This time sees the appearance of a double setter’s blog, addressing both puzzles that appeared a couple of weekends ago. I don’t know whether it works, but it probably won’t be an option very often! There’s also a new puzzle from the Independent, with a theme.
I’ve opened my file for 2011, which means that I suppose there’s a chance I might pick a puzzle that is being or has been recycled for the i. I don’t get any information on these, and it can be a bit tricky working out when they initially appeared unless there happens to be a blog on fifteensquared. Having relinquished the copyright, I get no further payment for these.
If you ever thought that the winners’ lists attached to puzzles were compiled from death records for Leominster in 1875, and thus no-one ever really won… Well, I managed to win the recent Sabre Listener puzzle after a fair tussle. The dictionary hasn’t arrived yet – I don’t know whether there’s a Hodder & Stoughton NZ set-up (there is for Penguin and Random House) – but I suppose the general ‘allow six weeks for delivery’ applies more than somewhat to me.
Of course, this raises one of my bugbears. The Listener recommends Chambers as a more-or-less required reference, so it is reasonable to assume that solvers possess one (or these days,one or more apps) – thus it’s not obviously the most appropriate prize, surely? OK, the hardbacks wear out, but you don’t enter crossword competitions just on the off-chance you’ll win a new copy just as the covers fall off the old one. Chambers have a neat range of other references (I could do with a new Crossword Lists…) and something else from the range would be a welcome alternative (and perhaps cheaper). Maybe it’s the logistics of the thing.
