Crossword News August 2020

 Crossword News August 2020

The July Prize Puzzle was What’s Here? by Vismut. Extra letters/words generated by the wordplay in across clues spell out CROSSWORD DOT ORG DOT UK, the location of The Crossword Centre. The circled letters spell out APOSTROPHE; the letter inserted in the middle of the grid is S. All the s’s in the grid are shaded to show an S which can be found at the crossword’s centre.

Here are some of the comments from solvers.

Very clever puzzle - what a lovely idea for a theme. Thank you, Vismut! Of all the aspects that impressed me, the most impressive was how Vismut managed to have esses only in the places where they mattered!

I didn't have much trouble solving the clues except for the two across clues with wordplay generating three extra letters, and I only solved those after I realised that the location was a web address. When there are clues of two types, I suppose I shouldn't assume that all clues are of the more common type, especially with clues like 30a where I initially thought that the wordplay was generating too many letters, but I still didn't think that it was one of the clues generating three extra letters. I had guessed the contents of the central cell and what to highlight before I understood what was meant by "insertion to the location's name". Now I wonder if S is supposed to be both the letter at the centre of the word "crossword" and the letter at the centre of this crossword. I liked that every cell containing S needed to be shaded.

An entertaining solve and a nice play on the site name.  I spent far too long trying to find Derek Harrison in the grid before the penny dropped!  Thanks to Vismut for an enjoyable puzzle.

There were 51 entries, of which 5 were marked incorrect. The lucky winner from the electronic hat was Phil Caine from Formby, who will be receiving a copy of Chambers Crossword Dictionary, which was donated by Chambers.

A solution to What's Here? is available here. https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2020/08/solution-to-whats-here-by-vismut.html 

The September Prize Puzzle will be Minor Variations by Phi.

Phi was first paid for a crossword over 40 years ago, and has been setting for The Independent for over thirty years, now in a weekly slot.   He also provided nearly 700 Beelzebub puzzles for The Independent on Sunday.  There are also over 50 Listener puzzles, over 150 Inquisitors, nearly 300 for the BBC Music Magazine, over 100 for the Church Times, and over 60 Enigmatic Variations puzzles in the list, but this is his first one for the Crossword Centre.

You can find out more about Phi and his puzzles on his blog at https://phionline.net.nz/
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As part of the Edinburgh Book Festival, New York Times digital crossword editor Joel Fagliano will be explaining how a crossword is made, how the team works, and you’ll get to take part in a live mini crossword-making session. Joining him in this event is Adrienne Raphel, author of Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can't Live Without Them. This event will take place at 17.30 on Sunday 23 August and, as the festival is entirely on-line, you don’t have to go to Edinburgh. More details at this link - https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/working-with-words-inside-the-new-york-times-crossword
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I have to recommend a YouTube video from Cracking the Cryptic, where Simon Anthony solves a sudoku with a Fawlty Towers theme. Fascinating to watch his brain working https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE-4k9s9aZc&feature=youtu.be
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During lockdown I have tried some word games on my iPad. One that is very simple but also a challenge is Word Collect. You have to make words by anagramming letters from a key word. The words fill spaces, so you can see the lengths required and they are listed in alphabetical order. It probably is a US app so there are occasional American spellings, labor for example. This app can be very annoying because of the frequent and tedious adverts. However, there is an easy way to stop them. You just switch off the wi-fi on your iPad.

Best wishes
Derek