Crossword News August 2025
The July Prize Puzzle was Dame by Skylark. The theme is the
acclaimed writer, Dame Antonia Susan Duffy, who wrote as A.S Byatt. Extra
letters spelled: AMEND FOUR ERRORS IN PEN NAME, THEN HIGHLIGHT IT. Three of her
novels were in the perimeter, Possession, The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye and
Elementals. Correct clashes gave A S BYATT diagonally.
Here are some of the comments from solvers.
Sat down with this on the understanding that I only had a
few minutes, and would finish it at a later session...and rattled through it
promptly. Helped that Possession is near the top of my mental list of books I
really should get round to reading. She's so familiar as ASB that it was a
small delay to realise it is actually a pseudonym - technically speaking, I
suppose Fay Weldon would count the same.
Classic Skylark fare - a tribute to a creative soul.
Possession has been on my reading list for a very long time, I really need to
get around to it (after all the solving, of course!) Those word changes were
very satisfying, as ever. Thanks, Skylark.
I liked that HIGHLIGHT appeared near the end of the
instructions given by the removed letters, because I think it's often easy to
spot when it's the first word. I generally think it's better to have to change
letters in the grid to reveal something, rather than just highlight something
that's already there. I didn't find it too hard to work out which letters to
change once I knew what I was looking for and I liked that as many as four out
of the seven letters of the name resulted from changes. I did think having to
then highlight the name seemed a little excessive, since I can't believe that a
solver could fill the grid correctly including the names of the thematic works
and changing letters to make the name appear without having seen the name.
However, I also think it's generally preferable that all of the clues
contribute to a hidden instruction, and obviously the highlighting requirement
helps to achieve this, but I will feel sorry for anyone who submits a correctly
filled grid but forgets to do the highlighting.
There were 60 entries, of which 10 were marked incorrect.
The lucky winner was Danuta Rosendorff, who will be receiving a prize of
Chambers Crossword Dictionary, which is donated by the publishes.
There is a solution to Dame at https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2025/08/solution-to-dame-by-skylark.html
You still have time to compete the August puzzle, Birthday
Party by Arcadia.
https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2025/07/birthday-party-by-arcadia-august-2025.html
For September we will be republishing a crossword that we
had in 2014. Suckers by Bufo appeared at the time that, we later learned, our
marker, Trevor Crowther, was seriously ill in hospital. He later died and we
lost all the entries and comments. When I was in Southport, I suggested to Peter
Rhodes that we should publish it again and he thought it was a good idea.
We are still short of crosswords for the autumn months.
***
Tom Johnson has been setting crosswords in The Spectator as Doc since 1981. He
has now written a book about his extraordinary crossword career.
ALL SQUARED, a book about the crossword career of Tom
Johnson, is now available from him, costing £12.99 + £5 P&P. Tom has
compiled for the Spectator since 1981, he compiled puzzles for the first
640 issues of the Puzzler and has so far set all 330+ Generalist puzzles
in Prospect, he was invited to take over compiling the Jumbo Bank
Holiday crosswords from Araucaria in the Guardian and was one of the
first four setters of the Polymath crosswords in the Financial Times.
He is editor of the Spectator and New Statesman crossword
series.
Tom covers his crossword story for ten different newspapers
and periodicals and combines this story with a historical record of these
crossword series -- Birmingham Mail Reader’s Crossword, Radio Times,
Guardian and 1 Across, Spectator, The Puzzler, Prospect’s Generalist
puzzle, Financial Times, The Cricketer, Scottish Island Explorer magazine
and Daily Telegraph. Ninety of Tom’s puzzles are reprinted -- from each
of the ten periodicals. Tom believes that no other crossword book has covered
British crossword history in this way or to this extent.
The book has been published privately by Tom and is
available only from him direct. Please email him at puzzler@btinternet.com for details of
how to obtain a copy. Orders will be dispatched as quickly as possible.
***
The first Gemelo crossword appeared in The Observer on Sunday 13 July. I found
it to be a nice solve and as difficult as the Azed. I really liked the on-line
entry method which was easy and saved the cost of postage stamp. The second
Gemelo was a tour de force; the letter E was not used in any of the clues but
in the grid the only vowel used was E!
The Observer also published an excellent article about Azed,
including an interview.
https://observer.co.uk/puzzles/azed/article/in-setting-any-crossword-clue-always-always-think-of-the-solver
You can follow the article to meet the rest of the Observer
crossword team, Gemelo (Colin Thomas, Caitlin O’Kane the crossword editor, John
Grimshaw the Azed editor and Alan Connor who sets the Everyman. You can also
meet Stuart Pawley who sets the Killer Sudoku.
Colin Thomas also appeared on the TV programme, Countdown.
In a tough contest where both competitors scored over 100, Colin was beaten on
the conundrum after punting, in an earlier round, for PINTFUL, a word that was
not in their dictionary.
***
Dimitry Adamskiy, whose name is often listed first in the Magpie 100% solvers'
list, has been posting a short review of each Listener (once the solutions
become live) on his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@mityaadamskiy
These short videos are a fascinating way of seeing how a top solver approaches
the solving process.
***
The delay in publishing the Azed Slip for July is probably because Azed is on
his annual holiday in France.
***
Best wishes
Derek Harrison
