Phi Crosswords

I have resisted doing an Alan Bennett-themed puzzle but September 2019 marks the fortieth anniversary of my first serious published puzzle.  It’s here.    (And forty years on the Crossword Club is still going strong as well.)  I started wondering what to do to mark the occasion some time ago.  Then something fell into my lap.

Once you start looking for anniversaries on which to hang puzzles, you find they come in clusters, like buses (well, perhaps not buses in Wellington).  And once you have a cluster you do some triage to determine which one you will do (or whether you’ll try to have two in separate outlets – I managed two puzzles on the same day for the Mervyn Peake centenary).  But anniversaries also creep up on you, and if that happens, you may find yourself with an idea, or a puzzle that has no home.

So it happened here.  I had a puzzle all set for Enigmatic Variations early last month (though I confused the then editor by noting that, technically, any Sunday earlier in the year could have been pressed into service).  And then another anniversary loomed, bringing another EV puzzle in close proximity to the one mentioned above.  (People will insist on having anniversaries that fall on Sundays…)  

Only one could appear, and there was no time to wangle the other into an alternative slot.  So here is the loser (if that’s the word) of that tussle.  (The winner is in the EV editing process and will appear shortly.)  The idea has an interesting twist, and I was loth to lose it.  See if you can work out why the start of August was the optimal time for the puzzle.

The first thing you note about a fortieth anniversary is the faint sense of horror that the tally has reached forty.  (I am not expecting the fiftieth to be any different, assuming I’m spared.)  You do a few calculations – the Phi puzzle last Friday is something like my 3,458th, assuming I haven’t screwed up my spreadsheet formulae too much.  (I fear I have an inconsistent approach to collaboration: one SPINK puzzle is included in the Inquisitor subtotal, and one isn’t, largely because – well, more on that later in the year, when another milestone pops up.)  My peak year for puzzles was 2015, just before the Beelzebub puzzle went west.

This month is also the 22nd anniversary of my first BBC Music Magazine puzzle (and they’ve just asked for more – hooray!), while I can see another big zero anniversary looming for another outlet early next year, which I will have to start thinking about.  So perhaps the best thing is not to keep counting the passing years, and keep setting the oncoming puzzles.

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This isn’t strictly anything to do with crosswords – but there is a puzzle coming up in November reflecting the wide range of burgers in the annual foodfest that is Wellington On A Plate – the burger fortnight.  Many of them have unexpected names, providing a good deal of material for words in a grid.  There were 132 this year – for a fortnight’s festival, that makes for a fair number of burgers to eat per day for the judging.  I managed five, one down on 2018, though I did maintain the rule that each burger be eaten in a different suburb.  So here they are – note the names (none of which made it to the grid) and then try to guess which of the entries in the puzzle on November 8 (as currently scheduled) contributes to the name of a burger.

Beach Babylon (Oriental Bay, Wellington)

By the Burger of Babylon – Persian fried chicken with whipped feta, beetroot slaw, zucchini pickles, pomegranate ketchup and saffron aioli in a black sesame bun, with Phoenician hand-cut fries and tahini-garlic whip. Matched with Garage Project Golden Path – Juicy Session Hazy IPA.

This had a vegan option including vegan whipped feta – I couldn’t help wondering whether this was whipped by or with vegans, which only goes to show that adjectival order is important.

Cafe Medici (Martinborough)

Prawn Underbelly – King prawn toast with caramelised pork belly, Asian pickles, housemade sweet chilli dressing in a sesame and buttermilk bun with toffee crackling and Sichuan pepper fries. Matched with Garage Project Hapi Daze – Pacific Pale Ale.

This place is one of our regular stops, even if it means driving over the hills to the Wairarapa.  Last year they did venison with chocolate, so there’s someone there with a sweet tooth.  The sole drawback were the fries in a silly little basket wherein they got cold very quickly.

Brew’d (Stokes Valley)

The Porky-pine – Grilled housemade pork patty with glazed pineapple, cos lettuce, basil leaves, chilli mayo in a brioche burger bun, with island-style k?mara and taro wedges. Matched with Garage Project Hapi Daze – Pacific Pale Ale.

Our local burger.  I skipped the beer for another local brew from a craft brewery called Fortune Favours, who were themselves offering a burger at the cafe on their brewery premises.  It all gets very incestuous.  K?mara and taro make better wedges than your everyday potato.

The Gardens (Alicetown)

The Firey Brazilian (sic) – Gaucho’s spiced beefcap sirloin patty, Slow-cooked pulled pork, lamb carpaccio and crispy chicken skins, Churrasco pesto and cheddar cheese on a toasted brioche bun. Served with crunchy Cassava chips and refried bean dipping sauce.

The crispy chicken skins were like chicken-flavoured bacon, if you see what I mean.  Three whole fries, but what a size, though not terribly crunchy.

The Queen of Jackson (Petone)

Three Ameatgos – Southern spiced chicken thigh with barbeque pulled pork, streaky bacon, jalapeño cheese, lettuce, red onion and special sauce on a toasted brioche bun, with corn chips and salsa. Matched with Garage Project Golden Path – Juicy Session Hazy IPA.

I have a vague feeling this name occurred last year.  A very neat burger – actually capable of being picked up, and served with corn chips, which don’t go cold!  Ameatgos will not be appearing in a grid any day soon.

While awaiting this burger, Marjorie took a snap with which I can remind you that, while I’m appearing as usual on Friday (6 September) I’m being followed by Monk on the Saturday…

In the sense of it being the first day when the lure of the garden was almost enough to keep me from the blog.  New Zealand is fond of having its seasons start promptly on the first day of the quarter.  So next Sunday will be full of comments about the new season, and the radio will play a certain Vivaldi concerto, and (since the weather will be dreadful) everyone will say ‘Ha! Call this spring! Where’s this global warming, then?’ having quite forgotten today, when you can go out and look at the plum tree in blossom (in August?) and count two artichokes beginning to form, and then gather in dry washing.

September 1 is also Father’s Day which in New Zealand is indeed nine months before Mother’s Day, meaning that that particular joke falls flat.  A good day not to go out for lunch, but since we’ll just be over the fortnight Wellington devotes to all things burger, that may be no bad thing.  Independent regulars will know that the strange names participating cafes and restaurants give to their burgers will feed into a crossword later in the year (November 8 is the date I have on it).  Yesterday’s burger (Prawn Underbelly) and next Tuesday’s (The Porky-Pine) will not feature, but will give you what I suppose I’m going to call a flavour of the sort of thing that goes on.

This week’s puzzle is a Beelzebub from 2013 – I opened the box, alighted on the puzzle, and thought, well, I haven’t reproduced an old Beelzebub for a while, so…  Next time round you will get a non-Enigmatic Variations puzzle, slightly in advance of a real one in October – explanations next time.  There’s a Times puzzle on 5 September too, but otherwise I’m back on Fridays in the Independent after my little July jaunt around the week exploring centenaries.

Hello, if you’re visiting from the link in The Inquisitor (and if you’re not, of course).  Welcome to the site, and please feel free to follow the various links to puzzles and setter’s blogs and so on.  The specific link to the Posthum(or)ous puzzle is here.

I update more or less fortnightly, and this (wouldn’t you just know it?)  is one of the non-update weeks, so come back in a week to see a new puzzle from my archive, and possibly some comment on matters cruciverbal.  The 40th anniversary of my first published crossword is on the horizon, and I will have an unpublished puzzle for the occasion.