I've worked on the Crossword and Sudoku puzzles but I've never tried the Celebrity Cipher because I really had no interest in what celebrities had to say. This time though my interest was piqued since I was reading Sue Grafton's latest book "X" and her puzzle-solving landlord, Henry, was helping Kinsey decipher a bunch of numbers and turning them into words. I thought I'd give it a try.
So, sitting on the couch, pencil in hand, Annette Bening's quote took a mere 20 minutes to solve. "I picture myself as an old actress doing cameos in films with people saying: 'Isn't that that Bening woman?'"
Whoa, quick, easy, and fun.
The next day when the newspaper arrived I eagerly turned to the puzzle section. I stared at the cipher and noted the single letter, two letters, and three letter groups and noticed these standouts:
M
LY
DP
GDP
Easy, right?
I solved the quote: "My grandfather Frank Lloyd Wright wore a red sash on his wedding night. That is glamour!" But I couldn't figure out the name of his granddaughter, Anne BA_TNR. The next day looking at the answer to the puzzle I saw the reason: the puzzle had an error. Yes, a typo. That's why it didn't make sense.
Instead of W (W = E) the puzzle had an incorrectly placed Y (Y = N). The last name should have spelled Baxter. Of course, the puzzle could not be solved with a typographical error.
Sheesh, if you can't trust the newspaper who are you going to trust?
