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John
john@jbeiapc.codeberg.page
npub1kl0r...9ewk
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John 3 months ago
Wordle 1,566 3/6* 🟨🟩⬛⬛⬛ ⬛🟩⬛🟩⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle - A daily word game
Guess the hidden word in 6 tries. A new puzzle is available each day.
 Minute Cryptic - 2 October, 2025 (It's difficult to balance any game or puzzles when it has mass market appeal unless its schtick is that it is casual or very difficult. I think varying it up is the only sane approach because then there is something for everyone. At the.moment, well not right not at this moment, I am eating cherries for breakfast with yoghurt and All Bran‡. It is quite a feat of engineering, or at the least, evolved deliciousness. I have half gram sensitive scales for cooking. I take a French style breakfast bowl and place 20gms of raisins at the bottom and about a teaspoon of cocoa powder. I put 80gm of frozen fruit on top, at the moment it's cherries, then add 15gm of chia seeds, then 100gm of Greek type yogurt, then another teaspoon of cocoa. I cover it with tinfoil and put it in the fridge for the fruit to defrost overnight. Then when I wake up I add 40gms of All Bran although I'm vaguely considering replacing it with just bran sticks, because I really don't need the fortifications, but the unsweetened, unfortified, bran sticks cost more than both Sainsbury's own brand bran sticks and Kellogs All Bran. To their discredit Lidl stopped selling their bran sticks. The chia seeds, raisins and cocoa powder below and adjacent to the fruit absorb excess moisture from the fruit juices and make a kind of chocolate sauce. All Bran contains sugar. So basically I start my day with a kind of dark chocolate pudding.) "20/20 vision eye patch" (3) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 🏆 0 hints – 1 under the community par (31,188 solvers so far).
Minute Cryptic
Solve a clue with a hidden meaning
 (A footnote regarding; Psychologist's Propeller EP. I don't really know much about how popular music works and the bits I do often seem appalling, but between the Propeller EP and the album:
WOODSY BRANSFIELD
psychologist, by WOODSY BRANSFIELD
11 track album
 Very, very, good art and music. ) ‡
John's avatar
John 3 months ago
Wordle 1,565 3/6* ⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛ 🟩🟨⬛🟩⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle - A daily word game
Guess the hidden word in 6 tries. A new puzzle is available each day.
 Minute Cryptic - 1 October, 2025 (I enjoyed that clue despite it taking me a while head scratching. I've had repeated anxiety dreams for about a week and a half. The first few were about CeX where there was something I wanted to buy but inevitably it wasn't working properly or they had trouble finding it. Today's dream was having left my passport at home and trying to dig it out for a trip to a very saccharine looking farm shop/museum in some posh part of California, where they think apples are magic, cosplay rural life, and cowboys pay $1000 for a jumper that requires a delicate hand wash. Although, as it turned out, in the dream it was actually a more down-market farm that was probably much cheaper and potentially more disappointing yet marginally less annoying. I got the wrong website. I couldn't find my passport and woke up before I could find it, which I'm going to interpret as a good omen because although it generated some anxiety about not been able to find something, neither museum/farm appealed to me and worst case I'd lost the money. Maybe subconsciously I'd lost the passport on purpose. Also maybe it reflects a general anxiety about right now. I'll stick with it being a good omen and underpaid* and overworked CeX workers not adequately checking their camera stock. Also I'm still fairly inflamed and have been since the bug got bored of me.) "Blue feathers discarded?" (4,2,3,5) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 🏆 0 hints – 3 under the community par (28,083 solvers so far).
Minute Cryptic
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 * I don't think the stores have high margins and survive on the volume of turnover. So it's not like Blackwells or something. But I have a soft-spot for CeX workers because they look like people who are finding ways to not fit in. They're not quite my people because I don't really have my people but they're my people adjacent and generate some degree of empathy.
John's avatar
John 3 months ago
Wordle 1,564 4/6* ⬛⬛⬛🟨🟩 🟩⬛⬛⬛🟩 🟩⬛⬛🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle - A daily word game
Guess the hidden word in 6 tries. A new puzzle is available each day.
