Do you like puzzles? Do you like political humor? And are you in the mood for a little Sunday night socializing?
Then you're in the right place!
Welcome to Sunday Puzzle, a weekly series which currently posts Sunday evenings at 8:30 pm Eastern time / 5:30 pm Pacific time.
Sunday Puzzle is a weekly party, featuring puzzles suitable for group puzzle-solving. Everyone is welcome, and you don't need to be a puzzle genius to take part. We try to mix a little political humor into the puzzles and comments, so even if you're stuck for the answers there's still plenty to say and do.
Come on down, introduce yourself if you'd like, take a look at the puzzles, and join in on some Sunday evening fun. On tap tonight:
* two unsolved puzzles from the past two weeks;
* two new code puzzles;
* a new mystery puzzle; and
* a new 51-clue JulieCrostic (with a devious twist)!
Let's start tonight with the two unsolved puzzles.
[Unsolved!] Puzzle # 1: Spoonerisms
Two weeks ago I contributed this puzzle to the potluck puzzle party:
1. travel from Trafalgar Square to the Temple Bar (4)
2. travel to side protected from wind (2,3)
2. ermine (which resembles Rowling's bush): toss the vehicle to where it will be sheltered from the wind (7, 8)
3. similar to Romney's business (2)
4. vehicles lean over, causing onlookers to jeer (4)
5. device sailor uses to transmit voice (2, 1)
NOTE: the original version of # 2 was for only part of a longer phrase. The longer phrase is well known; the partial phrase is not. I have corrected this by substituting in a clue to a Spoonerism of the complete phrase -- which is what I should have posted in the first place.
OldPhart correctly figured out
the answer to # 3:
similar to Romney's business (2) = LIKE BAIN which is a spoonerism for BIKE LANE
But no one has posted the answers to # 1, # 2, # 4 or # 5 yet, even though I re-posted this puzzle last week. So here it is once more.
I believe most of the answers can be deduced fairly easily, and will be willing to demonstrate if people would like. If you'd like me to post the answers to one or more of these, vote in the poll on when and how I should do so.
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[Unsolved!] Puzzle # 2: Mystery Puzzle
Last week I posted this mystery puzzle (which no one solved despite my having provided a very generous clue in the diary):
What Obama would have if he appointed Ms. Torres to be head of a government department created in 1930.
So here it is again. If you need help, you can look through
last week's diary to see if you can spot the clue I provided...
Or you can simply proceed to the next puzzle in tonight's diary, immediately below, which provides another even more generous clue to the solution.
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[NEW!] Puzzle # 3: another Mystery Puzzle
All right, I'm not going to tell you what kind of puzzle this is, but regular Sunday Puzzlers should be able to figure it out without too much difficulty. And once you solve this one, you'll have the answer to last week's Mystery Puzzle.
Are you ready? Okay, here it is:
5. Again???
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[NEW!] Puzzle # 4: a JulieGram
Julie Waters, the founder of the Sunday Puzzle series, came up with an interesting variation on cryptograms: she replaced all the vowels with asterisks!
There are various programs online which can solve standard cryptograms simply by using brute force (plugging in every possible letter substitution combination until the program comes up with one that produces a readable answer) but those won't work on this -- so you'll need to use your wits to solve it...
He* is*no*w t*he S*wa*m pa’h he*h e r*ip be*ak*ak e*p w*ag. He is*no*w p he*h e r**ip be*ak*ak e*p ph*sm.
Okay, that may be a bit hard. So I've provided a second code message to help you with the first...
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[NEW!] Puzzle # 5: a Crypto-Gremlin
Crypto-Gremlins are, like JulieGrams, cryptograms which can't be solved by online programs. What I've done is made sure every word starts with a consonant or consonant sound (by adding a consonant of my choice to any word which does not start that way) and every word ends with a vowel or vowel sound (by adding a vowel of my choice to the end of any word which does not end that way). You can find complete rules for Crypto-Gremlins here.
The encoded message comes from the same source as the JulieGram -- so once you solve one you should be able to solve the other.
Malign egopig utht bastrtqpsa qpmggmn zphy kp bma-quatqgmy. Wtip rug hramn ug rgsshy, ug upct xpia wgbtbupin, kp dsphug ladp vtihtourg, bpicy qalltrrgct utlhgsda rugmgpdrgmn ra bmargqrtiog stdg. Eyra ruprg fthi’rn fupra upbbgigcn.
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[NEW!] Puzzle # 6: a JulieDoubleCrostic
Those evil gremlins! Not content with simply to gremlinize one of tonight's cryptograms, they also got into tonight's JulieCrostic.
What happened is this. I'd prepared two related JulieCrostics for tonight, had them all clued up and ready to post -- and fell asleep.
When I woke up I discovered the gremlins had already posted the clues to the diary. Great! Less work for me! ...
Until I discovered they had run the two acrostics together, renumbering the clues in the second one so they continue the numbering of the first.
Alas, I don't have time to go through, figure out where the numbering of the first JulieCrostic ends, and re-number the clues to the second one. So you'll need to do that for yourselves.
As I recall, the acrostics have a different number of answers in their rows. Which means the word length patterns will be different, too. The clues, as usual, are all grouped in bundles of three, but (as usual) that doesn't mean there are three answers per row -- just that the gremlins share my fondness for grouping the clues that way.
There doesn't seem to be a 51st clue, so that's probably just a place-holder...
Have fun, and good luck!
1. confuse
2. go slowly
3. wrap
4. severe
5. lays to rest
6. keeps
7. ceremonies
8. there's a liquid (which, despite the claims made, does not clean floors or cure gonorrhea) named after him
9. amy or ben
10. goes through the front page
11. smooth speckled white witch
12. card distributors
13. challenges
14. brought up
15. long rants
16. more silent
17. adult
18. unprofessional
19. stoop
20. writer of prison notes
21. fixing
22. inspect
23. green
24. stop
25. what there was, once upon a time, according to hopkin
26. misdeed
27. a marvel villain, a dc hero, and a dialogue
28. buffalo
29. carrie and damian
30. stewart
31. a place to sleep
32. evil baron
33. resided
34. kind of shirt
35. kind of titan
36. useful key
37. not long ago
38. coats
39. martin
40. name durante is more commonly known by
41. what you can do here
42. young guy
43. leader of killers, follower of ma
44. kos's leader
45. tediously
46. perfect
47. posted
48. touch muscle
49. somewhat out of it
50. completely out of it
51.
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Have fun, and I'll see you in the comments /