Phi Crosswords

Not here – it’s not so long that I did something along those lines.  But I was looking at the Wall Street Journal site.  If you like US-style puzzles it’s among the best, under the editorship of Mike Shenk.  It also runs an extra ‘variety’ puzzle on Saturdays.  Every four weeks this is a cryptic by Cox and Rathvon, every four weeks it is an acrostic by Michael Ashley, both prime examples of their type.  In between, a lot of the variety puzzles are by Patrick Berry (who is also a fine cryptic setter) – I try these from time to time but the reliance on obscure popular Americana makes them unduly taxing (curiously that’s much less of a problem with Berry’s standard US-style grids).

Shenk contributes a puzzle from time to time – usually one of three particular types he favours.  This week it’s a Spell Weaving puzzle, for instance, and very nice too.  But it’s the relaunch of the puzzle page itself that really caught my eye.  Last week, there was a special with a video (which I didn’t manage to see, alas) and this week there’s a new layout with icons for each puzzle rather than just a list.

It’s the icons that are interesting.  The smaller ones, which are clearly meant to be representing smartphone app versions, are not US style grids (they’re not even Cox/Rathvon cryptic style grids), but effectively UK cryptic style.  Not only that, they’re not actually symmetrical (though I think I’ve noted before that asymmetry is a tendency among non-crossword solvers redesigning crossword-related material).  Look up to the main puzzle-of-the-day icon and that is more of a US style grid, though there’s an unchecked cell (in fact, it looks like there’s a double unch), and, yep, it’s not symmetrical.

In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t worth a row of beans, except that it teaches you to wonder about the design contribution to items you aren’t familiar with.

The new puzzle this time round is a Beelzebub from 2012 – I see it is consecutive to another Beelzebub already on the site, which is a good indication to me to get another box out of the archive.  There’s also a new addition to the cat page, and later in the week, a blog on Codenames, my recent IQ, will go live.  In terms of forthcoming puzzles, there will be a Times Jumbo on 26 September (I really must finish the one currently on the production line…) and a Times Quick Cryptic on 30 September.  All alongside the usual Friday Independent slots.

This (6 September 2020) should have been the first Sunday in years without an Enigmatic Variations puzzle.  Instead we have the start of a month of easier puzzles to help attract new solvers in.  It’s hardly surprising that the first off the mark is Chalicea who has made something of a speciality of solid, straightforward and enjoyable puzzles, in a range of outlets.

The preceding puzzle was one of my own, with presumably an implication that it was harder.  Based on comments received so far, I’m not so sure of that, but as I’ve said repeatedly, I cannot assess the difficulty of my own puzzles with any great confidence.  More on that in the blog appearing on the site later this week.  I note that I have to have it ready a little earlier than usual as fifteensquared will be changing its scheduling to tie in with Big Dave’s site, where hints and explanations will be available.  All part of the process to encourage new blood.

Reasonable then to put up one of my own EVs from a few years ago.  I do think this one will be harder than the one in today’s paper and, if you want a hint, well, you might think of the alternative meanings of shot.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Telegraph, there’s a Kcit Toughie on September 9, and elsewhere in the cruciverbosphere, there’s a Phi IQ on Saturday 12th, and a Pedro Quick Cryptic on September 17, just to use up all the pseudonyms.  As mentioned, there’ll be a blog on Matches appearing later in the week – with photos!

One of the odd things about living in New Zealand is the number of Christmas celebrations that occur mid-winter (it is, if you think about it, very colonial and Northern Hemisphere centred at source – winter = Christmas).  It has been particularly odd in a year with such a mild winter (plum blossom already covering our tree, for goodness’ sake) and under conditions of coronavirus. 

I mention it because the ending of the flurry of Christmas in July/August lunches coincides with first, the exhortations to book your actual Christmas lunch at the venue you’ve just left, and second, the need to grid and clue puzzles for Christmas.  I’ve just done a New Year’s Day puzzle for the Independent (this year I skip a week as Christmas Day is a Friday), I’m currently clueing another for a different outlet, and the annual BBC Christmas puzzle is on the horizon.

