Crossword News March 2024
The February Prize Puzzle
was Annus Mirabilis by Phylax. The miraculous year was 1966. The Roman numerals
in the circled cells could be added up to make 1966. By altering the letters in
the circles you get the surnames of the England football team that won the
World Cup in 1966.
Here are some of the
comments from solvers.
Loved
the puzzle, the amazingly high quality clues being the hallmark. It's not
often there's a puzzle with just normal clues without variations, so all the
more impressive. Wasn't straightforward to identify the theme even after
completion and did some unproductive 'Newtonian' research. What helped
was the fact that changed letters had to lead to names, and a prominently
placed BOBBY provided the clincher. Thoroughly enjoyed, many thanks.
A popular subject, but one which remained hidden until I'd completed the
grid and started looking for letter replacements. I see we're now up to 58
years of hurt, and counting. Many thanks to Phylax and The Crossword Centre.
Anyway, though I am fed up to death with the 1966 World Cup, it was a
very well composed puzzle. Plenty of very nice clues (favourites expert
spinners and bigots like me) and a clever gridfill. I am always
envious of people who can fit in so many thematics without wrecking the
normality of entries. Congratulations to Phylax.
I guess that 1066 and 1966 is a summary of the average English bloke’s
historical knowledge.
There were 54 entries, of which 5 were marked incorrect. The lucky winner was
Mark Nichols from Rugby, who will be receiving a prize of Chambers Crossword
Dictionary, which was donated by Chambers.
There is a full solution
at https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2024/03/solution-to-annus-mirabilis-by-phylax.html
There is still lots of
time to email your entry to the March puzzle, Round Robin XVI.
https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2024/02/crossword-centre-prize-puzzle-march-2024.html
The April Prize Puzzle
will be Hymn by Vismut.
We still welcome
submissions for the summer months.
***
I attended the Listener Crossword Setters’ Dinner in Lincoln. The venue was the
Lincoln Hotel, situated directly opposite the magnificent cathedral. I was able
to meet up with lots of old friends on the Friday evening and Saturday
afternoon pubs, and met lots of new setters and solvers. It was great to see
Andrew Fisher from Australia, Shirley Curran and Charles from France. It was
nice to meet up with Rob Pinnock (Hedge-sparrow) who has also contributed his
puzzles on the Crossword Centre.
Jane Teather began the
proceedings by reading the list of absentees and those we had lost. It was Neil
Aspland who stood up to give a tribute to his father, Denis, who had recently
died at the age of 90. John Henderson gave a tribute to the late Margaret Irvine
and quoted some of her clues.
Shane Shabankareh then
spoke, announcing the winner of the Radix Auditorum, the award given to the
best new solver. John Howe took the silver jug.
The record for
all-correct solutions is still held by Simon Long with 412 with Neil Talbott a
close second with 409. With previous winners stepping aside, the Solver’s
Silver Salver went to Andrew Nelson with 206 all-correct. He was unable to
attend so Patrick Bair took the trophy as he lives nearby.
There were 21 all-correct
solvers in 2023 and 19 0f them voted for their favourite puzzles, giving 5, 3,
2 or 1 points.26 puzzles gained votes and 9 received the top vote. In reverse
order here are the results.
10. Self-contained by
Woracle
9. Contemporary Still by Filbert
8. Die Hard by Charybdis
7. Transposition Cipher by Serpent
6. Queen by Rebel
5. I Want You by win
4. Infeasible by Quinapalus
3 Doing the Lord’s Work by Craft
2. Life 2 by Hawk
And the winner was -
Citation Needed by Cagey
A surprised Stuart Thomas
(Cagey) came out to accept the Ascot Gold Cup. In his speech, Stuart explained
his setting aims. “I want everyone to get the answers, I just want them to take
a bloody long time!”
The table quiz had a
Lincoln theme, with the final task to write a clue to ROBIN HOOD. Table 13 won
with this clue.
Winger covering Nottingham
Forest’s poor defender
Stuart Thomas came
forward to accept the bronze casket for his table and distribute the sweets.
The quiz is now available on Jane’s website - https://www.jetdoc.co.uk/crossword-and-quiz-links
John Henderson then gave
the prize of the voting for the best IQ puzzle of 2023 to Ploy (Phil Lloyd) for
his Retrospective. He said that as soon as he saw the pattern of hexagons on
the James Webb Telescope, he thought there must be a puzzle there!
Jane hinted that next
year’s do might be in the north-west.
Shirley Curran has put
her photos here. https://www.flickr.com/photos/194321761@N03/albums/72177720315369886/
Our trip home began well,
with a nice chat with Dave Hennings, who maintains two fantastic websites, Listen With Others and The Crossword Database. However, animals
on the line meant that our train was delayed and we spent an hour shivering in
York station and missed our connection at Newcastle.
***
NPR puzzle master and New York Times puzzle editor Will Shortz announced on
Sunday that he is recovering from a stroke.
Shortz, who hosts NPR's
Sunday Puzzle, shared the health update in a brief recorded message which aired
at the end of the segment — in part to explain his recent absence from the
show.
"Hey guys, this is
Will Shortz. Sorry I've been out the last few weeks. I had a stroke on Feb. 4
and have been in rehabilitation since then, but I am making progress. I'm
looking forward to being back with new puzzles soon," he said.
We wish him a speedy
recovery.
***
William Snow has announced the recreation of Neil Shepherd's website at https://www.alberich-crosswords.com/
The site brings together
the crossword-related writings of Neil (AKA Alberich/Klingsor) originally
published on his own website. You can contact William via the website and he
would welcome comments and donations to help maintain the site.
***
Phi issued his APEX puzzle for Christmas 2023, a letters latent crossword, and
solvers had to write a clue to ASTRONOMY with one letter latent of their
choice. The result of the voting is now available, with Richard Morse winning
the competition.
Winning clues to
ASTRONOMY (with choice of latent letter)
1st Science familiar to
Greeks but alien to Romans Richard Morse
2nd A case of subject
covering a lot of space? Christopher Brougham
3rd A study in which
universal dimension is space Mick Hodgkin
***
The results of the Azed competition for MALIK are now available on the
Crossword Centre.
J. C. Leyland won the
competition with this.
Fresh out of ecstasy, like a bit of marijuana?
I could manage a gram
(anag. less E incl. a, m;
gram 4). It makes sense when you realise that a malik is the head of a village
and the 4th definition of gram is a village in India.
http://www.crossword.org.uk/Azed2694.pdf
In his slip, Azed points
out that there is a new edition of The Cain’s Jawbone Book of Crosswords by
Torquemada, first published by Pushkin Press in 1942.It is published by
Unbound, the company that produced the boxed set of Cain’s Jawbone a few years
ago.
Best wishes
Derek
