Crossword News March 2023
The February Prize Puzzle was Cross Contamination by Coot.
This puzzle had ten clashes and pairs of letters spelled out NEWSPAPERS and
PRINT MEDIA. In the completed grid, the letters used for NEWSPAPERS were
entered. The theme words were STAR, EXPRESS, MAIL, STANDARD, MIRROR, GUARDIAN,
TELEGRAPH and TIMES.
Here are some of the comments from solvers.
This was quite an easy solve, but fun and enjoyable
nonetheless. While most clues yielded
readily, there were a few where repeat readings were required to identify the
correct parsing. The most impressive feature
for me was the amount of thematic material that had been packed into a blocked
grid. Should the preamble have mentioned
that there would be non-words in the final grid? Not sure what the convention
is. The endgame was a bit tricky. A case could perhaps be made to retain
letters that give the names of publications, but this would have meant a couple
were more magazines or journals, ie other forms of print media, than
newspapers. Decided to use the letters in
"NEWSPAPERS", as this approach offered a unique solution while
staying true to the instructions. Sadly,
a couple of well-known thematic names dropped off the grid. Many thanks for another interesting workout.
Very much a game of two halves for me - lots of clues fell
very early on, but the combination of clashes in a blocked grid meant that the
last 4 or 5 took a long while to get through (MIRROR and TELEGRAPH among them,
so it would have helped if I'd seen the connection!) I was impressed at how many newspapers were
contained, although my hopefully constructive criticism would be that it felt a
bit messy at the end - having one message from acrosses and the other from
downs, or misprints always occurring at a newspaper, or having all real words
to finish (although I suspect this would be hard in this format) would have
tidied things up a bit. That being said, it was a fun puzzle, and the perfect
use of a blocked grid.
Lots of enjoyable clues here. I thought this would have made
a very nice barred puzzle but am a bit less keen on clashes in a blocked
puzzle. For instance, 22dn is a four letter entry with effectively three
unches, which seems to be pushing the boundaries a bit! Thanks for the puzzle, I look forward to
seeing more from Coot in the future!
Despite it being a blocked grid, solvers found it quite a
tough challenge what with the lack of checking and the clashes, hence quite a
high error percentage.
There were 43 entries, of which 11 were marked incorrect.
The marker decided to mark correct some solutions where the letters of NEWSPAPERS
in grid order.
The lucky Winner out of the Electronic Hat was Bhalchandra
Pasupathy who will be receiving a prize.
There is a full solution at https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2023/03/solution-to-cross-contamination-by-coot.html
You still have lots of time to complete our March puzzle, High
Bar by Hawk.
The April Prize puzzle will be our long-awaited Round Robin
XV with a puzzle designed by Wan and clues written by volunteer clue-writers.
***
The Listener Crossword Setters Dinner in Bristol went very well and was
excellently organised by Jane Teather and John Henderson. I was able to watch
the proceedings on Zoom and the profusion of gold ties was very evident.
I logged on to the Zoom chat at about 9.15 but the speeches
did not start until after 10.00. In the meantime I was able to join in the chat
with others who were waiting. I had a nice chat with Paul Henderson and peek on
Andrew Fisher having breakfast with the sun shining through his window.
Shane Shabankareh started the speeches. The Radix Auditorum
was won by Ian Hickman, who could not be at the Dinner, as it clashed with his
mother’s big birthday celebrations. Ian lives in Wakefield, and we plan to
organise a lunch in York for a presentation quite soon. Any ‘locals’
interested in attending, get in touch via listener.dinner@jetdoc.co.uk.
Regarding those who have kept an all-correct record, Simon
Long still holds the record with 411 weeks without an error. This year it was a
twosome, Paul Taylor and Katie Steckles who were awarded the Solvers’ Silver
Salver. They had asked the other all-correct solvers to vote for their
favourite puzzles. The results were as follows.
