Crossword News May 2026

 

Crossword News May 2026.

The April Prize Crossword was Half-baked by Chalicea. 11 stupid or foolish people appeared in the perimeter and unclued lights. Solvers were instructed to SHADE TWO MORE NONGS - requiring them to shade the COCKWOMBLE and HEADBANGER.

Here are some of the comments from solvers.

It says a lot about our opinion of ourselves as a species that there should be quite so many synonyms for a fool... No matter, it makes for excellent crossword fodder (as we saw with various cryptics in the dailies at the start of the month, which trod similar ground). No complaints here though, especially with words like WAZZOCK and COCKWOMBLE getting some much deserved airtime in crosswordland. Thanks, Chalicea.

Pleasingly irreverent – surely the first time I’ve come across COCKWOMBLE in a grid but hopefully not the last!

With 44% of the cells being thematic, there were always going to be many obscure words. Clever composition to place 13 'fools' in the grid. [I was interested in my reaction to this puzzle. Of course we cannot legislate about which words or themes are 'acceptable' in a puzzle - nor would I wish to do so. But I found it disquieting to be reminded how many ways we have to call people stupid. It makes for a depressing commentary on human nature.]

I felt like a right [inserted preferred term here] when I finally noticed the two long diagonals after much scanning of the grid. Hats off to Chalicea, who is certainly not any of the synonyms found herein.

There were 43 correct, out of 59 entrants. The most common errors were highlighting errors or a lack of highlighting, plus a couple of people putting WAD rather than DAW as one of the insults, which doesn't seem to be backed up by Chambers.

The first name out of the hat was Keith Sutherland, who will be receiving a prize of Chambers Crossword Dictionary, which was donated by the publishers.

There is a full solution at https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2026/05/solution-to-half-baked-by-chalicea.html

You still have time to enter your solution to the May Prize Puzzle, Adorns Anew by Yimin. https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2026/04/may-2026-adorns-anew-by-yimin.html

The June Prize Crossword will be Replace by Curmudgeon.

After that, the pipeline is completely empty. I have relied on the good will of setters to maintain our monthly puzzles for 25 years and that is incredible. Maybe you have a puzzle that you would like to have published on the Crossword Centre. I can guarantee sympathetic testing, and excellent publicity. Many established setters had their first puzzles on the Crossword Centre.

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The Guardian gave early notice of their 30,000^th crossword in an excellent article by their crossword editor, Alan Connor. It is worth reading for the memorable crosswords and articles it contains.
https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2026/may/06/crossword-editors-desk-the-guardian-30000th-cryptic

The Guardian published its crossword no. 30,000 on the 7^th of May and marked it with an Editorial - 30,000 grids of noble trickery The puzzle was set by Arachne https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/30000  

You will probably need to try the Quick Crossword on the same day https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/quick/17473 and this might lead you back to the Editorial to be read more carefully and lead to another challenge. Great stuff!
 I don’t want to give too much away if you want to try the puzzles. However, you can find a blog of it on Fifteensquared

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We learn that the editor of the Sunday Telegraph’s EV puzzles, Steve Bartlett, will be stepping down at the end of May. John Henderson, the editor of the Inquisitor puzzles in the i-paper, will be taking on the role.
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In the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament the winner was Erik Agard. You can see all the results here - https://www.crosswordtournament.com/2026/index.htm
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Recently added to the Crossword Centre blog is a lovely crossword by Ximenes. The Definition-Letter-Mixture type of clue has gone out of fashion but when skilfully managed by Ximenes it is brilliant. Derrick Macnutt, Ximenes, was head of classics at Christ’s Hospital School in Horsham and must have written hundreds of school reports. However, I doubt whether they were like the ones in this crossword. https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/p/terminal-reports-by-ximenes.html

I have also come across two articles published in the Listener in 1982, by the editor D A N Jones, in which he discusses the Listener Crossword, Apex and Ximenes among others.
https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/p/endpiece.html

Best wishes
Derek Harrison