Ultimate Cryptic Crossword Challenge: Brutally Hard Edition
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
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In this video, I'm solving The Listener Crossword puzzle. This is the hardest cryptic crossword in the world and the world’s oldest thematic crossword puzzle. It is published each Saturday in The Times (UK) newspaper. It is also available online by subscription to The Times website
If you're a fan of crosswords, then you'll love this video! In this Dweebovision video, I'll show you how to solve The Listener Cryptic Crossword puzzle and give you some tips on how to improve your crossword skills. If you're looking for a challenging puzzle to solve, then check out The Listener Cryptic Crossword puzzle!
The Times subscription options: www.thetimes.c...
Music by Camtasia
Dark Wave Music
Hawk tuah from dweeb after literally thousands of hours of straight-laced scrabble commentary has completed ended me. I shall die happy
Of all the creators I follow I wouldn't have expected it to be you to make a hawk-tuah reference!
I wanted to make the Listener Crossword more relatable for younger viewers
@@dweebovision that's certainly one way to go about it!
lol what time stamp?
32:35
Seriously, how many people in this world could even begin this, let alone finish it? I knew about 3 words in the solved puzzle. Cant imagine there are many who attempt it.
Not many, probably a few hundred around the world, this is as hard as it gets
Usually between 300-500 correct solutions each week depending on difficulty. IIRC the 4000th puzzle was solved by around 270 entrants.
I managed 50 correct out of 51 entries a few years ago and there were some by Sabre in there (and Shackleton - also very hard, and my favourite). I think I did 3 years of Listeners but then gave up, partly out of protest/sulk at a puzzle I considered unfair and partly because it was leaving too little time in my life for other interests.
@@peterfranklinrouth895 Most impressive ! Didn't Simon Anthony have a huge run of well over 300 puzzles some years ago? I think he stopped because, like you, it was taking up too much of his time. May be misremembering this totally, but I believe in an interview he said that at one stage he was taking the puzzle along with him to football matches to maximise his solving time !
@@Ray_Ridley I don’t know names but the top solver when I stopped was on something like 450 correct and counting (so 9 years!). And there are four a year which are entirely numerical/mathematical.
I would do them in the weekend afternoons, but if I were away I might end up having to do two in time for the postal deadline, which was a bit too reminiscent of university essay crises!
Not sure what's more surprising, just quite how insane that puzzle was, or the hawk tuah gag from the most unlikely of sources 🤣.
That really was fantastic. Well done chap.
Good grief. As a Telegraph daily cryptic solver this is completely mind boggling. Thank you so much David for this wonderfully crafted and prepared explanation of the solve.
This hurts my brain, badly.
("Badly" is not an anagram indicator).
4 days? I couldn’t solve in a million years!
Thanks for sharing. I struggled with this one for at least four days. I don't remember going down the "leviathan" rabbit hole but I definitely saw "bible". I think I, too, stumbled across the answer by googling some plausible letter combinations. They *used* to say that you should be able to solve the Listener with nothing more than Chambers and a couple of other reference books. I wouldn't have stood a chance without a pattern matcher to find those fish and Google to steer me towards Lear. Incredibly tough but equally satisfying to finally get over the line.
That was amazing. The instructions were so difficult I couldn't even make sense of them. Thank you for breaking down the whole puzzle and instructions. I like this format where you showed in the dictionary how you got the answers and the breakdown of point of origin.
And I feel pleased when I complete the Metro cryptic. Wow, this is on a completely different level! Magnificent.
David, I remember in a previous video you said that solving this had nearly made you ill. I think I would have been climbing the walls too ! As for the "hawk tuah", I almost spat out my mouthful of tea, which I suppose is a fitting reaction, in a way.
Yes, I hit a brick wall after giving up on leviathan and spent hours getting nowhere, but I couldn't stop thinking about it
Beautiful presentation, made everything as clear is possible with such a fiendish puzzle
Every now and again I am reminded that they are amongst us!
I specifically paused at 23:45 and made a graph of which letters follow which in order. I also came up with aunt, bible and job, and was SURE that it's the leviathan. Who knew that a bible reference just wasn't far-fetched enough 😆
I was so exited for this video and it did not disappoint! Thank you Mr. Webb my mind has been blown 😱
you did not just make a hawk tuah joke at the end of that 🤣🤣🤣
Appreciate the time you took to animate this. It is fascinating.
Fantastic vid and congrats on the milestone! You made 4 days of effort seen so easy, I listen get confused just by the preamble to the Listener!
More of this please, one day maybe I to will be able to hawk tush on that thing! (Was not expecting that, well played sir, well played).
Fantastic, I was unaware of the Listener crossword. It looks diabolical. 😅
Wonderful in every regard. There are so few of these on youtube and I have watched and rewatched them all. Thank you Dweeb.
Extremely impressively! I wonder how other people solved it. Was it 4 days non-stop or did you have a break in the middle?!
I started Friday night and finished Monday morning so maybe 15 hours of solving, 2 of which was reading Job
@@dweebovision I was ready to go down a Job rabbithole 😄
60 years ago two of us attempted to solve The Listener crosswords. Mostly we failed!
Wow, what a puzzle, and what an amazing solve. You completely lost me with the decoding of the description of the runcible cat, however I think you may have given a big clue about the nature your job that you're not allowed to talk about.
I always suspected that you had an IQ in the 200 range, and this video seems to confirm that.
What is the snitch rating of this puzzle?
Brilliantly solved (as usual), well beyond my capability but I did sense something fishy was going on from reading the instructions🐟
I was not expecting the Hawk Tuah
Happy centenary. I actually got jute.
The Listener is to cryptic crossword solvers what a normal cryptic crossword is to normal people.
Good lord I see why it took you four days. I’m not sure I would have gotten a single answer. 😂
Increíble!
what the heck
i've got to say this was a bit of a boring watch. I like to see you figure things out David.
I understand, but a live solve over 4 days would have been a lot more boring
Wow @:@