10= Envy by Quinapalus
Season’s Greetings by Lionheart
Sequences by Elap
9 Late Arrival by Aragon
8 Map by Pointer
7 Red Applause by Crash
6 New Arrivals by Avian
5 Short Seats by Yorick
4 A Wrap-up by Kea
3 Faux Pas by Tringa
2 Follow the Directions Again by Artix
1st Singles Only by Twin
Twin (Colin Thomas) was able to accept the Ascot Gold Cup
for his puzzle which left the solver solving a sudoku.
You can download the souvenir brochure for the 50th dinner and the
quiz on Jane’s site. https://www.jetdoc.co.uk/crossword-and-quiz-links
***
I have recently been in communication with an American author, Barry Joseph,
who is writing a book on Stephen Sondheim and his interest in puzzles. I was
able to supply lots of information in our Zoom conversation. My connection with
Sondheim was through my friend Apex (Eric Chalkley). He had bumped into Stephen
Sondheim when the latter gate-crashed the dinner to celebrate Ximenes 1000 at
the Café Royale. However, they did not speak and it was only later that Apex
sent him puzzles to solve. I have come across an article that Apex wrote for
the magazine Games & Puzzles, in which he explains how he contacted
Sondheim, I have now put this on the Crossword Centre at http://www.crossword.org.uk/Sondheimx.html
When I decided to put Apex forward for an honour, I needed
at least 3 supporters to add to the submission, I wrote to Stephen Sondheim to
ask for his support. He was only too willing and sent a nice letter praising
Apex. The other two supporters were Sir Jeremy Morse and Jonathan Crowther
(Azed). Fortunately, in the New Year Honours, Eric was given the MBE. Sir
Jeremy told me that he had participated in three other requests for honours and
this was the first one that had been successful.
Delighted with one of Apex’s Listener puzzles, I sent him a
cartoon drawing. He was delighted and that was the start of a long
correspondence and the start of me doing illustrations for his Xmas crosswords.
Barry Joseph can be followed on Instagram at
matchingmindswithsondheim. You can see there some of the gems that he has
discovered, including many of my illustrations. He is looking for more
information about Sondheim and puzzles, so let him know or email me.
***
The 2022 APEX puzzle from Paul Henderson had the theme of a quote from Stephen
Sondheim. Solvers were asked to write a clue to SONDHEIM. The results are now
published and the podium clues were as follows.
Winning
clues to SONDHEIM
1st Harry is done with His Majesty – he’s
sadly departed, not without some dramas Richard
Morse
2nd Scoring West End show, I composed
foremost of musicals Mick
Hodgkin
3rd Composer, the man uncredited in She Done
Him Wrong?
Allan Scott
***
American compilers, Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon (Hex) were surprised when the
New York Times decided to take their Acrostic puzzles off their website.
Although they would still be available in the printed paper, many solvers
preferred to do these complex puzzles on-line. Apparently, Cox and Rathvon have
now decided to leave the NYT and it may be that they will create their own
website to publish the Acrostic.
***
Sadly the death of Tony Sever was announced this month. Tony won the Times
Crossword Championship in 1981 and went on to run his own blog, RTC, in which
he commented on the Times Concise crosswords and even had a race against the
clock.
***
The 45th Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is taking place on March
31 - April 2, at the Marriott in Stamford, CT. You can get more details and
follow the event at https://www.crosswordtournament.com/
***
Can an AI chatbot solve a cryptic crossword? Chris Lancaster put it to the test
in a Telegraph article. You can read it here.
Also on the AI bandwagon was Guardian blogger, Alan Connor, who, apparently,
interviewed a chatbot setter, Lady
Labyrinth. I think there has to be a big improvement before the robots can
compete with the human setters.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT has apparently invented a new game called
Sumplete that has the potential to dethrone Wordle. The artificial intelligence
model did receive some human help to develop its game from a human user, Daniel
Tait, who guided the chatbot and created a website for the game so anyone can
play.
Sumplete is similar to Sudoku, although its rules are
different. Players are given grids with numbers that vary in difficulty. The
basic one for beginners has three rows and three columns, increasing in
difficult to 4x4, 5x5, 6x6, and so on. The most advanced grids are 9x9 and are
really hard to solve. https://sumplete.com/
***
Best wishes
Derek
