@Stiv also not my intention

oAlt

12:05 PM

flint, flour, and sweet corn are other 5-letter types of corn

M Oehm

Wheat? I mean the what is already there. (And the E is the "corn", that is the horn of thE, of course.)

Stiv

12:34 PM

It's a nice suggestion, but does it use the 'god wrought' part at all?

juicifer

@Stiv at 2:30 am? sleeping

Stiv

Ha, I think we can allow that...

M Oehm

^^^No, it doesn't. It wasn't really a serious suggestion.

msh210

s/it doesn't/we can't/

juicifer

anyway obviously the thing the corn god hath wrought refers to corn cuties

AncientSwordRage

12:58 PM

@juicifer Is it not all an allusion to John Greens NaNoWriMo novel Zombicorns?

juicifer

inconceivable

AncientSwordRage

@juicifer IDTTMWYTTM

oAlt

1:22 PM

Why am I able to understand that acronym without having searched it

juicifer

1:59 PM

@oAlt BTMWYTTM

3

oAlt

2:29 PM

Bet that made what... By the M... gets it ahhhh

msh210

5:44 PM

The correct answer to the C4 has been mentioned, as has part of the solution that gets to that answer.

Sphinx

6:44 PM

0

Q: "Shining Composer"

The answer to this simple puzzle is a name. Explain your reasoning. WEAK C: 223357 STRONG C: 572235 2233575722---35 Who Am I?

knowledge pattern

Sphinx

7:51 PM

0

Q: Hold out to the bitter end

The answer to this puzzle is a description of the puzzle. || 1. Staff without preamble have yen to make candy (5) || | 2. Bardic women have the Trojan and wizard gaining two aces, losing one (6,3,6) | | 3. Doctor, we hear, will get Best Actor award (4) | | 4. Carol made no Mexican article (4) | ...

knowledge cryptic-clues

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