Crossword News March 2022
Last month, the Prize Puzzle was Missing Letters by Conto.
Because of the number of unches, it was quite hard until you realised that the
missing letters matched the grid numbers. Here are some of the comments from
solvers.
This was a pretty quick solve once the theme was spotted -
26 clues all with unique entry numbers made it quite easy to spot but it was
still very enjoyable. I imagine it must have been a bit tricky to construct and
get all 26 letters in there but there were no obscure answers even though I’m
not a fan of less than half the letters being checked. I don’t think I have encountered Conto before
but I’ll definitely watch out for more of their puzzles.
A simple idea, beautifully implemented by Conto. Clearly
this one was all about the clues, of which I admired pretty much all of them,
but in particular the amusing surface reading of FRAUD, the delightfully
misleading clue for FORECASTS, and the just perfect clue for MY WAY. I'm sure I
could go on. Many thanks, Conto.
Many thanks to Conto. I thought this was quite a tricky
puzzle, with some well concealed wordplays and some amusing and witty clues. I
realised fairly quickly that each clue had a different missing letter of the
alphabet but had the grid well filled before the penny dropped that the clue
numbers corresponded to position in the alphabet of the missing letter. That
would have made filling the grid a lot easier!
There were 59 entries, of which only 2 were marked
incorrect. The lucky winner, picked from the electronic hat, was Clive Walker
from London, who will be receiving a prize donated by Chambers before the end
of the month.
There is a full solution at https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2022/03/solution-to-missing-letters-by-conto.html
You still have lots of time to finish this month’s prize
puzzle, Endless Shame by Chalicea.
The April Prize Puzzle will be our 14th Round Robin
crossword. Once again we were amazed at the number of volunteers who came
forward to write clues. When you send your solution you can vote for your
favourite clues and the clue that gets the most votes will receive a prize.
Clues were written by Anax, Avtaar, Steve Bartlett, David
Beamish, Rod Beards, Rod Bell, Peter Finan, Simon Griew, Derek Harrison, Hawk,
Hedge-sparrow, Karla, Eddy Looby, Alf Mullins,
Satyen Nabar, Joe Nicholson, John Nicholson, John Nolan, Andrew Macleod,
Leon Marzillier, Mark Oshin, Bhalchandra Pasupathy, Phylax, Ed Powles, Sowmya
Ram, Ian Simpson, Andy Smith, Peter Smith, William Snow, Andy Stewart, Robert
Teuton, David Thompson, Ian Thompson, John Tozer, Vismut, Luciano Ward, Clive Weatherley,
David Whyte and Keith Williams.
***
Fifty years ago, on the 5th March 1972, the first Azed crossword was
published in the Observer. On the death of Ximenes, Jonathan Crowther had sent
an ‘in memoriam’ puzzle in the shape of an X to the paper. The crossword editor
said they would like to publish that puzzle and offered him the job. Azed has
done a fantastic job in those 50 years. You can read more in this Observer
article.
In the article the group of Azed followers who meet for
lunch is wrongly called the Groundings. Tim Moorey has assured me that the
group is called the Gruntlings. He says, “The founder members were Colin Clarke
and me. We met at an Azed anniversary and lunched at LS Grunts as it was close
to where we both worked at the time. Colin in High Holborn and me in Covent
Garden.
We lunched together a couple of times and were joined later
by John Grimshaw, Paul Henderson, Chris Brougham, Jeff Pearce and Mike Laws.
I'm not sure what the order of their joining was.
I do recall the name Gruntlings coming up for the first time
was at a suggestion of either John or Paul which we quickly adopted. I think
that was in Porters restaurant but I may be mistaken in that.”
***
The Wordle game has become increasingly popular and I enjoy the daily
challenge. I have also been trying the game in Spanish and French. You can find
a list of available languages here https://rwmpelstilzchen.gitlab.io/wordles/
***
The annual Apex competition has continued now for 50 years since Eric Chalkley
started it and twenty years since Phi took over. So, the 2021 puzzle was themed
on 50s (L) and 20s (scores). Competitors had to write a double clue to
SCORE/FIFTY with a redundant word beginning with L. At the end of the voting,
it was John Hood who came top. Congratulations, John!
Winning clues to SCORE/FIFTY (with intervening word
beginning with L)
1st Bitter about
calorie count, languid half-ton fatty regularly overlooked eating condition John
Hood
2nd Fellow in
agreement with X’s successor: half a century later the principles of sound
clueing only reinforce each result John
Tozer
3rd Irritated
about Conservative record, look sharp imposing fine for Number 10 several times John
Grimshaw
3rd Stokes and
company achieve little, flopping in four Tests, yearning firstly for an innings
worth applauding? Philip Marlow
If you would like to try the puzzle, Phi will be posting it
on his website shortly. http://phionline.net.nz/
***
On the 22nd February it was the 90th birthday of Roger
Squires, the crossword setter known as Rufus. I tweeted a link to Roger's
crossword records and his account of the time when the Telegraph was on the
brink of sacking all their setters. What surprised me, on a second read, was to
learn who was editor of the Telegraph at that time.
Best wishes
Derek
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