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English site of W.W. II code-breaking / THU 6-8-23 / Plants from which rope are made / Sea urchin in Japanese cuisine / Device patented in 1970 as an "X-Y position indicator for a display system
Thursday, June 8, 2023
Constructor: Philip Koski
Relative difficulty: Medium
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| [Pretend those blue-circled answers are "shaded"] |
- ITOOK => "I" TO "O"
- PRAISES => "A" IS "E"
- DISTILL => "D" IS "T"
- STORE => "S" TO "R"
... and SACREDLY DECIDE GASMAN MASSAGES becomes SECRETLY DECODE GERMAN MESSAGES
Natasha Tameika Cobbs Leonard (born July 7, 1981) is an American gospel musician and songwriter. She released the extended play Grace in 2013 with the hit lead single "Break Every Chain". The EP reached No. 61 on the Billboard charts.
At the 56th Annual Grammy Awards Cobbs won the Grammy for Best Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music Performance. She has also won 15 Stellar Awards, 3 Billboard Music Awards, and 9 Dove Awards. (wikipedia)
• • •
I mean, I wrote in "I TOOK" and thought "wow, that is an awful partial, one of the worst I've ever seen, inexcusable in a grid that's this uncomplicated and easy to fill." And then (of course) I find out that it's one of the "shaded squares" that I can't see. But even if the shaded squares *had* been there, my opinion would've been no different. I'd just have realized sooner that the "theme" is making the actual *solve* bad. Too much is sacrificed for too little. There's no Thursday tricksiness here—not in the actual solving experience there's not. And there's no standout or entertaining answers along the way except maybe "NOT A PROB" (that one has some life) (2D: "'S all good"). No actual thematic content besides the central answer. Instead, you've got convoluted instructions and an anticlimactic revealer—the least complicated "coded message" of all time. No OOHs here today. Not one. The puzzle USES UP most of my goodwill in making me read those long instructions, and then exhausts it with the final message. Did anything else happen in this puzzle? I don't remember. I struggled a bit, mostly around BLETCHLEY. I thought DECIDE *was* DECODE at first (22A: End analysis paralysis), so that was awkward—realizing that I had already unintentionally cracked part of the code with my first (seemingly reasonable) guess. Never heard of TASHA Cobbs Leonard, but I never listen to contemporary Gospel, so that's not surprising. Crosses were fair. I had ATAD as my first answer at 57D: Tiny bit (ATOM). Just a bunch of normal dumb stuff. Nothing memorable or remarkable. RENEGADE and KEEN-EYED are a nice-looking pair. The solve wasn't miserable. It was just blah. And the decoded message didn't offset the blah. That's all.
Bullets:
- 1A: Sea urchin, in Japanese cuisine (UNI) — totally forgot this. Eel is UNAGI, so for urchin you just ... take the "ag" out of UNAGI and ... there you go, UNI (this is a terrible mnemonic and I'm gonna forget UNI again the next time I see it, for sure).
- 40A: Device patented in 1970 as an "X-Y position indicator for a display system (MOUSE) — had -OUSE and still no idea; wrote in DOUSE (doesn't "dousing" "indicate" the "position" of water underground? Did I make that up? Oh, dang, that's "dowsing")
- 18A: Notes to self? (SOLOS) — they're sung by yourself, not to yourself, boo.
- 26A: One who's bound to succeed? (HEIR) — not really understanding the "bound" part here. You can give up your inheritance, can't you? I really wanted this answer to involve BDSM—anything to liven things up!
- 41A: What's in the middle of Nashville? (VEE) — the letter "V," right there in the "middle" of the word "Nashville"
- 61A: Shelter from a storm (INLET) — maybe the hardest answer in the puzzle for me. I just could not get my head around it. Probably by design. Of course I was thinking of a human being needing "shelter," not a boat.
- 42D: Spend time on a doodle, perhaps (DOGSIT) — "doodle" here is a Labradoodle (a popular crossbreed of two breeds, I forget which* ... dachshund and whippet?)
- 49D: Things that Jackson Pollock famously eschewed (EASELS) — this took me a bit. Really wanted the answer to be PANTS ... again, anything to liven things up!
Hoping for a livelier tomorrow. See you then.
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141 comments:
I solve on https://downforacross.com/ where puzzle notes are shown, but they're tucked away to the side of the clue list so I never notice them. Also their software doesn't support grids with both circles and shaded squares, so even if I did see the note, it would've made no sense due to the lack of shaded squares.
So I was expecting trickery with the circled squares, for example I wanted NO PROB, BOB! with a rebus in the circle at 2D, but no, there were no rebus squares, so I kept wondering what the circles meant.
BLETCHLEY PARK was unknown, but given the clue, once I looked at the note I quickly saw that the message was SECRETLY DECODE GERMAN MESSAGES. The most enjoyable part of the puzzle for me was actually locating the shaded squares that I just couldn't see. So I realized how much theme material there actually is... and yet this is a 72-word grid. Just... why? Admittedly not as much bad fill as I would've expected, but two partials with "I" and UP crossing UP...
SOLOS clue - I'm with Rex here. "Notes to self" is more like singing in the shower or something.
TMI clue??? Most tortured clue of the year. I couldn't make sense of it for the longest time. The bit that is actually said out loud is in the clue ("Enough!"), AND YET "said" somehow implies "typed in a text"? Come ONNNNN.
Bletchley Park went right in, so this was a fun puzzle for me! Sometimes, the solve is not about the fill, but how you process the fill. I wouldn’t want every puzzle to be of this ilk, but this was an enjoyable diversion!
If you can get access to the show “Bletchley Circle,” give it a watch! Super smart, bad-a** women solving murder mysteries with their knowledge gained from their decoder work during the war and their own awesomeness.
GASMAN to GERMAN?
Mmmm, I wouldn't have gone down that slippery slope.
More like BLECCHLYPUKE. (“Puke - that’s a funny word! And why do they call it Ovaltine?” -Kenny Bania)
Need CODEINE to lessen the pain of engaging in this CODING snoozefest. And on what is typically my favorite puzzle day of the week!
Never saw the note, so missed the decode part. Simply solved the XW. Enjoyed it. Enjoyed learning about the deciding part by Rex. Bletchley Park is pretty well known. Tasha was new to me. — RCP from TO
Apparently lots of people never saw The Imitation Game.
