Phi Crosswords

This is the time of year I find myself setting seasonal puzzle, so that editors have them in stock for December.  It feels a bit odd to be considering such themes just now (though the decorations are in the shops), but that’s the way it is.  There’s a special puzzle, done by a trio of regulars (and my first collaboration with Nutmeg), in the Church Times, and I’ve just completed the puzzle for the BBC Music Magazine (which hadn’t, for various reasons, to be too Christmassy this year).  Coming up is the puzzle for pre-Christmas week in the Independent.  The weather, obligingly, has turned into wind and rain, with snow showers on the Southern Alps, though, to be fair, that’s fairly typical for October.  (Spring is the most depressing NZ season, I fear, promising much and delivering little.)

Off to the opera tonight (The Turn of the Screw), so it seems a good moment to offer up a musical crossword from the BBC Music Magazine.  I commented last time that having more recent crosswords allowed me to point you at solving blogs, so for the next few updates I’m pottering around in late 2014 and early to mid 2015.  That period was chosen because I stumbled on an old Inquisitor (well, not so old…) and thought I would share it with you next time.

Before that there will be a Times puzzle on 16 October, and possibly a Church Times puzzle on 18 October (the proof I received said 15 October, and that seems the likeliest typo!).  And don’t forget tomorrow’s Enigmatic Variations.

The puzzle this week is another daily puzzle from The Independent.  I see I have chosen a few recently from the same boxfile, so it is time for me to choose a new one and move to a different year.  I shall look on it as a form of spring-cleaning, which is a nice thought on the weekend we had our first barbecue of the new season.  The clouds have rolled in since, but we’ve salvaged the strawberry bed.

The good thing about recent puzzles is that I can refer you to a fifteensquared blog.  Do make use of this – you might not only be the one stuck on a clue.   There are blogs for other puzzles as well: see Big Dave in the blogroll for Telegraph puzzles, for example.  I seem to have failed to include Times for the Times, so here’s the link, and I’ll do something under the hood before next time.

I am very pleased to report that the Prawn Underbelly burger (see here) won the Supreme Burger award for 2019, so we went back and had it again.  It’s still not set to appear in a crossword, though.

Looking ahead, there’s a Kcit Toughie coming up next Thursday 26 September and a Pedro Times Quick Cryptic on Wednesday 2 October.  The next update in a fortnight will coincide with a Kcit Enigmatic Variations puzzle (the one that clashed with The Year Continues, as mentioned last time).

Now I rwally must get a grid done while the mem-sahib is out…

 

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…