 Minute Cryptic - 30 September, 2025 (Pain is a subjective thing, not just physical, and there are lots of people going through worse, so saying that I've woken at five in enough pain not to be able to sleep is a statement of fact rather than an appeal to emotions. It's inconvenient, and unpleasant, but I don't feel that depressed about it. Also, doubly so that I seem to be fighting off whatever it is that's making feel ill and fuzzy headed, and everyone seems to have COVID again, and apart from the last time, every time I had COVID was a holiday from spondyloarthritis. One potential explanation, which is an observation and anecdotal, is that maybe COVID dented the immune system like methotrexate or some other immune suppressant. Well, if it is COVID, and I won't test because I've been mostly keeping away from people other than those who gave it to me, the immune suppression bit has drastically reduced, either I've adjusted or the virus has, because my rib cage currently feels like I've been playing rugby against a team of giant fat men with excellent cardio health, my flanks feel like they've been repeatedly kicked by billy goats I attempted to sellotape to my back during a breakdown at a petting zoo., and my jaw feels like I've being eating snookerball sized gobstoppers. It could be worse in lots of ways. I could have been kicked by an amorous donkey, beaten to a pulp by gammon because they overheard me talking about spices at the snooker hall where the light is dim enough everyone has a tan, or caught hanging Welsh flags outside Prets. I think we should hang Welsh flags because Y Ddraig Goch is more metal than even the Bhutan flag and while I don't explicitly have a problem with the England Flag or the Union Jack they categorically do not feature dragons.) "Little bit of whisky? Not at two in the morning!" (4) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 🏆 0 hints – 3 under the community par (14,895 solvers so far).
Minute Cryptic
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John 3 months ago
Wordle 1,563 3/6* ⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛ 🟨🟩⬛⬛🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle - A daily word game
Guess the hidden word in 6 tries. A new puzzle is available each day.
 Minute Cryptic - 29 September, 2025 (Two checking letters. I'm OK. A little congested, subdued and abstract. Like a doorman with a pollen allergy, grieving love lost, on fancy dress night.) "Slender shiny sharpened steel strikers!?" (6) 🟡🟡🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 🏆 2 hints – 1 under the community par (36,740 solvers so far).
Minute Cryptic
Solve a clue with a hidden meaning
John's avatar
John 3 months ago
Wordle 1,562 4/6* 🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩⬛🟩⬛⬛ 🟩🟨🟩⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle - A daily word game
Guess the hidden word in 6 tries. A new puzzle is available each day.
 Minute Cryptic - 28 September, 2025 (I'm still too slow at certain puzzle things. I suspect I have a cold or COVID. Or At least the early stages of either. Last time I had COVID was the 16th of October 2023 to the 18th of October 2023, positive to negative. That was the third, and least severe, having been repeatedly infected and vaccinated, by that time. The first time I had a tremendously bad sore throat - the worst sore throat I've had in adulthood. The second time wasn't that bad - a week of feeling a bit odd and unwell, however the sting in the tail was about a week later I had my first ever bout of Actual Flu. I've capitalised Actual Flu because IYKYK - very unpleasant, I couldn't stand, pain levels concomitant with a full arthritic flare-up, a day of feeling so unpleasantly ill I thought I may die. The one thing that has united each bout of COVID is hyperosmia - the opposite of what COVID is generally associated with and a massive, virtually bonkers, craving for meat. I did my self a bacon, eggs and black pudding every day with a throat of razor blades. All of which sound like bullshit but a quick search reveals a similar theme for some on some vegan forums and I am mostly vegan, very omnivorous, so it's not some misguided meat flex. Nature rolls dice so I'm not confident COVID will always be like that for me and I won't relish having it again. It's not trivial. Any virus, maybe especially a relatively novel one like COVID, carries a risk of post viral complications. I'm not sure I'd notice because I already have an auto-immune disease. If I'm found in Tunbridge Wells' M&S gorging myself on black-pudding, steak & kidney pudding and assorted animal meat products you'll know it happened again. I'd maybe get some pastries or cake for afters. I wouldn't do that because I wouldn't want to infect other people. I'd be there in spirit and someone else will have a shopping list, maybe the person who infected me. I wouldn't discuss this on ordinary social media because of people in general having Opinions.) "Ballpark teams’ tie-breaker" (8) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 🏆 0 hints – 2 under the community par (19,033 solvers so far).
Minute Cryptic
Solve a clue with a hidden meaning
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John 3 months ago
Wordle 1,561 4/6* ⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛ 🟨🟩🟩⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle - A daily word game
Guess the hidden word in 6 tries. A new puzzle is available each day.
 Minute Cryptic - 27 September, 2025 (I found this one very difficult and actually had it worked out in terms of definition and indicators but didn't quite get there. I feel like I've been lobotomized because it's obvious. I must have overslept or slept too deeply. So I dipped in and out of solving this one while doing, or distracted , by other things. That's an excuse though because I feel stupid today. Maybe learning is transcending the steps of stupidity. I hope not.) "Dressing naked pair for clip" (5) ⚪️⚪️🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 🤝 2 hints – matched the community par (35,370 solvers so far).
Minute Cryptic
Solve a clue with a hidden meaning
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John 3 months ago
Wordle 1,560 3/6* ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟨🟩⬛🟨⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle - A daily word game
Guess the hidden word in 6 tries. A new puzzle is available each day.