100% Looky-what-I-did! and 0% solving enjoyment.
There was once a time that I looked forward to Thursday thru Sunday puzzles. Some time ago I stopped enjoying Sundays, and these days I rarely enjoy Thursdays. And the price of the NYTXW subscription is going up. Hmmmm....
Sure seems like another niche puzzle from the crew at the NYT. If you don’t know about BLETCHLEY PARK, and/or you don’t care to stand on your head and spit out quarters to figure out what the theme is, then this one is not for you.
June has not been a good month for those who do crosswords for an enjoyable solving experience rather than to marvel at the prowess of the construction (at least at the NYT - fortunately the WaPo and other outlets are holding down the fort nicely on a daily basis).
The clue “S all good” for NOT A PROB looks like it was created by a random letter generator - hopefully “S all good” is some type of a hip/trendy catchphrase that people actually utter on occasion and I am just 40 years behind the times.
What demon is is it that prevents Rex from solving a NYT puzzle using the NYT program? Hard to imagine. Hope that he tells us. Or maybe he has told us and I missed it? As for this puzzle, it was a drag and not worth the effort.
LOL! Came up with the exact same mnemonic last time I saw UNI... and then forget it this time. Or at least wasn't sure enough to type it in first pass, maybe next time.
Good writeup. Agree with everything and had so many of the same trip ups. Thought it didn't seem that hard, but was well above average time, hmmm, maybe groggy.
Where have my tricky Thursdays gone?! Am I only one that likes rebus puzzles? At least do something tricky! I feel like we are getting a ton of early week type themes for Thursday recently. I wonder if software is somewhat to blame. As it becomes more prevalent perhaps adding in the trickiness is a larger difficulty gap there. Probably wrong, but *shrug*. (Also, not bashing software, I think it has made the quality of the average puzzle skyrocket, just want to program in ways to create trickiness if it doesn't already exist.)
At first I thought “notes to self” were “todos” as in a “to do” list. That would have made more sense. Um, does this constructor imagine that when a diva sings an aria, the house is empty?
If you don’t want to watch “The Imitation Game,” about Alan Turing cracking codes at Bletchley Park, I highly recommend “The Secret Lives of Codebreakers” by Sinclair McKay. The author interviewed the men and women who figured out the Enigma Machine and this helped win World War II. As an American, it was good for me to learn how precarious the position the UK was in during the war.
Second puzzle this week that just wasn’t for me. I agree with Rex that silly post-solve exercises (the WaPo Sunday puzzle does them a lot) usually make the actual solving experience bad. I don’t mind when a good theme forces some bad fill - the theme is part of the solve. But when it’s being foisted on me to enable a “meta” puzzle that I have to do afterwards, I get my SPLEEN up.
I had no idea what was going on after I finished, or that BLETCHLEY PARK (which I did know) was part if the theme. I figured there must be a note, read it, and was utterly befuddled. I just decided to come here to find out what I was supposed to do. (Great Ralphie decoder ring riff, Rex.)
At first, I thought the theme was going to be about poetry. The first answer with shaded letters was clued from a Robert Frost poem, and the shaded letters are the title of another famous poem (“I, Too” by Langston Hughes). But AISE didn’t seem to be anything, so that didn’t work.
@Karl Grouch, I didn’t see that … but you’re right.
Ready for the Friday and Saturday themelesses.
Same on GASMAN to GERMAN. smh!
Puzzle just would have been one of the many NYTXWs easily forgotten. Now it’s, “oh, man ‘member that mediocre decoder one, that actually changed GASMAN to GERMAN”. So congrats.
Never saw the note because the NYT has trained me to only look at the separate description window (where notes are hidden) on Sundays. So this was just a real shitty themeless with horrible fill and unguessable proper names.
Good point
I couldn't be bothered with the decoding stuff while solving, although 34A made it very clear what sort of thing was going on. I solved it as an easy themeless. Easy except for the SW. Couldn't make sense of the clue at 42D and couldn't pull SISALS (44D) and TEMPEH (45D) out of the memory banks, so I concentrated on downs. That didn't go so well: paIn before OWIE at 50A, quitS before SNAPS at 58A, havEn before INLET at 61A (although quickly corrected by ASTA at 55D) and that TASHA person at 64A was a total WOE.
Philip, this was a GAS, MAN.
At least for me. I had places that filled up in the blink of an eye. Then there was the NW, that fought me each time I returned to it. In addition, there were clues that tenaciously evaded, and factual answers that evaded as well, until finally my brain dredged them up, i.e., ROCHE.
Thus, a mix of swoop and stuck, NOT A PROB and OWIE. Kinda like real life.
Lovely moment when I wondered why Jackson Pollack eschewed easels, then I remembered the movie “Pollack”, all the scenes where he was dashing paint on canvases stretched across the floor, and thinking, “Of course!”
Then there were terrific clues that brought huge ahas when finally cracked: for DOGSIT, PROCESS, PRINCE, SOLOS, and especially for me, [Woodstock artist], for SCHULTZ, where I kept searching my brain for Woodstock performers. Well played, Philip!
A quilt of diverse elements that each pushed my happy button, this was. Quirky, lovely, fun. For me, one of those outings that stand out. A gas. Philip, thank you so much for making this!
SOLOS are Notes [you have all] to [your]self
An HEIR is “bound to” succeed in that their succession is “bound to happen”
Ovaltine Puzzle: Puzzle in which the solution to a complicated theme is ultimately unsatisfying. I think you have a new phrase for your crossword Rex-ology.
One thing to bear in mind is that for newer solvers of crosswords (such as myself!), working out themes like this throughout the puzzle can be invaluable in helping us to break into sections that would otherwise be impossible to get into!
That was the case for me today with the NW section, which I was really struggling with before being able to put in "sacredly" after getting the theme.
That might be of little comfort to people that can solve this one as a themeless, but as a newer solver I found this one really fun and rewarding.
I'm with @Andrew. My favorite puzzle of the week and this Thursday I have...whatever this is--a ridiculously easy crossword with added noncrossword stuff. I have a Thursday Sad.
Unlike Rex, I know BLETCHLEY PARK well (WWII buff) and it didn't help. Finished the actual puzzle in near-record time, read the instructions, looked at the grid and wondered...Why bother? This is a crossword, dammit, not something out of Highlights for Children. Extremely disappointed.
