Crossword News January 2021

 Crossword News January 2021

The December Prize Puzzle was Seasons Greetings XII by Eclogue. The theme of this crossword was the song All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth. In the grid the word INCISOR had to be highlighted twice, crossing diagonally.

Here are some of the comments from solvers.

Lovely puzzle, and indeed all anyone could want for Christmas.  Excellent craft in developing the concept, and grid construction.  Quite liked the way the Incisors were depicted in the completed grid.  Many clever clues too - could have been a whole lot tougher if 'Sister Susie' hadn't revealed itself early on, and knowing there must be a Christmas connection made it possible to identify the theme.  A most enjoyable solve.

Thanks to all the setters and the CC team for regularly providing high quality, stimulating puzzles. 

This was a fun puzzle from Eclogue. I was chomping at the bit to tackle this and eagerly sank my teeth into it. I soon worked out that the composer was GARDNER, but that almost caused me to bite off more than I could chew, as I initially settled on *John* Gardner and tried to find a connection to "Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day" or "The Holly and the Ivy." Fortunately, I gritted my teeth and worked out the tougher clues, which allowed me to fill in the gaps. I was able to whistle a happy tune when the puzzle was completed! 

An entertaining solve with a novel twist on the Christmas theme.  The missing items were neatly handled in the grid to allow all real words and finding the ones to be highlighted was surprisingly hard – don’t think I’d expected them to be crossed!  Thanks to Eclogue for this puzzle and for keeping the tradition going.

There were 46 entries, of which 5 were marked incorrect. Solvers who highlighted 15 cells were marked correct, as long as the two incisors were included. The lucky winner, picked from the electronic hat was Rod Bell, who will be receiving a prize of Chambers Crossword Dictionary which was donated by Chambers.

There is a full solution with notes at https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2021/01/solution-to-crossword-centre-prize.html

There is still plenty time left to solve this month’s challenge, Best Mates by Chalicea.
https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2020/12/crossword-centre-prize-puzzle-january.html

The February Prize Puzzle will be Changing Places by Rebus, our Aussie setters.
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We now have the results of our annual competition. 11 competitors managed a 100% record for the year of 2019; they were:
Matthew Auger
Brian Betker
Andie Johnson
Keith Williams
John Reardon
Dale Johannesen
Dave Howell
Ronan Cullinane
RJ Green
Rod Beards
Philip Wood
As is our own tradition now, previous winners politely step aside, and then of course a winner
had to be calculated by countback to previous errors...
...and the winner is...

John Reardon. John will be presented with the prestigious Crowther Cup. Congratulations!
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Crossword setter, Richard Palmer, died in hospital on Christmas Day after losing his battle with leukaemia.

Richard compiled 229 Telegraph Crosswords, many of which appeared as Saturday prize crosswords; the last of these ran in October this year. He also compiled 82 Toughies under his pseudonym of Messinae, and an EV under his pseudonym of Merlin. He had 15 Listener crosswords, most recently in June 2020 and was a very successful clue-writer in the Azed competitions.
http://www.andlit.org.uk/azed/by_cluer.php?series=B&cluer_id=70

Don Manley has sent me a photo of his last meeting with Richard Palmer and Azed on the day of the cancelled Azed Lunch in September. http://www.crossword.org.uk/DonRichard.jpg
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John Halpern (Paul) will be teaming up with stand-up comedian (and crossword setter) Dave Gorman for a crossword -creating show on 12 February. You can watch them create a crossword on the theme of Madness, a topic chosen by Dave. To access the show, you have to sign up and you can do so on this link. https://www.johnhalpern.co.uk/dave-gorman

John is holding a number of crossword events with celebrities, including Will Shortz, NY Times crossword editor, Alastair Hignell and Sophie Winkleman in the next month. Events are free but there is an option to give a donation.
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John Nicholson is devising a new Round Robin puzzle. This will be the thirteenth in a very popular series. This is what he wrote.

It is that time of year again when we ask for volunteer clue writers for what will be the 13th round-robin puzzle. For those not familiar with the process, we put a thematic grid together and ask willing members to write a clue each. Solvers can award points to their favourite clues and the setter whose clue gains the most points will receive a prize. More importantly, it is a bit of fun where we can all join in. If you have taken part before, we hope you will again, and if you haven’t please do give it a try. You can contact me on email gironanick@yahoo.com or leave a message via the messaging system on the message board.

All are plain clues this time. The entries are on a list and simply allocated in that order so it is luck of the draw. In past years we have had a great response but just fallen short of a full house so some volunteers kindly set two clues. We are hoping for a good turnout this year, but just in case we are in the same boat, please indicate in your message if you would happy to write a second and I will allocate them in the order of initial responses should it be necessary in mid-January.

As I write there are still a dozen words left to be clued.
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A site that might be useful for Scrabble Players is Wordfinder. I would like to hear the experts’ opinion on this website before I add it to the links page.
https://wordfinder.yourdictionary.com/
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I have updated the link to Independent crosswords which was leading to the wrong page. There are some good cryptics here but you do have to watch an advert first.
https://puzzles.independent.co.uk/
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Once again it has been pointed out that a solver has been asking for help on, what I can only describe as cheat sites, to solve one of our Prize Puzzles. Am I the only one to be horrified that someone would list a dozen clues and the sit back while others supplied the answers.
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In the Clue-writing Competition your first challenge for this new year is a STANDARD CRYPTIC clue to DISTAFF (7) by the closing date of MIDNIGHT GMT SATURDAY 30th JANUARY. http://www.andlit.org.uk/cccwc/main.php
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There are now 206 members on the Google mailing list.

If you want to receive newsletters and clue-writing information in your in-box you should sign up to the new Crossword Centre group on Google. You can join this group at https://groups.google.com/g/crosswordcentre

Crossword News will, as usual, be available on the Crossword Centre http://www.crossword.org.uk/newsletter.html and on the blog https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/

Best wishes
Derek