 Minute Cryptic - 26 September, 2025 (a difficult one. I was given a programme for a school play I was in, from 1995, as the news about digital IDs broke. Which most people are for, which I'm not against, but I'm also quite skeptical about what they'll achieve. In the early 1990s my school trialled, for maybe a year, memory is not perfect, swipe cards as a way of registering pupils. I was done in conjunction with class registers - the teacher would call out the names of the pupils to get them to say "yes sir" or "yes miss" as a kind of visually backed biometric identification. It took about two days for myself, Ashley, and others to work out that double lessons were relying on the swipe cards. On double lessons you could hand your card to someone else to swipe in because all a person had to do was run a card through a reader at the door. I don't think it happened much because class sizes were quite small. But the next stage, were the swipe cards used by the state, in that case the school, to validate pupils, it would necessarily need another authentication factor. Whether that was a PIN or biometric authentication. Which would work well for class registration. They had digital, parent controlled, lunch cards at my nephews school, whereby if someone's card was undercharged or they forgot it they could use someone else's card, possibly with the aid of the cardholder to get lunch. I don't think it happened but one could also convert money from parents on the lunch cards to cash by reselling, presumably at less than face value, more desirable snacks. The only way that a government ID will prevent Bad Things is if it's biometric, if people play by the rules, and if cash, or equivalent value, doesn't exist. Because people doing anything illegal don't give a shit about IDs and aren't going to play by the rules unlike the postmasters in the British Post Office Scandal. It will, TBF, also help if, god forbid, a truly authoritarian government gets in and wants to make the life of [insert your creed/ethnicity/politics here] difficult. I don't think this government has bad intentions regarding digital IDs, like China's National Online Identity Authentication App, and I'd quite happily use a digital ID. I also think it will be subcontracted to people like Microsoft, Palintir or Oracle (any of whom may do a good job), subject to AI evaluation (see post office scandal), and other bits as underfunded and ad-hoc as large chunks of the British state. Like most countries we already have the infrastructure for a police state but lack the police or the inclination, for now. So whatever. It'll effect muggles, haemophiliacs and other healthcare users, and I wouldn't vote Reform because a lot of racists would. I'm sceptical because scepticism makes for a better system not a worse one. Not checked for spelling or grammar.) "PR pro .rD?" (4,6) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 🏆 0 hints – 4 under the community par (24,540 solvers so far).
Minute Cryptic
Solve a clue with a hidden meaning
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John 3 months ago
Wordle 1,559 3/6* ⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛ ⬛🟩🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle - A daily word game
Guess the hidden word in 6 tries. A new puzzle is available each day.
 Minute Cryptic - 25 September, 2025 (I found this one difficult. I have been a little down because it was the 22nd of September last year when my dad died. I had a call at about 3am and last saw him about 11pm. I'm not especially down just not sure I can effectively communicate things that do or don't annoy me about life in a way that isn't coloured by that. It's the time of year too. There are also things to be cheerful about. Having a legit reason to wear a jumper or fleece. Better photography light. Breakfast.) "Undercover reporter changed surname to protect privacy, initially?" (8) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 🏆 0 hints – 3 under the community par (26,558 solvers so far).
Minute Cryptic
Solve a clue with a hidden meaning
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John 3 months ago
Wordle 1,554 3/6* 🟨⬛🟨⬛🟨 🟨🟩🟩⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle - A daily word game
Guess the hidden word in 6 tries. A new puzzle is available each day.
 Minute Cryptic - 20 September, 2025 (np.‡) "Religious space cosmonaut struggling with lack of oxygen" (7) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 I scored: 3 under par
Minute Cryptic
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 ‡ It's not that I've run out of words, or that I am more ill than normal, or anything else negative, or positive — I'm having a hiatus from writing this.
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John 3 months ago
Wordle 1,552 2/6* 🟨⬛🟩🟨⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle - A daily word game
Guess the hidden word in 6 tries. A new puzzle is available each day.