One great clue: 28D. Otherwise, phooey.
Wow. I know I had a bit of advantage in that I went to school in New York (which does have above-average schools) but I couldn't imagine not learning about Bletchley Park and particularly Alan Turing, who was one of the greatest minds (and greatest tragedies) of the 20th century.
I printed this out and my copy had the shaded squares and the circles and the instructions, so score one for solving on paper. However, when I read the instructions I was reminded of the Sunday NPR puzzle with Will Shortz which frequently wants you to complete several steps to come up with some kind of answer, and it's something that makes me cross-eyed. Nevertheless I did the Ovaltine thing and decoded the answer successfully. And now I know what went on at BLETCHLEYPARK, so at least I learned something.
I do like to be able to type "stunt puzzle", but this one was pretty sloggy, which takes some of the fun out of it.
I had to get every cross to make me realize that the Woodstock artist was not musical. A nice misdirect there.
Hello TASHA. Where have you been? A;sp. S = it's? I guess.
Hope you had fun constructing your secret message, PK. Impressive, but for me, this Puzzle K'd (struck out, for non-baseball types). Thanks for Mr. Schulz, at least.
Got to go along with the "fun and rewarding" comment from Anonymous 7:56. Racked my brain for ROCHE, smiled ultimately at the SCHULZ distracting clue and had an aha! moment with the solve that capped a slow process but rewarding finish. Went to see what Rex said, and just thought immediately, what a curmudgeon!
This was fine - theme maybe a little flat but I enjoyed this a lot more than yesterday. Surprised Bletchley Park was unknown to some; pivotal in the war effort.
No one saw The Imitation Game, huh? Just me?
When we lived in the UK in the nineties, Mrsshef worked in Bletchley Park. So seeing it in a crossword gives a completely unjustified little thrill. Similar to the little thrill we got when the movie Notting Hill came out, as we lived in Notting Hill and frequented the bookstore on which Hugh Grant's bookstore was based. We even watched the movie in the Gate theatre in Notting hill - a phenomenal old theatre, formerly a stage theatre - all gold trim and red velvet. And good ice cream.
I miss those days. Chilled cherry soup at The Gay Hussar. Going to concerts at the Empire Shepherd’s Bush. Marks & Spencer frozen dinners. Washing machine that took two hours to do a load. Day trips to the Ashdown Forest. Six weeks vacation per year and Europe on your doorstep.
This played like a Tuesday. Fill was so uninspiring that I didn’t bother to go back and decode the messages. I felt like Ralphie without decoding. Been to the UK about 100 times and have read and watched a lot on WW2. Never heard of BLETCHLEYPARK. I guess that’s my bad. That said the whole puzzle was rather BLEH.
STUPID. STUPID. STUPID. STUPID.
Hereby nominated for worst puzzle of the year.
While we’ve seen plenty of crosswords containing anagrams, this is the first time I can recall ever having a cryptogram within a crossword. And I love a good cryptogram but really felt AT ODDS here, did not love either the crypto or crossword qualities of this puzzle.
In an effort to give it a fair shake and gain some perspective on the background - i.e., why someone thought this was a good idea for a theme - I went to xwordinfo.com which, to my considerable disappointment, offered very little insight about the puzzle but a whole lot more about the histories of code breaking and . . . crossword constructors. Not exactly what I wanted to know.
OH SURE, I coped with my Tuesday puzzle being hijacked for the sake of some fancy construction trick but I really hate when my favorite day of the week is MESSED UP. This wasn’t as traumatizing as having to turn the grid sideways but it wasn’t the most fun I’ve ever had on a Thursday either.
AH! So I finally discover the "i" at the top corner of the app.
Enjoyed the solve a little more than Rex, but also not a fan of the Ovaltine solve after the solve. I didn’t bother with this one.
Lost a minute finding an error at the end. I misremembered the spelling of TEMPEH and TASiA seemed plausible.
Thx, Philip; 'props' for your creation! đ
Med+
Just wasn't firing on all cylinders today.
Still working on grokking the theme. đ€
This was 5 puzzles in one. 1) the xword itself; 2) the instructions; 3) the shaded squares; 4) the circled squares; 5) the answer (which was easy enuf to suss out), knowing what BLETCHLEY PARK was up to. So, I'm currently batting 3 for 5, getting the xword, the circled letters, and the answer. Still trying to understand the instructions, and the connection between the shaded squares (words) and the circled letters.
Enjoying the adventure; a welcome challenge! :)
___
Peace đ đșđŠ ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all đ đ
Like @Wanderlust, I came across ITOO and said, “Oh, goody, a Langston Hughes theme.” As if.
I hate to be mean to people who work hard on something I could never do but this was bad. I mean Bad. With a capital B. I’ve been solving puzzles for 30 years? Probably more and often more than one a day and I have never seen clues this bad. Or less interpretable theme.
Remember that old story where Abe and Max are having a big fight, so they go to the Rabbi? Abe explains his position and the Rabbi says, "You're right -- I agree with you." And then Max explains his position and the Rabbi says, "You're right too -- I also agree with you." And then Benny says, "But Rabbi, they are taking completely opposite positions -- how can they both be right?" And the Rabbi says, "My goodness -- you're right too!"
I completed today's puzzle and was pretty impressed. I thought it was clever and could see why the NYT ran it. I liked some of the individual clues like the Woodstock one. Then I read Rex and pretty much agreed with him too -- or at least could see how his gripes had merit from his perspective.
Funny how that happens.
I just wasn't in the mood to do all the cross-referencing I needed to do to do all the decoding I needed to do. I already knew that certain letters were to be replaced by certain other letters in certain words, but I really wasn't up to taking notes. It all sounded so tedious. I hate tedious.
So instead, once I finished filling in the grid, I looked at the grid to see if I could figure out the BLETCHLEY PARK message without doing any preliminary drudge work.
I saw it right away. SACREDLY DECIDE GASMAN MASSAGES -- with the circled letters changed -- could become SECRETLY DECODE GERMAN MESSAGES.
I went back and checked the gray squares to see that I had decoded everything according to instructions. I had. Tada!
Pretty nifty puzzle! Very intricate and unusual. I imagine it was a real challenge to pull off. But it was fun for the solver too -- especially for a solver like me who was bound and determined to avoid any tedium at all...and who did.
