Crossword News October 2021

 

Crossword News October 2021

The September Prize Puzzle was Juggling Jellyfish by Chiffchaff. It celebrated INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY given by extra letters in 31 clues. Thematic clues gave half of an oath given by Captain Pugwash while the other half was entered in the grid.

 First letters of extra words in seven other clues give HAT and SHIP. PUGWASH replaces captain in the completed grid and his hat is drawn in the space occupied by cap and he is shown standing on his ship, cryptically represented by a drawing of a black pig in the space occupied by pig. Juggling Jellyfish is something we felt Pugwash ought to have said but didn’t, but he did utter the other phrases given by the puzzle.

Here are some of the comments from solvers.

Took me a while to spot the theme, but a nice amusing moment when the penny finally dropped.  Wasn’t the first pirate I thought of, but it should have been!  Wondered a bit about the cryptic/thematic final requirement – have opted for showing the black pig as a black pig and the pirate hat literally, so hope that was what was intended.

Thanks Chiffchaff for filling a gap in my education by informing me there is such a thing as International Talk Like A Pirate Day, knowledge gained once I got past my fixation that  we were dealing with Tintin in the puzzle. Having three different types of clues, especially when extra letters could be anywhere in the clue, added a bit of difficulty and at the end I wasn't really sure as to whether I should be trying to draw a pirate ship or an actual black pig. Given my total lack of artistic talent, an approximation to a sailing ship got the vote.

Initially I found the puzzle to be great fun with some good clues and I enjoyed the variation of the special solutions at 1 across etc.  I was intrigued to learn of the International Talk Like a Pirate Day and cannot imagine how it had passed me by until now.  I do not know how younger solvers would know of Captain Pugwash but I am old enough to have enjoyed the double entendres (deliberate or not) at the time.  So, it was not too difficult to see that CAPTAIN should be replaced by PUGWASH.  Equally straightforward, HAT and SHIP should be the illustrations - but, one thematically and one cryptically???  My best guess is that PIG should be  replaced by a drawing of a black pig (that being the name of the aforesaid Captain's vessel) and CAP replaced by a drawing of the Captain's hat or possibly the skull and crossbones that adorned it.  As you can tell, I was all at sea over the final instruction and for me it slightly took the shine off an otherwise excellent puzzle.  Thank you, Chiffchaff.

There were 41 entries, of which 9 were marked incorrect. To put solvers’ minds at rest, the marker accepted any black pig or black ship as correct.

The lucky winners were Albert and Gail Busza, from Chiswick, who will soon be receiving a prize of Chambers Crossword Dictionary, which has been donated by Chambers.

A solution is available at https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2021/10/solution-to-juggling-jellyfish-by.html Chiffchaff is a collaboration of two popular setters, Hedge-sparrow and Vismut.

You still have lots of time to email your solution to Masterpiece by Craft. https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2021/09/crossword-centre-prize-puzzle-october.html

 The November Prize Puzzle will be A Good One by Hawk. This is Hawk’s first puzzle for the Crossword Centre. Fairly new to setting, Hawk made his Listener debut on Valentine’s Day 2021, with a puzzle leading to a heart-shaped box of chocolates. Hawk is the pseudonym for Julian, an IT manager from Surrey. He enjoys setting puzzles which give the solver some work to do in the endgame - “A Good One” is no exception. He chose the name Hawk, as he wanted something a little bit predatory, and all the Spanish inquisitors had been taken.
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One of the toughest Listener crosswords of late was Variety Show by Enigmatist. Although Enigmatist (John Henderson) publishes lots of crosswords under a variety of pseudonyms, this was only his second Listener, the first being in 1993. I spent a few days solving some tough clues and gradually I made out the partial names of the members of the Spice Girls. The final solution was a representation of the group’s first album cover. What a fantastic puzzle! However, I felt a bit cheated that most of the answers to those tough clues had to be erased.

Alan Connor, in his Guardian blog, also describes how he solved Variety Show.
https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2021/oct/11/crossword-blog-a-really-really-hard-puzzle-enigmatist

On Listen with Others you can read how Enigmatist came up with the idea and how Dave Hennings and Shirley Curran went about solving it.
https://listenwithothers.com/
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This month sees the publication of the latest edition of Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary. This hardback edition is available at Amazon at £20 (RRP £25).
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The history of GCHQ, Behind the Enigma, is now available in paperback. It is the authorised history by John Ferris detailing Britain’s cyber-intelligence agency and its code-breaking achievements.
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On our message board Phil Lloyd has announced this.

Now that social activities are becoming more of the norm again, and that many of our number will have been double- or triple-jabbed, it has been decided to cautiously resume our quarterly Listener gatherings at the Sir John Oldcastle in Farringdon, on Saturday 30th October. This Wetherspoons pub is at the junction of Farringdon Road and Greville Street, and a short walk from Farringdon Station, west along Cowcross Street.

On the same weekend there will be John Henderson’s meet in York. More info on https://www.fifteensquared.net/
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On the Clue-writing Competition your challenge for OCTOBER is a STANDARD CRYPTIC clue to YO-YO (2-2) by the closing date of MIDNIGHT BST SATURDAY 30th OCTOBER.
http://www.andlit.org.uk/cccwc/main.php

In last month’s competition, a clue to BIBLIOMANIA, the winner was John Tozer, with this clue.

What draws crowds to the bookshop? A Miliband bio oddly – Ed’s latest is out

In a very close second place was Robert Vere with this clue.

I am in Bilbao madly collecting books
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Best wishes
Derek