 Minute Cryptic - 18 September, 2025 (I nearly finished their book, I'm 1/3td of the way through the bigger crossword at the end. I could have finished the book much faster but I tend to go slower, rather than faster, with books I enjoy. It's one of those books a person buys for someone else in the hope that they'll enjoy it too. Whether it ends up like good, but apparently overly red, boots bought for a niece, as decided by her friends "little red riding hood" comments, it's ultimately up to the receiver whether or not the gift is useful. Especially when it is work reading it, or a distraction. If everyone liked the same stuff it'd be a dull world, and, in the case of anyone a generation apart you're definitely better asking them what they want rather than making any assumptions. Although I have recently acquired some Vans, which are slightly too small for me, because a nephew didn't like them and kept them at the bottom of a pile of stuff, then left for university, and definitely hates them, so every cloud has a silver lining and possibly blisters until they stretch. I watched bits of President Trump's state visit to Windsor Castle yesterday and it was quite amazing but I did feel for them having to sit through the bit where the, exceptionally skillful and well rehearsed, military bands played music and marched around a field. I think I would have ordered a drone strike on an empty field somewhere so I could duck out for a bit and avoid insult - because it's not them it's the music. People like different things, that's normal, but over an hour of that and I'd go as far as invading Barbados to get out of listening to it. Maybe that's the idea. War music.) "Buzzer-beater was thrown with second on stopwatch" (4) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 I scored: 2 under par
Minute Cryptic
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John 3 months ago
Wordle 1,551 4/6* ⬛🟨⬛⬛🟨 🟨🟩⬛⬛⬛ ⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle - A daily word game
Guess the hidden word in 6 tries. A new puzzle is available each day.
 Minute Cryptic - 17 September, 2025 (I'm up to page 295 which works out something like 19 pages , or about another 8 puzzles further fotward, in the Lucky Dip 2 section of their book. The Minute Cryptic book is good value because after the tutorials there are enough MC style clues to put theory into practice at one's own speed. If the Minute Cryptic book is especially popular I can see others using a Buzz Books style approach. Buzz Books were a publisher of small hardback books for children. In the mid 1980s thought to early 1990 there were small hardback books of Thomas The Tank Engine published by Ladybird Books, each book contained two or more stories from Series 1, and subsequently Series 2. After which point Ladybird did (and do) publish Thomas The Tank Engine books, but single, bigger, more lucrative, original, books. From 1991 through to 1996 Buzz Books used the materials from the Ladybird books but had a single episode per book. So they could turn 1 book into 2 at roughly the same cover price. I know this because a, adult, nephew is somewhat obsessed by them. There must be a ton of cryptic crossword material from British broadsheet newspapers and if the single clue format is popular a lot of that material could be reused. If there are 70-ish clues per crossword that's seventy pages per crossword plus hint pages. Which sounds like it'd be easy and lucrative but it would be a great deal of work because of the hint pages - Minute Cryptic have clearly thought a great deal about the format and progression of their hints. So it wouldn't be entirely Buzz Books-like to produce a knock-off MC style book using existing newspaper crosswords. Although a clue referencing when Dionysus tried having sex with phytoplankton while high would be more accessible to people without a classical education and those who don't listen to BBC Radio 4.) "Every prime cut from homebred cattle?" (4) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 I scored: 2 under par
Minute Cryptic
Solve a clue with a hidden meaning
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John 3 months ago
Wordle 1,550 3/6* 🟨⬛⬛⬛🟨 🟨⬛⬛🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle - A daily word game
Guess the hidden word in 6 tries. A new puzzle is available each day.
 Minute Cryptic - 16 September, 2025 (I'm on page 275 of Minute Cryptic's book, in the 'Lucky Dip 2' bit, because I've slowed down, doing a few before bed, and I'm enjoying the puzzles at the end. I suspect, along with a couple of crossword dictionaries I acquired, that the method that the MC book uses for teaching is very effective, or at least very effective for me, when applied to larger crosswords. The granular nature of learning individual clue patterns when applied to a larger form of a full crossword works as well as learning the rudiments of any gestalt form composed of those rudiments. There is a symmetry in how kids learn where initially everything is blurred and nebulous, like a baby's gibber, and it comes into focus as it is further refined by experience and feedback. There are parallels with neural networks and LLMs in that regard. I wonder if we should be more tolerant of getting stuff wrong on the path to getting stuff right, where permissable, because gibbering along to a song in a foreign language, as an adult, maybe having a similar effect to a baby gibbering along. That's part of the greatness of certain programming language compilers, such as Rust's, because they give good feedback once understood. I think autocorrect, LLMs and plugins don't inhibit learning but I suspect they may slow it down, under certain circumstances, because there is a whole chunk of 'doing' taken out of the process. But maybe a lot of it was pointless 'doing" to begin with, at least sometimes, it depends on context.) "Listen out for Mum" (6) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 I scored: 2 under par
Minute Cryptic
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John 3 months ago
Wordle 1,549 4/6* ⬛🟨⬛🟨⬛ 🟩🟨🟨⬛⬛ 🟩⬛⬛🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle - A daily word game
Guess the hidden word in 6 tries. A new puzzle is available each day.
 Minute Cryptic - 15 September, 2025 (I am not keen on this clue, but maybe that's sour grapes rather than a legitimate gripe. I don't think it's a fair clue but other people got it so I'm probably wrong.) "Tingers tolded!?" (4) 🟡🟡🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣
Minute Cryptic
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