If you'd been born a bit earlier, Philip Koski, I bet you would have been a real standout at BLETCHLEY PARK!
Brutal. Now I WANNA sniff some glue
I was totally lost. Big disappointment
@Anonymous (7:57) That’s an interesting observation and it’s good to know there was a beneficial side of this for you. I’ve been solving for over 20 years and still learn something most every day, either from the puzzle or the comments, which I suppose is what keeps me coming back every day.
BOOK NERD NOTE
If you are interested in learning more about how those SECRET GERMAN MESSAGES came to be DECODEd, Liza Mundy’s book “Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II” is a very good read.
This is another example where Black Ink currently does shade the squares correctly if you let it download the puzzle for you. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you get set up with the automatic downloading! FWIW in case you are concerned, solving the automatic download in Black Ink doesn't share any data with the NYT about your solving/stats.
Sorry Lewis, this was awful…the bad air is getting into air systems. NE airports are stuck. PHILADELPHIA CLOSED, not just delayed. When professional baseball players are told they won’t play due to air….a crazy puzzle does NOT help…
So egregious that I posted a comment to NYT. Reposting here while I grumble about this one.
"reinterpret each set of shaded squares as three words (1,2,1)"
Letter(1), Word(2), Letter(1)
The results for the shaded squares of this puzzle are not 3 words so this instruction was a bit of a red herring. Sure, "A" and "I" can stand alone as words but the others mostly cannot.
Hey All !
Got the gist of the theme, me having said shaded squares. Saw the ITOO, AISE, etc., but was thinking that only the circled letters would be the only part needed, so was looking for a six-letter word, not an entire phrase. Silly brain. Wanted it to be DECODE.
Was tough in spots for some reason. Angstiness set in, so I hit Reveal Word four times (!) just to be able to finish. Dang. I'm tellin ya, the brain function is decreasing here.
Anyway, kind of an odd puz, seems it would've been better as a WedsPuz. Two cents...
SPLEEN! Always a fun word. Why haven't humans evolved to the point of not needing one yet?
No F's (OWIE!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
I liked it! My dad was in London and told us he was a cryptographer during WWII. Have always wondered if he was at Bletchley.
I thought this was a great puzzle… a true puzzle to figure out! I guess if you don’t see the note (which I think gave away a little too much), then you’d totally miss the point. I enjoy Puzzle Hunts so this was up my alley.
I think the kids menus were at HoJos
Rex: an operatic solo is exactly what Philip cleverly clued it as, "notes to self" ... similar to a theatrical aside, i.e., an aside
Next Thursday I expect to see a puzzle where all the odd-numbered clues must be converted from French to English, and all the even-numbered clues from German to French. Then the vowels in the French translations are transported to the end of the German answers, and the first letters of the German answers are circled. There is no revealer.
Finally 'decoded' the somewhat cryptic instructions. Made perfect sense. So, 5 for 5 in the puzzle dept td. đ
Loved 'The Imitation Game', as well as 'The BLETCHLEY Circle'. Also, I highly recommend the series, 'Foyle's War' where Adam Wainwright (Samantha Stewart's fiancé, then husband), is a former Bletchley Park codebreaker.
This Wikipedia article (down near the bottom) lists many other BLETCHLEY PARK options.
In addition, ChatGPT summarizes and adds to what a couple of bloggers have suggested by way of BLETCHLEY PARK recs:
"Bletchley Park, also known as Station X, was a crucial center for British codebreakers during World War II. Its code-breaking efforts had a significant impact on the outcome of the war. Here are some books, movies, series, and documentaries that feature Bletchley Park:
• Books:
"The Secret Life of Bletchley Park" by Sinclair McKay
"Enigma: The Battle for the Code" by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
"The Secret Code-Breakers of Central Bureau: How Australia's Signals Intelligence War against the Japanese Was Won" by David Dufty
"The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography" by Simon Singh
"Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park" by F.H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp
• Movies:
"The Imitation Game" (2014) - This film, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, depicts the life and work of mathematician Alan Turing and his team at Bletchley Park.
"Enigma" (2001) - This thriller, featuring Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet, tells the story of a young codebreaker trying to break the Enigma code at Bletchley Park.
• Series:
"The Bletchley Circle" (2012-2014) - This British television series follows a group of female codebreakers from Bletchley Park who use their skills to solve crimes in post-war London.
• Documentaries:
"Code-Breakers: Bletchley Park's Lost Heroes" (2011) - This documentary explores the lives and contributions of the codebreakers who worked at Bletchley Park during World War II.
"Bletchley Park: Code-breaking's Forgotten Genius" (2011) - This documentary focuses on the life and work of codebreaker Gordon Welchman, one of the key figures at Bletchley Park.
These are just a few examples of the books, movies, series, and documentaries that feature Bletchley Park. There may be other works that touch upon or include Bletchley Park in some capacity as well."
___
Peace đ đșđŠ ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all đ đ
An HEIR is "bound to succeed" as in "en route to succeed".
I didn't enjoy this at all. Not difficult to solve, but the code thing is utterly labored and pointless. And ignorable. SOLOS and TMI top the list of horrendous clues.
Now I shall return to work on the current Harper's cryptic, which, coincidentally, also features Titus Andronicus and HEIR.
Many aficionados of cryptic crosswords will know BLETCHLEY PARK. The late Frank W. Lewis, who produced such puzzles for The Nation (many of which I put into print and, eventually, onto the Web) for 60 years or so, was an OSS cryptographer who worked on cracking the Enigma code, on the team headed up by Alan Turing and whose efforts were fictionalized in the film The Imitation Game.
i had the same “ovaltine” reaction
Liked it. Straightforward. Although knew Bletchley, it didn’t help me solve.
SW corner was brutal for me.
"Dogsit" "inlet" "Tempeh" "Sisals" and "Tasha" - I was at a loss down there.
Shocked to see how many people on this blog are unaware of Bletchley Park.
Super challenging for me, especially the entire west half. I see there's some code I am supposed to crack, but I will read đŠ instead, and he'll figure it out. (And hate it, probably for good reason.)
Needed every cross for BLETCHLEY PARK leading to a long solve time. Bletchley is a great name for a town, eh? "I live in Bletchley Park." "Oh, Gesundheit."
