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jugular, the intersection of 'd' and 'u' is a pre-printed letter. I think you might be looking at 'f' and 'u', which can be resolved by the endgame -- not in the same way that the others were, but rather as a strong implication that basically must be right.

As a side note, I thought the name Cagey was familiar. He/she had a crossword in the July Magpie 'Translate into....American'. No genetic coding involved. 🙂

Regarding the % requiring parsing...I solved all the clues before starting on the grid fill with any real intent. I had an initial try but fell back on the aspect of crossword activity I like best, words/clueing.

There was a definite sense of achievement in completing the grid/deciphering the message.

Some people thought it was one of the best ever, some people didn't, mostly everyone agrees it was a remarkable construction. Happily we don't all have to be the same. 👍

I will drop out of it now, simond9x, and thanks for the apology, however unnecessary it might be (although I feel I only responded to posts that appeared to dismiss my reservations out of hand, those that appeared to acknowledge some of them, or those that mentioned me by name).
Like granama1 I worked to my strengths to complete the puzzle but didn't get the same satisfaction, sadly. Partly this could be down to the timing of the puzzle (prior to a numerical) but primarily because I don't like maths/logic puzzles at all.
If this puzzle had pushed out one of the other numericals I'd have been perfectly happy, and wouldn't have gone anywhere near the thing. However, all of the happy folk on this thread would then be up in arms - and that just wouldn't do at all.

Thank you granama1 @167 and smst @171. I had two copies of the grid and had 'whited out' the intersection of 'd' and 'u' at some stage on one copy. That of course left me with two options, which is obviously why Cagey made that cell a "given". All good now and what an impressive puzzle that was.

Dodgepot, thank you so much for the pdf and please excuse my lateness in acknowledging you kindness. This should keep me going for a while I think!

No apology needed, and a pleasure. I decided to have a crack myself today. I’ve solved all of the clues. While tough, they aren’t impossibly daunting, but entering the jumbles and cracking the code will be another matter, I fancy! Good luck

Hello!

I seem to be in the minority with drxx about this one, as it's basically just giving me a headache. I've nearly thrown it in the bin fives times but with a numerical looming and the chance to ponder it all next week, I thought I'd have another crack.

I'm fine with the clues, but the coding is probably beyond me. But to give me even a vague chance I need to know what is meant by "The number of codes used for each letter is shown by its row/column label in the grid". The fact that that comes across as if it's written in a foreign language might mean this puzzle is really not for me. Or am I missing something really simple?

Cheers,
Suzannah

Hi Suzanna
I don't have the puzzle in front of me but if I recall correctly, the numbers next to each letter show the numbers of separate ways each letter can be coded. All the ways the vowels can be coded are given in the grid opposite so there are 6'e's for example.
I managed to work out my first two consonants 'p' and 'k' I think, by logical inference and the rest by a mix of logic and good old-fashioned trial and error.
It was a slog but if you have the time next week too, stick with it, the end game is worth the effort.
And, just a tip, keep your trials and 'calculations' well separate from the grid itself, I made numerous 'redrafts', the only saving grace was that it wasn't completely the 'back to the drawing board' experience you often get with numericals!

Hi Susannahj,

It took me several times reading through the preamble to even start to get an inkling of what to do. As muraria has said, the numbers next to each letter, around the perimeter of the grid, indicate how many codes are used for that letter. So there are 3 ways of encoding ‘a’, 1 way for ‘b’, 2 for ‘c’, etc. All the codes for the five vowels are shown in the table on the right. If you’ve solved a fair number of clues already, the letters pre-filled in the grid should enable you to start at least entering the codes for some of the vowels although maybe not the full 4 letter words yet.

It really is worth persevering in my humble opinion.

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