It's GCHQ time!

[icowden]

Anyone else like to do the Christmas puzzle set by GCHQ?
https://www.gchq.gov.uk/files/GCHQ Christmas Challenge 2024.pdf

No cheating now!

I'm having trouble with no.6 and the final front page puzzle...

 

[icowden]

Update - have now cracked it all. Just can't see how you get from the answer to No.6 to the actual geographic answer to No.6.

 

[Donger]

I think I've got them all except for No.6.

No.3 involved guessing a couple of the answers to fit what I'm pretty sure is a sensible end answer. I could sit here to my dying day and I wouldn't begin to understand No.6, let alone find a landmark as the answer.

 

[MichaelW2]

Is that link safe ?

 

[icowden]

I think I've got them all except for No.6.

No.3 involved guessing a couple of the answers to fit what I'm pretty sure is a sensible end answer. I could sit here to my dying day and I wouldn't begin to understand No.6, let alone find a landmark as the answer.

Same here on No.3. I got the first two and the last two, and extrapolated the rest.

I did cheat on No.6 and look at the hints but even then you only get to a number. I made an assumption after linking the answers to the animals based on geography, as there is only one major landmark that I am aware of that the lobster could be at. The layout of no.6 is a sort of clue.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Is that link safe ?

No - some of these things on this poster and its associated sites and links lead to an organisation well know for operating in secret and having the ability to get information is ways most of us would not be allowed to use

 

[Donger]

Might still get to work there one day. Maybe they'll be recruiting cleaners.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I can never do those things - I think my mind is too literal

I also cannot see and sense in cryptic crosswords for the same reason


Or maybe I am a Russian agent trying to avoid suspicion!!!

 

[Dogtrousers]

I did 2 in my head. I fired up excel and managed 6 and 7. The others look doable given a bit of time, a cup of coffee and a doodle pad. I haven't looked at the big one on the right yet.

 

[icowden]

I also cannot see and sense in cryptic crosswords for the same reason

Cryptics do take a bit of learning young padawan. Once they were opaque to me, now I've kinda got the hang although I am far from being a master.

Some are simple such as "Bird seen in the museum (3)". Others require some deduction e.g.
"Perhaps 2000 or 2020 players struggle to control Real’s midfield (4,5)"

In this one the clue is "Perhaps 2000 or 2020". The rest is instruction. Players struggle - struggle suggests that we need an anagram of players and this anagram controls the middle bit of "real". Thus Leap years

Then you get the really convoluted ones:
"Lead a horse to water initially, then scramble to the canal side? (7)"

In this case the clue is "the canal side?". This takes advantage of the fact that we like to join words together - but you can't do that with cryptics. In this case lead is the chemical element, so we need the initial letters of the symbol for lead and "a horse to water" then we scramble "to" with what we have already got (pahtwto). Mixed up we get towpath

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Cryptics do take a bit of learning young padawan. Once they were opaque to me, now I've kinda got the hang although I am far from being a master.

Some are simple such as "Bird seen in the museum (3)". Others require some deduction e.g.
"Perhaps 2000 or 2020 players struggle to control Real’s midfield (4,5)"

In this one the clue is "Perhaps 2000 or 2020". The rest is instruction. Players struggle - struggle suggests that we need an anagram of players and this anagram controls the middle bit of "real". Thus Leap years

Then you get the really convoluted ones:
"Lead a horse to water initially, then scramble to the canal side? (7)"

In this case the clue is "the canal side?". This takes advantage of the fact that we like to join words together - but you can't do that with cryptics. In this case lead is the chemical element, so we need the initial letters of the symbol for lead and "a horse to water" then we scramble "to" with what we have already got (pahtwto). Mixed up we get towpath

Yes - I almost understand

but I am not interested - there are too many rules

I rememberdoing them as a team things at work on rainy days at one point

we started on a normal one but it got too easy
so 3 of the others started on a cryptic one from one of the broadsheets

they struggled for ages but eventually started getting better
but still some clues were just not making sense

Then John found some rules - such as "if it says Army then you use the letters RA - for Royal Artillery"
What?? - how was a newbie supposed to work that out
and why RA - for RoyalArtillery - why not RE or SAS or the initial of any other famous regiment


too weird for me!!

 

[icowden]

Then John found some rules - such as "if it says Army then you use the letters RA - for Royal Artillery"
What?? - how was a newbie supposed to work that out
and why RA - for RoyalArtillery - why not RE or SAS or the initial of any other famous regiment

It could be those as well...

But yes, some setters do like the obscure. I can't get the cricket references which often seem to get used.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Might still get to work there one day. Maybe they'll be recruiting cleaners.

The cleaners tend to be field operatives

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

The cleaners tend to be field operatives

yes

The people mopping the floors apply in Moscow!

 

[Dogtrousers]

In my youth I was a cryptic crossword fan. I was never really good at them, but good enough to give most of them a bash. But I kind of gave up on it. Possibly because I'd reached a plateau and would need to learn another set of coded rules to reach the next level, partly because ... well there's no rule that says you have to remain interested in something.