AHH before OOH. I wonder how many hours I've spent working out snags around AAH, AHH, AWW, AHA, OHO, OHH, and OOH. The "crossword sound effect spelling hangup" (CSESH).
N-Ks: UNI (probably oughta memorize this bit of crosswordese in the braincell next to OBI). Never in a million years would I have thought of DOG SIT. Great Saturday-style clue. SISAL (another bit of crosswordese I better get in the wheelhouse). ROCHE, TEMPEH, and GISELE. Yeesch.
Tee-Hee: GAS MAN
Uniclues:
1 Dad's embarrassed and confused admission about his adventure at Burning Man.
2 Let God take the wheel.
3 Gloat.
4 Rapacious bronze-age Norwegian's thought upon summiting a ridge with his battle axe.
5 Try new hooch recipe.
6 Aromatherapy treatment in a distopian novel.
7 Overly polite person's response when their brain is saying, "Hell no."
8 Your lower intestine's opinion of your fast-food enchilada.
9 Promising response to the question, "How do you wanna get?"
10 Snake pooped in the church.
11 The dude who, for better or worse, gets it done for us.
12 Artistic beachside tools for those attending a weight-reduction summer camp.
1 SON, I TOOK PALEO
2 SACREDLY DECIDE
3 PROCESS PRAISES
4 OOH CELTS
5 DISTILL NOMINEE
6 GAS MAN MASSAGES
7 NOT A PROB, I WANNA
8 AT ODDS COLON
9 DIRTY? OH SURE!
10 APSE ASP MESSED
11 ALLIES RENEGADE
12 LOSERS' EASELS
This puzzle was fine. Thanks to @Lewis for pointing out the goodies. I would add MOUSE to that list, because of the goofy name vs. mathy definition.
The instruction referring to letters as words - 1,2,1 confused me. Then, as @Nancy did, I guessed the secret message and could parse the shaded areas correctly. I've seen several productions that either are about Bletchley Park or feature characters employed there during the war, so I knew what the puzzle was about. Still, I needed my memory jogged with crosses for the actual name BLETCHLEY.
I enjoy rebus puzzles more than lots of folks, but I don't mind mixing it up. I wouldn’t even mind if the tricky puzzle day varied from week to week. It's rewarding to find something you don’t expect.
I think a bunch of folks here have missed the intended solving experience. Pretty sure it's not meant to be decoded at the end; the trick is meant to be gleaned partway through, giving extra information (in one direction or another) to alleviate the slog you might otherwise experience in certain regions.
Decode the message first and you get some free letters in the shaded squares. Get the shaded squares first and you have some extra hints about the circled letters.
It's not quite the usual Thursday experience where the trick is necessary for understanding some of the clues/answers at all, so maybe this should have been a Wednesday, but at least for someone like me who can finish most puzzles these days but doesn't have a terribly wide range of trivia knowledge [side note: Bletchley Park is more than trivial!], the trick was a fun addition.
e.g., if you don't know about SISALS, nor TASHA Cobbs Leonard, nor ASTA, and haven't yet figured out the near-pun that gets you DOGSIT, having the rest of the code in place (and knowing about Bletchley Park) points you toward G(er)MAN, and having the shaded squares filled in gets you GASMAN, shoring up a SW corner that otherwise might provide a lot of uncertainty/slog.
(Maybe the better version of this puzzle would have even more obscure cluing at some of the key shaded/circled areas? Or as an anon poster wrote above, maybe this just works best if you're not quite as expert at crosswords in general as most of this crowd may be?)
(In any case, I thought this was a fun one.)
Not quite as complicated as cracking Enigma, but close. The shaded squares, the circled squares, the letter substitutions -- whew! Fortunately, I enjoyed the ride.
The SCHULZ clue is next-level good. The TMI clue is next-level bad.
For some reason, I got PROCESS right away, and was therefore convinced that 3-Down would be tattoOed.
GerMAN/GASMAN. Wow, really glad I didn't notice that while solving.
I enjoyed the puzzle, probably because I've read everything about BLETCHLEY PARK and WWII code-breaking that I can get my hands on. But that didn't help me with the decoding PROCESS here: I'd seen there was a note and decided to ignore it in favor of figuring out the shading and circles on my own....then had to give up and read the instructions. What I still haven't sorted out is the disconnect between the Highlights for Children* quality of the theme and everything that GASMAN<-->GERMAN evokes.
*Thank you, @Taylor Slow 8:07.
@kitshef 8:27 - The Gay Hussar! On a trip to London in the mid-1980s my family went there for a Sunday "lunch," as they call it; unforgettable for me because of a poached salmon dish that's one of the best things I've ever eaten and because the owner made the rounds of all the tables and made us (with two grade-school-age children) feel so welcome. On a miserably raw January day, we enjoyed that warmth as well as all the red velvet and steamed up windows.
I pretty much had @Nancy’s experience working the puzzle. I ultimately enjoyed it although I DID think there were some “stinker” clues peppered in, (@Southside) to wit, ‘S all good…dunno…I guess I think of that as ‘Sall good.
I knew Alan Turing, saw the Imitation Game, knew it was [something]Park, but just could NOT remember BLETCHLY without the crosses. This is no doubt due to the fact that I didn’t attend one of those primo New York schools like @BDJ. In fact, I’m surprised I’m capable of solving a NYT puzzle without that advantage!
I thought it was easy and I liked the gimmick, but I’m very familiar with Bletchley Park (which is fairly well known) and I liked the coding. If you’re interested in BP (which recruited prolific crossword solvers for war intelligence!) I highly recommend the book “The Rose Code” by Kate Quinn.
He did tell us all about it in his post very recently.
It was this past Sunday
We’ve had some oddball puzzles this week. I’ve enjoyed each one, but it got me wondering if Mr. Shortz decided to to make this week different for some reason. A bit of research shows that, in the UK alone, this is:
Aromatherapy Awareness Week 2023
National Growing for Wellbeing Week 2023
British Tomato Fortnight 2023
Bike Week 2023
Garden Wildlife Week 2023
Child Safety Week 2023
World Heart Rhythm Week 2023
Carers Week 2023
So, if you can decode these into an explanation for this off-beat crossword week, you may well be rewarded with a piece of cake from @mathgent.
I can’t add much, so I’ll make do with DISTILL tomorrow: DIRTY MASSAGES are better than none ATALL.
Thanks for a nice puzzle, Philip Koski.
