Crossword News August 2024
The July Prize Puzzle was White Label by Henri. Extra and
missing letters gave WAS PERHAPS HAROLD PHILBY’S FIELDING POSITION. There were
lots of clues to the film, The Third Man and solvers had to highlight a notable
image from the movie, the Ferris wheel in Vienna, DAS WIENER RIESENRAD.
Here are some of the comments from solvers.
Loved this puzzle. A real challenge, even though I saw the
film just a few weeks ago. I thought introducing Harry Lime into the clue at
10d was possibly giving the theme away too early. Meaning of the title escapes
me still so I look forward to it being explained in due course.
I hear zither music…
This was quite a tricky solve with the uncertainty about
extra or missing letters providing a challenge. The clue that emerged from
these letters was a neat 'extra' and I luckily recalled that Harold was
generally known as Kim... The final diagram was very pleasing and I couldn't
resist drawing a circle as well as highlighting. Thanks to Henri and the Crossword Centre.
Nicely done, with fitting the Ferris Wheel in the grid, and
with the nod to Jack White and his record label with the title. I enjoyed it, much thanks to Henri for the
challenge.
There were 35 entries, all correct. The lucky winner, drawn
from the electronic hat, was Geoff Lee from London, who will be receiving a
prize of Chambers Crossword Dictionary, which is donated by Chambers.
There is a solution at https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2024/08/solution-to-white-label-by-henri.html
There is still time for you to complete the August
challenge, Harmony by Dysart.
The September Puzzle will be The Ashes by Wan.
***
The July Special was Mate in Two by the Badger. Extra letters spell “A woman
will always sacrifice herself, WSM” by W Somerset Maugham, and give a hint to
the first move of the mate in two where the queen must be sacrificed. I found
this puzzle beyond my capability, so chapeau to anyone solving it. Here
are some of the comments from solvers.
I'm not a chess player, and I have a love/hate relationship
with this particular theme. That said, this was a very well-designed puzzle,
which required careful consideration of the preamble to progress. Some of the
clue wordplay was somewhat "rococo", but having the additional
letters in the definition parts helped to isolate these. When the message fell,
this speeded up the solve considerably. The translations into chess pieces were
fairly straightforward - I think I might have included a couple of pinned pieces
to add another layer of complexity. Many
thanks to The Badger and The Crossword Centre.
My entry follows. What a fantastic crossword, a real
challenge and some very difficult clues indeed. I think I parsed them all
properly but hope to be able to check when the solution is published, as there
are just one or two (b4, d3) where, although I believe I got the correct
answer, the route to it was unclear. A great construction altogether and it
kept me very quiet for a long time! Am now having a crack at the 'Toughest
crossword' so will neglect the garden for a day or two more. Well done to The Badger,
it was great fun.
A tricky but enjoyable puzzle. It was a slow but steady
solve for me, with pennies dropping at regular intervals as I progressed. I
hadn't played chess for many years and had to set up the problem on an actual
board to complete the final instructions. The special situation that indicated
which colour had just played was a particularly nice touch. Many Thanks to
Badger.
There were 20 entries, of which 5 were marked incorrect. The
lucky winner is Giles Cattermole from Orpington, who will receive a signed copy
of the Apex Letters. Due to its difficulty, I decided that it will not count
for annual statistics.
There is a full solution at https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2024/08/solution-to-mate-in-two-by-badger.html
***
In his newsletter, Mick Hodgkin heralded the next Times
Crossword Championship.
“Preparations are under way for this year’s Times Crossword
Championship in October and it will feature a new trophy.
In 2018 we gave a prize for the best new entrant, and we
have decided to revive this as an annual feature, awarding the Richard Rogan
Prize to the highest-ranking first-time competitor. This is in recognition of
the contribution our late crossword editor made to Times crosswords generally
and, by introducing the Quick Cryptic and through his festival crossword
workshops, to attracting new solvers.
The championship will be held on October 19 at the News
Building in London Bridge. There will be one qualifying round with up to 120
competitors tackling three puzzles in an hour. Half will go through to the
semi-final, where they will get another hour to wrestle with three more
puzzles.
This year’s final will feature the five best semi-finalists,
up from three last year. They will compete in solving one puzzle for the title
of Times Crossword Champion 2024.
Registration opens later this month and it will be first
come, first served but places will initially be held for the top 50 finishers
from last time. Watch out for further details here, in the paper and on the
Crossword Club on how to enter.
