Crossword News August 2024

 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 25^th and 26^th 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