Tom in Nashville - same exact for me. the SW was brutal and resulted in a DNF for me. Boo. you didnt really need the note and the shaded square nonsense to see the message. Yes, reminded me of A Christmas Story - one of 4 christmas movies we watch each year btw. I have to remind myself that there is no “T” in Charles SCHULZ’s name . I dunno, I guess I did not like this puzzle as I did not finish it. SISALS? TEMPEH? ugh. And DOGSIT was a bear if you did not make the connection that a doodle is a dog. I usually love Thursday’s puzzles, but not this one
Not my cup of tea, but isn't this what Thursdays are for?
I was amazed and delighted to see Frost and Shakespeare bracketing BLETCHLEY PARK in today’s grid; NOT A PROB with that combination. Add in a couple clues that can be easily misinterpreted as those for SCHULZ IN!ET & TEMPEH were for me and it must be Thursday! Working on an iPad made decryption of the note damn near impossible, but MrsNew on paper helped me out. Rex thought, “ So doing the actual work was joyless” and that was true for many above, but not here in the clear airs of Idaho….we truly loved the frustration as well as the solve; firmly place us in the middle of the responses by @Lewis & @Nancy: VEE enjoyed it as comical GERMAN sgt SCHULTZ said. And sparking the commentariat as Philip does deserves our PRAISES.
Loved it! Very familiar with Bletchley park from the wonderful film about Alan Trurig ( watch it if you haven’t seen) - so this one was relatively easy even though my software doesn’t provide instructions either . Good way to start the day . Have fun everyone!
As a former proud owner of a decoder ring, I enjoyed this puzzle and loved the clues for DOGSIT, SCHULZ, and IN SCHOOL which all had me stumped. GIID INA, Phillip.
Solved it, happened to know Bletchley, and having not read the instructions ahead of time (so not Thursday to do that) I forgot there was something else to do. Had no interest, still have no interest. The clever bits should be part of the solve, not some retroactive tomfoolery.
Often agree with Rex Parkers impressions, but this time I completely disagree. But that's the genius of this kind of activity - each person brings their own background to the enjoyment (or not) of a puzzle.
I would be in the camp that thought this was excellent. Substitution cipher in the shaded squares, as a direct nod to the enigma machine "solve" ultimately done by the folks at Bletchley Park. The history of Alan Turing and Bletchley is one of the great stories of WW2 intelligence gathering and analysis, but solidly in my knowledge range, so I guess that made the puzzle interesting. Fill slightly weak at times, but perhaps in part to get the big revealer in, and get the long themer answers in place and allow for the grey "decoding instructions". I would say very well done to the author and the editors.
Well ... after reading Rex's write-up & the first few bloggers comments (which I usually do - is that considered cheating?) I don't think I will even bother. So on to Wordle (where I lost my streak yesterday).
Loved loved loved this. Not only is the theme a terrific homage to a team that helped protect our freedoms that are still under attack today from repressive autocratic regimes, the theme for me was an instrumental part of the solve -- I was having trouble with the SW until I used the theme, in a kind of reverse engineering kind of way, to intuit the letters in that part of the code (the GASMAN).
And FTR, with respect to the GASMAN->GERMAN decoding, it is never inappropriate to be reminded of the atrocities bestowed upon the Jews and many others by the Germans during that fateful war as a warning to all generations of what mankind is unfortunately capable of. (And I am actually part German and not at all Jewish.)
‘“S all good” has been around for ages. It’s even the pun behind the alias “Saul Goodman” from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul (‘S all good, man).
@Carola - Glad to have sparked that memory for you. My first experience with Hungarian food and I've never found its equal.
The story of Alan Turing in particular, and Bletchley Park in general, is worth knowing about, and way more interesting than this puzzle turned out to be. I groaned when I saw the instructions at the beginning. Once I finish solving, I'm not interested in more "homework." Glad to have Rex to explain it all.
BLETCHLEYPARK was a gimme so the overall idea was set. The weird shaded answers led to a substitution cipher.
The rest was ordinary.
WOW, lotsa pushback on this one!
Since Thursday is my least favorite puzz day, I was surprised to enjoy this one. But I knew Bletchley Park (aghast that OFL was in the dark about this now-legendary piece of modern history and frequent subject of film, TV, books etc.) and much of the fill was pretty easy and/or grokable.
Reading KITSHEF’S 8:27 comment made me jealous and nostalgic, recalling similar memories in Paris and Barcelona.
I guess the BLETCHLEYPARK clue was a kind of "Turing Test."
Yes, maybe HoJos!? In Southern California, they also had puzzle-activity placemats at Bob’s Big Boy. I recall as a kid actually looking forward to eating there for that and the free comic book (advertising hamburgers lol).
A perfect example of "horses for courses", "each to his own", etc., etc. Being into math and computing almost all my life, BLETCHLEYPARK was a gimme, and I enjoyed the decoding immensely.
Near record solve. I never saw note or worked out the code, sadly. Bletchley Park was a gimme and from there I found traction in every corner. Enjoyed it.
On a more serious note, it’s the week that includes D-Day…
Enjoyed it! Outside of Rex’s criticism of the “solo” clue, had no complaints. I know Bletchley Park, and so should you —
it’s world history. Actually I spent a lot of time over-analyzing the decoding, even though I had decoded the 4 theme words, so when I realized the shaded areas were just as the instructions indicate, 3-word phrases, I had the aha moment. Yes it’s corny, maybe too cutesy, but if it had been more difficult no one would have bothered.
And to Rex and all that use other software and miss important instructions, don’t complain. That’s your choice. (I prefer paper)
I didn't notice the instructions, so I solved the puzzle, spent a few minutes trying to deduce the theme, gave up, and came here. OK.
I sort-of knew BLETCHLEY PARK; I actually tried it as BLEssingham house, but when that didn't fit it gradually came back to me. I just didn't draw the obvious conclusion that it was the revealer.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it would be about Langsggon Hughes!
I figured that when I was spending time at work doodling on a notepad, then I was dogging it, which worked for me. In fact, it worked so well that I thought Rex was joking with his Labradoodle remarks. But then I noticed that it could be DOG-SIT as well as DOGS IT, and that Rex was right.
And speaking of dogs, welcome back, ASTA!