The new puzzle on the site this time round, by the way, is a BBC Music Magazine puzzle from 2011.

It all gets a little confusing on the day after you’ve just started the spring work in the garden, the same day that you’re finally getting to see a ‘summer blockbuster’ (Tenet).  And at the back of my mind is the nagging feeling that it’s actually autumn rolling up over the horizon – hard to shake off 40+ years of conditioning.  I’m still learning to say ‘the…solstice’ and ‘the…equinox’ without putting in a seasonal qualifier.

So let’s just use the month’s names…  September is shaping up to be a busy month.  To be fair the first item is actually at the tail end of August: an Enigmatic Variations puzzle in the Sunday Telegraph.  Some may remember there was a ripple of concern that the EV series might stop at the end of August.  That did not transpire, and this is not some sort of final puzzle (in fact, it was originally scheduled for the week just past).  Just after that comes a puzzle at the Crossword Centre, my first ever there – that will be out in time for the start of September, which in practice means you will see it there about the same time as the EV appears.  And I’ve just heard there is likely to be an Inquisitor from me in the middle of the month – more details on that next time.

Well, I can hope… But I have at least put up a new puzzle for the first time in weeks.  It was published in 2011, but I have a feeling it is much older, and was only unearthed a short while before publication.  In particular, the cryptic definition for the answer that requires two separate entries feels like something I dreamt up when quite young.

It has been a hectic few weekends as the New Zealand winter has continued to pretend it is just a slightly more emphatic spring.  We have daffodils flowering a month ahead of schedule, a tree full of lemons, and the first signs of plum blossom.  We keep waiting for a severe frost to kill it all off.

Last weekend was the big science fiction and fantasy convention held ‘virtually’ in Wellington.  Even people not fans of SFF might have noticed that something of a stir was created by a certain fantasy author of substance, enough to make it into the more mainstream corners of the media.  Marjorie helped supervise some of the Zoom meetings (there was quite a lot of Zoom-ing) and we caught a major documentary of Ursula K LeGuin which I wholeheartedly recommend.  I ended up with a pile of nominees to read (let alone a renewed intent to read the Earthsea cycle) which I am still working through.  There were one or two I rapidly discarded, but, dammit, most of them are worth sticking with.  I was pleased that our choice for the Hugo won (A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine – very much in the spirit of Iain M Banks, but without his occasional overwriting; the promised sequel cannot come soon enough).  The Young Adult winner is also proving very entertaining: Catfishing on Catnet by Naomi Kritzer – itself an expansion of a Hugo-winning short story (and with a promised sequel); note that the Amazon blurb has a minor plot spoiler.

I keep a record of my puzzles, of course, and type up paper copies.  In doing so, I occasionally come across coincidences.  A while ago I had two puzzles in different newspapers on consecutive days.  That (happily) occurs often enough, and is not the coincidence.  But these two also contained the same word.  And that word had the same clue.  Now I try not to repeat myself, but some ideas are quite attractive and come back to mind too readily.  Three thousand plus puzzles later it might be quite hard to recall every clue I have ever written.  However, these two puzzles appearing together did give me pause, so I checked their completion dates (oh, yes, I keep a record of my puzzles).

They were six months apart, so I think I am free of any taint of deliberately reusing a clue.  Even so, solvers knowing my pseudonyms might have wondered.

As it happens I have two puzzles appearing on the same day next week: Friday 14 August sees my usual Independent puzzle joined by a puzzle in the Church Times.  Earlier in the week (Monday 10th) there’s a Times cryptic as well.  And if I can get back to my fortnightly timetable that’ll be it – there’s an Enigmatic Variations puzzle on the horizon, as well as a debut in another series, but more on those next time.