Phi Crosswords

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!

I don’t think I’ve ever actually worked on a blog post outside before.  But as the shadows lengthen after a sunny day I can now see the screen!  This time the puzzle is an old Beelzebub from late 2014, which is significant because there’s a reference in it to something which is no longer the case.  In this case, it’s not so ancient history (some elements of it are ongoing, one might say) and there is an alternative way to get to the answer.  Still, it raises the question of contemporary references in crosswords.

Many publications forbid the mention of living people, partly because of the fear of misrepresentation, but partly because of the sense that the facts about living people change.  You might claim that the definition ‘Arsenal footballer’ is scarcely going to lead to claims of libel – but you still have to allow for him being transferred to Wakefield Trinity.  (Did I mention that sports aren’t my strong suit?) 

I once tiptoed into this minefield at a certain newspaper of record by writing a clue for ROSEMARY that referenced the actress Rosemary Clooney.  The clue used the surname, but was couched so as to appear to be about her nephew George.  The editor took a sort of purist view: the clue was undeniably referencing Rosemary Clooney (and solving it made sure of the fact); if solvers insisted on reading George into it, that was their concern.

The Independent (since we’re talking about Beelzebub) is more relaxed about this, so the clue in Beelzebub 1292 got through – but the person involved didn’t come through quite so well.  The whole affair will resonate for a few more years but ultimately all will fade and the parties may not be remembered by anyone other than specialists or quiz mavens.  It’s a bit as if you came across a 1954 puzzle referencing the UK Foreign Secretary – quick, who was it?  (Hint: very much a crossword staple.  Disclaimer: I decided on 1954 not knowing it would be quite so familiar a name.  Try 1932 instead if you want another go.) 

One expects from time to time to come across a reference you don’t actually know, but which you feel you should.  Some of these fading references are going to be ones you don’t know, but can’t imagine ever needing to.

Valentine’s Day brings out three puzzles by me: there’s the usual Friday appearance in The Independent (with a Nina), plus a puzzle in the Church Times, and a Quick Cryptic from Pedro in the non-Church Times.  And in case I’m sluggish posting the next update in a fortnight, there’s a Jumbo in the Times on 22 February.

90 years ago this weekend (on 1 February 1930) The Times published the first in its series of crosswords – the Saturday puzzles include some celebration of the fact, not least a larger-than-usual pair of Jumbos.  There’s a good Listener in there too, though I say it as shouldn’t.

30 years ago this weekend (on 3 February 1990) and my Friday puzzle on 31 January was accordingly centred around the world PEARL.  I don’t recall The Times being especially animated about the 60th anniversary of their puzzle.  The rise of puzzle supplements and separate websites and ‘Download today’s puzzles here’ has given the puzzle section of the paper greater prominence, and so anniversaries are perhaps more appreciated.

While it might have been appropriate to have the thirtieth anniversary puzzle on the day itself, in the end I didn’t press the point, and I’ve already been displaced from the Friday slot once this month.  We don’t want to startle the horses too much…  Incidentally, the Friday as Phi-day situation seems to have kicked in at the start of 2007 (very precisely at the start as well, which suggests it may have been an editorial decision), which was a bit further back than I’d anticipated.

The 31 January puzzle was my 1,429^th.  I was fortnightly for a while, but there have been occasions when I have had two in a week, even two on consecutive days (on these occasions using the pseudonym Pedro well before he turned up on the Times Quick Cryptic).  When I started we had setters such as Foxy, Amicus, Alcuin (aka Corylus), Albipedius and Lucifer (the same person, who was also Mephisto and Beelzebub), Spurius (aka Calmac, who also became Beelzebub) and Quixote (and we need not list all his pseudonyms).  I can’t for the life of me remember the pseudonyms of Ruth Crisp and Roger Squires in their Independent guises, but they were there too.

That first puzzle, No. 1,033, is here, and there is a generous selection of others on the relevant page.  Do I have any resounding lessons learnt from 30 years?  It’s still just as hard to start in on a blank grid, which is why I often set myself little themes to include.  Mind you, coming up with ideas for these themes gets no easier, either.  The word you put in because it looks such an interesting one to clue will be the last one to yield after a great deal of brain-fag. 

It was certainly a release to be given the chance to design one’s own grids by The Independent (Friday’s was my 406^th) – one or two of those have also been re-used if they were pleasing.  Quite a few of them, to be fair, look awfully contrived and have some of the more regular solvers thinking that there must be something hidden there.  Just occasionally, of course, there isn’t, not in what you might call the literal sense – I’ve designed grids to accommodate as many long entries as possible, or to look like a Celtic knot (though not very).  Just this month there’s been a windmill, which theme admittedly spilled over into the entries.

Years ago, one of the collection of responses I got to a Listener puzzle included a comment from a solver who claimed to be still solving them at the age of 93.  (I can imagine that getting out to the postbox to post the things might have been more of a challenge – certainly you have to be fairly fit to get to a postbox in NZ these days.)  So maybe I can have some aspirations to fulfilling a toast to the next thirty years.

Meanwhile, as well as the 1 February Listener, I believe I have a Magpie puzzle this month (update having received the February issue: No), and there’s a Toughie in The Telegraph on 6 February (Waitangi Day).  There’s a little cluster of puzzles on Valentine’s Day and I even have early sight of an EV in March, but more of those anon.

APEX entries are still trickling in.  The deadline was 31 January and one of these years I will be hard-hearted enough to enforce it.  But the looming Waitangi Day holiday is going to give me extra time, so I shall be extending the deadline to 7 February.

I am postponing this week’s post to next weekend when there’s a significant anniversary to report upon.  And also a little free time to do so, as I will not have next weekend’s Listener to solve.

To be fair, I might find it as hard as ever to solve my own clues…  There may well also be a Magpie puzzle at the start of February – anything else I will catch up with next time.