Gdn Cryptic

[davidas]

This crossword lacks elegance. Araucaria where art thou now?

8/6dn Vegetarian started mix, all oddly used for number of 20 in 7,9 17's celebrated 2. (4,8,3,5)

20dn puts clean nappy on small child by river leaving French city. (7)

Thanks in advance lads and lassies.

[scorpiojo]

Five thousand and forty

Ch ange(R)s

[rodders12]

But why five thousand and forty

[scorpiojo]

I can't parse it, but it's connected to 7, 9, 17

[rodders12]

I can't parse it either ( or several other answers this week ! )

[scorpiojo]

Didn't enjoy this one :(

[EllisB]

I'd be amazed if anyone could solve 8/6dn from the clue alone - after getting 7/9/17 I needed to Google to get 5040. The only way I can see it working is vegetarian starter = V which is 5 in Roman Numerals; mix all oddly gives MXL which is 1,040. So we end up with VMXL which is not how Romans represented 5,040 (MMMMMXL) - very poor clue IMO.

[scorpiojo]

..at least you could parse it :)

[rodders12]

But what have 7, 9 and 17 got to do with it ?

[scorpiojo]

St Peter Mancroft has a ring of fourteen Whitechapel bells in the western tower, eleven of which date from 1775 and the latest of which dates from 1997. St Peter Mancroft is important in the history of change ringing because in 1715, 5040 changes of Plain Bob Triples were rung for the first time, in 3 hours and 17 minutes, as recorded in an inscription in the tower. Subsequently, the first complete peals to the change ringing systems known as Grandsire and Stedman were also rung in St Peter Mancroft.

[rodders12]

Thank you - the mind boggles !!

[scorpiojo]

:)

[JustNotCricket]

Wow, ScorpioJo, you write as if you know about these things. What I know is that for a peal of bells each bell must be rung one after another and every combination of ringing order must be completed. So for three bells A,B and C there could be ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB and CBA which is six different combinations. Easy for 3 bells.

But St Peter Mancroft church has 7 bells. To ring a full peal with 7 bells there are 5040 combinations.

There is an easy way to calculate the number of combinations and a special symbol to show the operation. For 7 bells the calculation is 7! where the operation ! takes the number and then multiplies it by each of the numbers below it. So 7! = 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 = 5040. With only 3 bells the number of combinations is 3! = 3 x 2 = 6 which is what is shown with ABC. With more than 10 bells a full peal becomes an impossible feat as the number of combinations would take years to ring out.

The crossword must have been devised whilst the curate of St Peter Mancroft was eating his egg for breakfast. I found the challenge good and the need to research made it very interesting.

[olegrahl]

Scorpiojo is, as ever, magisterially right. But why the hell should you have to be an East Anglian campanologist to complete this crossword? Sure, with the aid of Google and Wikipedia you can get there but is that the point?

[OHCelt]

JustNotCricket - The ! symbol is known as a factorial, so 7! is seven factorial, or factorial seven. It is essential for calculating probabilities and combinations, such as how many different ways there are to arrange a set of objects (or bell-ringing variations). Hated this crossword, though.