Crossword News August 2023
The July Prize Puzzle was Gravest by Stick Insect. First and
last letters of clues give IN TITLE REPLACE ONE CLUE ANSWER WITH ITS NUMBER TO
SHOW ADDRESS and CHANGE A LETTER IN EACH OF TEN ANSWERS. HIGHLIGHT PAST RESIDENTS. Inserting Ten Down for “rave” in the title
indicates TEN DOWN IN G ST. The final
grid shows ten prime ministers, past residents of 10 Downing St.
Here are some of the comments from solvers.
This
was an excellent puzzle with a lot going on. Identifying the two letters to
omit was tough initially but, as I got accustomed to the clueing 'style', it
got a bit easier and the instructions emerged. The use of the title to identify
the theme was inspired and the inclusion of 10 PMs impressive. Thanks to the Crossword Centre and Stick
Insect.
Stick Insect's offerings are always interesting and this was equally true to
form. A nice device to reveal the theme,
and both the theme and requirements became clear only very late in the process,
so well concealed to maintain the X factor.
Lovely clues too, in all, a nicely rounded package. Many thanks.
Nice job to include so much thematic material and leave real
words in the final grid. Took me far too long to realize what "10 down in
g street" meant, duh.
There were 49 entries, of which 8 were marked incorrect,
mainly for shading errors. The lucky winner, picked from the electronic hat,
was Philip Wood, who will be receiving a book donated by Chambers.
There is a solution here https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2023/08/solution-to-gravest-by-stick-insect.html
You still have time to tackle the August puzzle, Right is
Wrong by Flowerman.
https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2023/07/crossword-centre-prize-puzzle-august.html
The September Prize Puzzle will be Farewell by Hedge-sparrow.
We are still short of puzzles and our pipe-line is looking
quite bare. Chalicea has sent me another puzzle which I can publish in October
and the Eclogue duo have taken the December spot with another Seasons
Greetings. However, we do not have anything for November. Any submissions would
be welcomed.
***
Mick Hodgkin has announced that after a four-year gap, the Times Crossword
Championship is back.
The 2023 Championship will be held on Saturday October 21st
at Times HQ, the News Building, right by London Bridge station. We are
returning to an in-person event, largely following the format of the 2019
contest - two qualifying sessions, a semi-final session for the highest
finishers in each qualifier, and a grand final in which the top three
semi-finalists tackle one puzzle.
The winner will receive £1000 and will get to take home the
coveted Times Crossword Championship trophy, and there will be further
runner-up prizes, details to come.
There are no qualifying puzzles, and tickets will go on sale
at the start of September, priced at £40 (£32 for Times subscribers), including
refreshments. The 50 high-ranking 2019 semi-finalists who were offered a
guarantee of a place for 2020 will be contacted early to ensure they get a
chance to book.
Further details, including a link to the competition website
and information on how to book, will be given here on the Crossword Club, in
the puzzles newsletter and in the paper over the next few weeks.
If you want to sign up for Mick’s crossword newsletters you
do so here - https://home.thetimes.co.uk/myNews
Although I am not sure if you have to be a Times subscriber.
In his latest newsletter, Mick, Puzzles Editor at The Times,
published a nice summary of my book The Apex Letters. Here it is.
The online world is increasingly dominated by a few big tech
companies, but in the early days of the Internet part of the driving force
behind the explosion of content and the social connections it threw up was the
enthusiasm of amateurs. It was like that in the case of crosswords anyway. For
me, the catalyst behind cryptic crosswords becoming a shared interest was the
discovery in the mid-Noughties of The Crossword Centre website run by Derek
Harrison.
It was great to find a forum where enthusiasts would discuss
clues and exchange news and views, and reading other solvers' weekly comments
on the Listener crossword prompted me to have a go at solving that puzzle
myself. I went on to meet
many other solvers and setters as a result.
Sadly, one person I never met was Eric Chalkley, the crossword
compiler Apex, who died in 2006. His warmth and enthusiasm come out clearly in correspondence
Derek has collected in The Apex Letters.
The two men wrote to each other over several decades mainly, but not
exclusively, about crosswords, with Derek providing illustrations for various
Christmas special puzzles that Eric would circulate.
Eric loved to create special puzzles on various themes and post
them to people he admired, which led to a long correspondence with the
crossword-loving US composers Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein. In
2002 Eric was awarded the MBE, the first crossword compiler thus honoured for
his contribution to puzzles.
In 1997, after being given a modem (remember them?) by his
children, Derek set up a website to showcase Apex's crosswords. "This
Internet becomes more and more intriguing," Eric wrote to him after first
viewing the site. "I've no idea how it works but it seems that everyone
will soon be doing it."
They were indeed, and by
2000 Derek's website had become The Crossword Centre, with the url www.crossword.org.uk.
This was the moment when crossword solvers moved from communicating by long-distance postal
correspondence to debating
clues online on a daily basis, a shift reflected in the account Derek gives
through the letters he has gathered here.
***
John Henderson has announced details of the York S & B on the weekend of
the 27/28 October. I intend to be there on the Saturday and John has asked me
to bring some copies of the Apex Letters in case anyone wants to buy one. You
can get more details here. https://www.fifteensquared.net/2023/08/02/sb-york-2023-friday-27th-saturday-28th-october-2023/
***
You can still read the Azed Slip on the Crossword Centre http://www.crossword.org.uk/Azedslip.html
The results of the SONDAGE competition are out now. Richard
Heald won with this beauty.
Use of lead perhaps means dog ignoring master needs training
(anag. less M; lead2 = plummet for sounding).
***
An article in The Atlantic discusses what clues would be acceptable in an
American definition-only crossword. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/08/writing-crossword-puzzle-clues-rules-grammar-compositionality/674938/
***
Finally some personal news. As my friends know, I have suffered from spinal
stenosis for the past 10 years which has made it painful for me to walk or
stand. Five weeks I went into the Wansbeck Hospital for a lumbar decompression
operation. The result is amazing! I can now walk without pain and have
gradually increased the distance I can walk. Now that the scar tissue has healed,
I am hoping to start cycling again soon.
Best wishes
Derek Harrison
