What Would You Do?

[barry1010]

You are in a café and the rather aloof couple at the table next to you have been struggling over the last clue in the crossword for half an hour.
Do you tell them the answer?

I can't help myself, I have an irresistible urge to tell them. If somebody tells me without my asking, I have an urge to punch t hem on the nose.

[Neveracrossword]

I'd ask them if they wanted the answer or would prefer to keep trying themselves. I'd aim to ask casually, rather than loftily!

[barry1010]

You're a good person :)

[Neveracrossword]

Thanks, barry - my response is because of the 'do unto others...' stance. I'd hate anyone to just give me the answer, the crucial last answer, but I have friends who'd welcome getting the blooming puzzle finished!

[Dagman]

Ask if they want one more letter from your answer, then if they get it from that they will still feel an achievement.

[barry1010]

I'm a bad person

[lankeela]

I would ask the waiter for something rather loudly and get the answer into the question so they hear it but you haven't actually given them it then sit there with a smug grin.

[barry1010]

Now that is just crafty, lankeela.

[Neveracrossword]

Lankeela/s solution sounds good, but I've struggled to fit gurry, eddic or cartouche into my (imaginary) request to the waiter. Those are all answers in this weekend's puzzles.

[barry1010]

Waiter, I have squirted tomato ketchup on to the cartouche of my briefcase, can I have a damp cloth?

Waiter, I have finished my fish, please remove gurry

Waiter, I seem to have mislaid my eddic, has anyone handed in a book of old Norse poems?

[Neveracrossword]

Barry, a good attempt, even though an 'eddic' isn't a thing, and I think you'd simply ask the waiter to remove your plate rather than the gurry. Still, those would all serve the purpose of getting the solutions into conversation.

[Vagus]

I would politely lean over and say, with a smile, you couldn’t help but overhear them puzzling over the question and tell them you know the answer, and ask if they’d like you to tell them.
They can tell you to push off or gratefully accept your kind offer.

[maggiebee]

I love "shared" crosswords. Back in the day I often picked up a newspaper in a waiting room which had a crossword that had been started. I usually managed to put in another couple of answers then left the paper for the next person.

[bhg481]

Back in the 1960s a couple of us used to do the Telegraph crossword in our tea-break. Quite often the chap from the next office would come in and lean on the other side of the desk and stare at the paper for a few minutes and then leave. Curiosity finally got the better of me and I asked him what he was doing. He said he liked to do the crossword mentally ie, without filling it in but, if you did that you were inundated with "Haven't you got 4 across yet?" etc. To save the hassle he did it upside down, so nobody knew he was doing it.

[lankeela]

I did a crossword at work and later that day was round my friend's house, and they had the same paper. Her brother's friend (who we both fancied like mad) was there reading the crossword and so showing off I looked over his shoulder and read out all the answers one after the other but pretending to ponder on them. He told my friend's brother later he couldn't go out with someone who made him look stupid!

[choux]

Surely the answer is already in your question? You have described the couple as "fairly aloof" so why on earth impose yourself on them?

[retrocop]

I would say," I notice you are doing the same crossword as I did earlier, its a bit of a puzzler today and I struggled with 22Across and 6Down but got them in the end."
The ball is in their court to ask if they need clues or the answer.
A similar occurrence happened to me in a hospital waiting room several years ago.

[Hazlinny]

I'd let them puzzle - they must have some answers wrong if they can't manage the last one!

[Cloverjo]

When I’d just given birth, my partner and I were puzzling over a crossword. The answer came from another new mother’s husband over two sets of curtains.

We got chatting. Quite nice really.

I like to think I’d do what Vagus said, but in reality I’m too shy, and would just sit quietly.

[Barsel]

I went round to a friend's house once and picked up the paper that her husband had obviously been looking at before he went to work as he had started on the crossword.
While my friend was preparing our lunch, I decided to fill in the crossword.
How was I to know that he did this on purpose so he could finish it after his evening meal?
To say he went berserk with me isn't an understatement.
I stick to just doing what Maggie does. 11.05.