One person who will not be competing is Shane Shabankareh,
who narrowly missed the final last year, finishing fourth in the semi-final. As
acting crossword editor, he will be choosing this year’s puzzles so is clearly
ineligible. All the more chance for the rest of you!”
***
John Henderson has released details of this year’s York S & B, to be held
on the 25th and 26th October. https://www.fifteensquared.net/2024/08/06/sb-york-2024-friday-25th-saturday-26th-october-2024/
The venues have changed, so do check for details. It was
obvious, last year, that the Fox and Roman was unsuitable for the number of
guests. John is asking for provisional numbers.
***
Barry Joseph is writing a book about Stephen Sondheim and his love of puzzles.
He has sent me this information which might be of interest to anyone wanting
some Sondheim memorabilia.
Pat
D’Amico is a social services marketing professional. He is also a Sondheim fan,
a mensch, and an accidental owner of many a lot from the recent Doyle Sondheim
Estate auction. With each online bid he thought he lost and it wasn’t until the
next day, when he received a five-figure invoice, that he realized in fact he
had just purchased 5 lots of auction items including 2 antique games and 200
game/puzzle book.
Since then he has gifted or
donated about 15% of the books (full disclosure: I was a recipient of many of
those, which are now included in my book). He said: “Giving some of this haul
away has been the most fun and rewarding part of all of this!” Now, Pat has
made a web site sharing all of the items that remain to get them into the hands
of Sondheim fans like himself (and recoup some of the costs). A few are priced
at their projected market rate while most are priced for those who told him
they “never stood a chance” at the auction or “could never afford to bid”.
That means you’ll find both
games for thousands of dollars but also many books for $100.
Pat has made his web site
available as of TODAY! But here’s the catch. This is not an auction. It is also
not a web store. The last thing Pat wants is a collector to buy these up just
to turn around and put them back on the market. Pat, instead, just wants to
give Sondheim fans the same pleasure he has felt owning a piece of
history.
At the bottom of every page
look for “contact Pat” to get his email address; look for the one you want,
write Pat what it would mean to own it, and let him know who sent you! Pat will
then use a secret method (no AIs involved) to decide who will receive which
items.
Consider this the sequel to
Doyle’s auction, this time titled: “Estate Sale 2: For the Rest of Us”.
I am happy to help spread the
word about Pat’s efforts because of his sincerity in getting game and puzzle
items from Sondheim’s collection into the hands of fans who will truly
appreciate having them.
You can learn more about what
Pat is offering here: https://sondheim.squarespace.com/
***
Hamish Symington (Soup)wrote this letter to the Guardian, following his Prize
Crossword of 27 July.
“I apologise to solves who
visited the web address hidden on the perimeter of last Saturday’s prize
crossword only to find they had been redirected to the music video for a Rick
Astley song. In fairness, last Saturday was the anniversary of the song’s release
date, the solutions to 16D and 11D were RICK and ROLL, and the initial letters
of the clues spelled “NEVER GONNA TELL A LIE AND HURT YOU”. I feel I gave ample
warning.”
https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/prize/29446
***
Susie Mesure is hosting another Cryptic Corner on 20 August in The Montpelier,
Peckham, SE15. All crossword solvers and setters are welcome for a fun evening
of cryptic puzzling. Future events are scheduled for 18 September and 20
October.
***
Collins has added 2000 new words to its Scrabble dictionary. Here are a few of
them.
Nibling: The child of your
sister or brother
Doncha: A shortened term for 'don't you'
Yeet: Can either be used as a verb meaning to throw something forcefully or as
an interjection to express excitement or enthusiasm
Sitch: Short for situation
Noobie or newbie: A newcomer
Imma: Meaning I'm going to
Tomoz: Shortened term for tomorrow,
Coulda: Meaning could have
Bancham: Small dishes of Korean food
Birria: A Mexican beef stew
Grammable: something worthy of being shared on Instagram
Floof: A very furry animal
Ack: An abbreviation for acknowledge or acknowledgement
Int: An abbreviation for internal or for international. It can also mean to
deliberately lose or give an advantage to an opponent.
Zonkey: A hybrid between a zebra and a donkey
***
And finally, I liked this conversation between Pooh and Piglet that I saw on
Twitter.
“What’s the strangest thing that has happened to you,
Piglet?”
“The strangest thing that has happened to me, Pooh, was when I worked at the
United Nations and I was asked to get Kofi Annan a gram of cocaine. I picked up
the phone ‘Kofi’, I said, ‘The only one I can think of is ‘oceanic’”
Best wishes
Derek
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