Phi Crosswords

This week’s puzzle is from 2014, and you can also consult the fifteensquared blog (but, really, don’t go and look till you’ve solved it).  I’m delighted to reprint it as a sort of not too belated 90th birthday tribute.

I’ve also identified puzzle updates for the site for the next few weeks, so please keep coming back. 

You can also pick up new puzzles from me: two next Friday – a Times Quick cryptic and a Good Friday puzzle for the Independent.  The i will have an Inquisitor of mine on April 11, and I have it on good authority that PINK may be appearing soon as well.

I did promise to try to put up a puzzle weekly during the current situation, and it would be pretty poor to miss week 1.  So here is an Inquisitor from 2014 – How to Spell CAT – which surely looks simple enough…  (There are even hints elsewhere on this website.)

I can give you advance warning of my next Inquisitor – Easter Saturday, April 11 (which happens to be my sister’s birthday, but that isn’t the theme). 

I wonder when the first coronavirus themed puzzle will appear?

New Zealand has followed many other countries into lockdown, accompanied by our first really intense autumn storm, so everything feels faintly apocalyptic.  Apologies for limited updates over the few weeks – finding myself acting manager of my team in the middle of all the rearrangements rather constrained my time.

I’m now working from home for the next few weeks though at present my employer is racing to provide a sufficiency of technology to enable remote working.  I hope to get more stuff up on the site over the next month.  Feel free to download puzzles to fill your additional leisure hours.

One issue I’m considering is printing off puzzles for solving.  I shall not be doing that quite so often to conserve ink – our stationery stores are closed, and the question of online ordering is moot, as some couriers are not operating either.  I’m also suspending my practice of printing for an archive of my puzzles, and of printing off working copies, moving work in progress increasingly online.  This will mean some changes in practice which may not revert when lockdown is lifted – we shall see.

By chance I bought new cartridges barely a week ago but all those black squares use up ink (even in grayscale).

Postal entries are also a no-no.  I managed to get the latest Listener despatched during the week, dodging between the queue of people standing 2m apart.  (Our postbox is outside a pharmacy operating a “one in, one out” policy.) More practically I am nearly out of stamps, and all shops selling them are now shut.  I note that the Spectator has already moved to online-only entries, and I rather imagine the EV will see an upturn in e-entries as well.  Maybe others will follow suit.

i will try and get a puzzle up every week for the duration. But you will have plenty from me this week not on the site: Spectacular is appearing in the April Magpie, there’s a Telegraph Toughie on April 2 and a Church Times puzzle on April 3.

Keep well.

 

Since my last update I have heard that my next Inquisitor was today (22 February) and have been through two rounds of proofs.  So let’s get this up quickly in time to catch the Saturday UK readership.

The puzzle this week is a daily from April 2015, the 200th grid I designed following the Independent’s decision to allow setters to devise their own grids and not just stick to the roster of 30 or so (though the one by me on 21 February did revisit one of those original 30 grids, just for a change).  So there is something going on in the grid for you to find.

The other new item on the website is a setter’s blog for my recent Listener puzzle Graven Image.

Next week sees an Enigmatic Variations puzzle on 1 March, and I still hope to see the Magpie puzzle I proofread a while back make its appearance!