I found myself wondering about commenting on puzzles this week. The immediate prompt was an email from another setter thanking me for my comments on their recent Listener puzzle, followed the next day by an email from yet another setter thanking me for my comments on their recent Listener puzzle, followed the next day by an email from still another setter thanking me for my comments on their recent Listener puzzle. That brought the grand total of such responses this year to – er – three.
What to make of this? Are Listener setters being crossbred with buses? Did the inestimable John Green send out the responses to three weeks’ puzzles all in one go? It still doesn’t quite explain how he managed to select the three who were all going to email me.
John Green, who is indefatigable as well, collates the entries for each Listener puzzle each week. If a solver appends comments, he either includes them, or transcribes them, adding the solver’s name and (email) address. If a setter wishes to reply and keep the conversation going then they can. (I’m not exactly good at that…)
So what we had here were three consecutive Listener puzzles on which I had commented (a hand-written sheet of notepaper from this company), to which JG had appended my email address (though two of the three would already have had it – and yes, I suppose I could append it myself…). And all three wrote back. The joys of coincidence.
I always comment on Listener puzzles I’ve solved, and rarely miss the Crossword Club – Magpie puzzles get comments scarcely at all. The fifteensquared blogs on EV and IQ are also generally unfrequented by myself. I’ve never quite worked out why there’s such a variation in my responses, though time clearly plays a factor.
I try to be appreciative (honest) though I do find setterly considerations creeping in when I see something that, well, I wouldn’t quite have done it that way… That sort of comment should really be for a vetter, not a setter. At the same time, that thought can spark an idea of my own – if that way hasn’t been used, then it’s still open for me. The ‘Why on earth did they ever think that?’ response tends not to get a comment. (If you fail to get a comment from me, and you expected one, then of course it’s been lost in the post…)
If you wish to comment on the Times Quick Cryptic on 14 August, or its senior cousin six days later, then you can direct them here. There might be a Telegraph Toughie before the next formal update as well, but the warning I get of those has always been shorter than my fortnightly schedule, so I can’t always guarantee to let you know of a Pedro.
And finally the new puzzle this week is from 1990: I suddenly found myself thinking about it, and persuaded Brian Head (more inestimability and indefatigability) of the Crossword Club to let me reprint it. It’s Dux, from March 1990, but was actually completed three years earlier, so we’re back in the 30-year-old regime. I will revert to the 2010-11 box next time.