I've only been doing crosswords for about a year and I'm also only 22. Should I have known 55 down? "The Thin Man" pet? Looked it up after solving. Firstly, I had never heard of the Thin Man and definitely didn't know the name of the dog in it. I haven't come across this in other crosswords yet. Did you guys know this one or did you get it by fills like I did?
APSE does not work with "cardinal"! If the clue is about a prelate, it is always capitalized. Should have been "Cardinal"
Agree with Rex objection to 18A clue for solo resisted solo because clue did' work for i.
Think ?Rex for got a meaning of "succeed " in his objection to clue for heir. The heir succeeds to the throne, etc.
Found it a reasonably fun puzzle. Even remembered Bletchley Park though my highest skill is forgetting names. Agree with commenters on how common knowledge this has become through plays, films and novels in recent decades.
But somehow didn't see the Note. And even after Rex pointed me at it, was not catching to the code. Still I think a little code breaking worked into a crossword puzzle is an appropriate variation.
“Thin Man pet” is a crossword mainstay, so you should definitely file that one away for future use.
There’s been more than one movie about Bletchley Park and, I think, a movie about Turing. That’s my kind of stuff and I loved this puzzle. Hoooowever, my brain got off the train on the stop before the actual decoding because I’m not that patient and not that bright. Fun was had though.
BLETCHLEY PARK is a gimme. As @bocamp 10:22 am details so well, it has appeared in many many documentaries, series, and major movies. Rex, Rex!
But the "theme" was a slog; in that I quite agree with Rex. In fact, the note looked so complicated I saved a screenshot of it to refer to, and that led me astray. It makes NO mention of the circled squares, so I changed ALL the Is to Os, As to Es, Ds to Ts, Ss to Rs... ending up with RECRETLY TECOTE GERMEN MERREGER.
There was some fun here; the clues for MOUSE and SCHULTZ were pretty good.
[Spelling Bee: yd 0; last word this tricky 4er.]
For those, like Rex, who are missing their hoped-for dose of Thursday trickiness, I recommend that you check out today's WSJ, surprisingly!
This was an excellent puzzle but required a slightly higher IQ than our wonderful host here has. Fun. And by the way, if you know anything about Turing (who doesn’t after all biopics and movies recently on the persecuted genius) you could answer the main question). Oh well!
most folks I know say either: "No prob" or "not a problem" - I've never heard anyone say "Not a prob."
Cardinal need not be capitalized. Much like the word “president". When referring to a specific person it’s capitalized. “The assassination of President Lincoln occurred in 1865.” But it is not necessary otherwise. “The president lives in the White House"
With some cheating I solved it but didn't enjoy it.
Being a dog lover I really liked 42D (Dog sit/ spend some time on a doodle) though.
With the air quality being so poor & staying in, I headed over to The New Yorker where I found the easiest Patrick Berry puzzle ever if anyone wants to go over there.
No instructions on my iPad version but there was shading. Bletchley was easy due to my having watched the tv show starring Anna Maxwell Martin ,or something like that, who also starred in the recent excellent A SPY AMONG
FRIENDS. I love the scene where she is told she is fired and reverts completely to her Northern English accent.
How many ASTAs were there in the Thin Man series, I wonder. The first film was only good one.
I think PASTA in one xword was a code for “ ASTA” which was shaded. Theme was dog in or of a puzzle.
I took a college math course years ago and the instructor showed us a formula that at first seemed interesting but useless. Then, he explained that it was used for a computer mouse and then it made perfect sense. It was such a simple but ingenious idea.
I always wondered if the person who thought that up spends their time drinking Diet Cokes on a fancy yacht somewhere in the Caribbean?!
To “boil down” is to reduce. Distillation is something quite different. It separates rather than reducing. Puzzle struck me as sloppily clued.
@Ethan (1:05 PM)
'The Thin Man' was a few years ahead of me, but I've always enjoyed old movies, so ASTA was a gimme. Also, ASTA shows up fairly often in xwords (as pointed out by @Jeremy (1:25 PM)), so you'll soon get used to it. One way to remember him is to watch the movie (for rent at a number of outlets). I've placed it in my Dropbox, as well (here). The original book by Dashiell Hammett (1933) is likely stocked by your local library. Mine also has the audiobook and ebook.
"In the original novel, Asta was a female Miniature Schnauzer. For the Hollywood film adaptation, a male Wire Fox terrier named Skippy was chosen to portray Asta. Skippy’s interpretation was so well-recieved, that Asta as a Wire Fox terrier stuck, and Skippy landed many roles in Hollywood films. At a time when most canine actors eared under $20 dollars for week’s work, Skippy took home an average of $250, which was a very impressive paycheque at the time for anyone. When Skippy retired after a fruitful acting career, his Thin Man role was carried on by several other Wire Fox terriers." (https://milesandemma.com/asta/)
___
Peace đ đșđŠ ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all đ đ
Well...let's see. I get back from my doctor's appointment. I sit down with the puzzle. I have to my right a cup of my delicious coffee. Peet's French roast with milk and vanilla creamer all frothed up. I'm ready.
I'm not:
So I'm told to decode something, right? Sometimes chocolates taste better as they begin to dwindle. I wasn't even sure I wanted that last bite. I would've caused chaos and destructions during WWII. Betty Webb would smite me no end. I flunked cryptography. I never even understood "Loose lips sink ships."
I knew BLETCHLEY. Wasn't sure how to spell it. I knew about the female codebreakers of BLETCHLEY PARK...I had nothing but admiration for their smarts. I never could've been one of them...
So...this puzzle. It meant nothing to me. I looked at SACREDLY (ugh word) DECIDE GASMAN MASSAGES. I thought it funny. I left it at that. Now to go find my last chocolate and hope it has melted.
By the way....I suppose if you're into decoding, I'm betting you thought this a brilliant puzzle?
@68Charger 2:31
Look up Doug Engelbart at SRI.
@Ethan - In days of yore, ASTA was in every third crossword puzzle, and, yes, most of us knew it from the "Thin Man" series of movies. We would even argue here that it really shouldn't be the "Thin Man" movies, because the actual "thin man" was the murder victim in the first movie, who never even made an appearance in the movies. ASTA has mostly been banished from the crossword puzzles because it once was so common, you can see any of the Nick & Nora Charles movies on AMC or Criterion, or read the damned Thin Man novel by Dashiell Hammett.
Finished in reasonable Thursday time. Just didn’t have any fun doing it.
This seemed like a very long walk, to get nowhere. I got the solve, but “instructions” geez. Who let this one in?
Well said, LenFuego (11:58).
thank you @jeremy and @bocamp!
@Pavel-Now that was a proper Thyrsday! Thank you.
Eesh, twice in one week the content is sacrificed for form.
Easy-medium. I’m with the liked it folks, although the fill was not great.
To add to @bocamp’s list and second Kate Esq. recommendation, The Rose Code by Kate Quinn is an historical novel about BLETCHLEY PARK. I enjoyed it and it gets 4.5 on Goodreads.
@Ethan -- Think of ASTA as the TOTO of that other famous crossword-dog flick -- the one that..
...Isn't shot in color
...Isn't set in Kansas
...Doesn't star Judy Garland
And always remember, @Ethan, that if it isn't TOTO, the 4-letter dog, it's ASTA, the 4-letter dog. And VICE-VERSA.
I agree completely. It would have been much harder if I hadn't followed the hint during the solve. But why anonymous?
I love this. Right next to "Natick" in the Rexionary.
I missed this meaning. I parsed it as "dogs it".
That’s what I was thinking. Bletchley Park has been hot among historical rediscoveries by the general public in recent years—blockbuster movie, multiple documentaries and books…
British intelligence recruited the code breakers through ads in the London Times for women who liked crossword puzzles.
I thought “rogue” was MAVERICK and was really pleased with myself for guessing that right off the bat, and it fit with HELENA which I also got right away, and after that mistake it took me a long time to realize MAVERICK should have been RENEGADE and it made the whole puzzle take 35 minutes and I felt really dim by the end.
XYZed, Thanks for the tip!! What a genius!!
ASTA has appeared 525 times in the NYTXW, at least 500 of which have been clued as the dog. Most of the rest have been some kind of reference to the Spanish word ASTA, meaning a pole or staff. Most confusing as a clue that has appeared thrice, "17.99 inches in Malacca". Apparently Malacca has or had units called asta, depa and jumba, equal to 17.99, 72.05, and 144.1 inches, respectively (roughly 1.5 feet, six feet, 12 feet).
@68Charger 9:48
He was an extraordinary human, a true gentleman and a faithful friend. I am so lucky to have known him!
:O I had no idea
Despite the fact that I grew up in Japan, I didn't know UNI. Sushi was not family restaurant fare, and we didn't eat out much anyway. I'd like to see it clued as Australian slang; I'm sure there's a clever way to do so (I wonder if "cuppa" has ever been in the NYT crossword). I was also tricked by the clue for SCHULZ despite the fact that I regularly drive by the site of his father's barbershop, but I liked the misdirection. It took me almost all the crosses to get it, unlike MOUSE, which I guessed right away.
Wow!!
Woke up this morning and realized that I failed to do the Thursday NYT crossword. I had a 298 day streak and was hoping to make it a year. Needless to say I forgot to do the puzzle. What a bummer. How do people feel about the NYT streak? Does it matter if you do the puzzle but on a different day? Is it just a way to manipulate you? I dunno...anyway thanks to Rex for this blog ...cause I wouldn't have even made it to 298 without him..and a lot of puzzles go over my head like this one...guess I'm back to square/day one..
Yes. The show is very good. But I forgot it when doing the puzzle! Darn
My grandson goes to Loyola University in New Orleans.
EXACTLY—the theme here is crosswords themselves! For me, easy fill, knew instantly what Bletchley was and why it was the central answer… and then failed to solve the follow-on puzzle.
Like many others in the comments -- astonished how many others in the comments are unfamiliar with Bletchley Park. In general, how many in the US basically think WWII started in December 1941. (I'm Canadian and spent time in the UK so am steeped in the details and myths of Axis v Allies.)
But this I learned recently: US Naval Intelligence had a similar program to break the Japanese codes, based at Pearl Harbor. I did not know this before and it does not appear to have the same cultural mystique as Bletchley. One would think that it'd be pretty damn hard for English speakers to break a code for a non-alphabetic, character-based language. It hurts my head even to think about it.
Compare "Hidden Figures." Who knew war was about women doing math and logic? While familiar with the Enigma story in general, I didn't know--or simply forgot--BLETCHLEYPARK. Every one of those letters went in on crosses.
A real headslapper moment for me was getting Yasgur's farm out of my head with the Woodstock clue. I was running the gamut of all the performers...and then finally: OOH, THAT Woodstock! Several of today's clues seemed to be saying "Okay, solvers, we're over the hump now, engage brains." So noted.
I liked it better than OFNP did. It's different, gotta give it that. I dare say Mr. Koski could have found a less obscure TASHA: how about "_____ Yar, STTNG security officer" (Played by DOD Denise Crosby). That H was a near natick for me, as TEMPEH was unknown. But anyway, birdie.
Wordle bogey.
Decoded the message without understanding what was going on in the shaded squares. Had to come here to find out what the shaded squares signified. Great puzzle.
Read most of OFS's post, and it was pretty spot on - and funny.
Yes, the decoding was like poor Ralphie's decoder ring letdown - glad I did not waste a moment on attempting to decode it!
And FLETCHLEYPARK - huh?
But my most fatal mistake - subbed an N for the Z, and not until coming here did I realize that I, like @Spacey, had the wrong Woodstock.
Ack! (just call me Cathy)
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
ALLIES' SECRET?
About SCHULZ you DECIDE, or SACREDLY UPHOLD -
A RENEGADE, KEENEYED, and A GERMAN to DECODE?
---GISELE SMITH
Yeah, I DECODEd it, not bad I spose. At least no 'rebus'.
For the umpteenth time, GARBO was my grandmother's cousin and for years resented the fact that grams came to live in the USA. Until she didn't. BTW, SLUT in the corners, but NOT GISELE.
Wordle par.
Loved the puzzle!
Loved decoding!
People are stupid!
Yes, I am an ET!!!
I say, old chaps! Quite in a tizzy about all of you Yanks unfamiliar with our Second World War hush-hush HQ BLETCHLEY PARK. Especially after all the success at the cinema of The Imitation Game, on the telly of The Bletchley Circle and tons of novels about the cracking of the Enigma Code thanks to Alan Turing's Bombe and the like. Not cricket says I!
Some of the answers in this one were DOGSIT.
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