Phi Crosswords

phionline.net.nz

  • About me
  • Types of cryptic crossword
    • Solving crosswords
    • Outlets
  • APEX Crosswords
  • My other puzzles
    • BBC Music Magazine crosswords
    • Beelzebub Crosswords
    • Church Times puzzles
    • Enigmatic Variations
    • The European crossword
    • Independent Inquisitor
    • Independent: newspaper
    • Jumbos
    • Magpie
    • Other puzzles
  • Setter’s blogs
  • Book Reviews
  • Cats

At long last, spring

August 25, 2019 By Phixwd 1 Comment

In the sense of it being the first day when the lure of the garden was almost enough to keep me from the blog.  New Zealand is fond of having its seasons start promptly on the first day of the quarter.  So next Sunday will be full of comments about the new season, and the radio will play a certain Vivaldi concerto, and (since the weather will be dreadful) everyone will say ‘Ha! Call this spring! Where’s this global warming, then?’ having quite forgotten today, when you can go out and look at the plum tree in blossom (in August?) and count two artichokes beginning to form, and then gather in dry washing.

September 1 is also Father’s Day which in New Zealand is indeed nine months before Mother’s Day, meaning that that particular joke falls flat.  A good day not to go out for lunch, but since we’ll just be over the fortnight Wellington devotes to all things burger, that may be no bad thing.  Independent regulars will know that the strange names participating cafes and restaurants give to their burgers will feed into a crossword later in the year (November 8 is the date I have on it).  Yesterday’s burger (Prawn Underbelly) and next Tuesday’s (The Porky-Pine) will not feature, but will give you what I suppose I’m going to call a flavour of the sort of thing that goes on.

This week’s puzzle is a Beelzebub from 2013 – I opened the box, alighted on the puzzle, and thought, well, I haven’t reproduced an old Beelzebub for a while, so…  Next time round you will get a non-Enigmatic Variations puzzle, slightly in advance of a real one in October – explanations next time.  There’s a Times puzzle on 5 September too, but otherwise I’m back on Fridays in the Independent after my little July jaunt around the week exploring centenaries.

Share
Tweet
Pin

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Comments

  1. Erin says

    August 25, 2019 at 7:44 pm

    Oh my, from the look of the burger site I think I will stick with waiting for the crosswords. They will, I think, be more than enough of a challenge.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Phi RSS feed

  • RSS - Posts

About me

This is the website of Paul Henderson, who sets crosswords for The Independent (London) under the pseudonyms Phi, for the Daily Telegraph (London) under the pseudonym Kcit, and anonymously for The Times (London) amongst many other outlets. For a more detailed biography see the About Me page.

Blogroll

  • Alberich Crosswords
  • Alchemi's puzzles
  • Anax Crosswords
  • Azed slip
  • Big Dave's Crossword Blog
  • Boatman Cryptics
  • Crossword centenary
  • Crossword Centre
  • Crossword Club
  • Crossword Unclued
  • CrosswordMan: Crossword construction software
  • Crosswords by Hasslethymi
  • Fifteensquared
  • George vs The Listener crossword
  • Guardian Crosswords
  • Hoskins Crossword
  • Hubble Crosswords
  • idothei
  • Independent Crosswords
  • Listen with Others
  • Listener Crossword
  • Magpie Crossword Magazine
  • One Across
  • Peter's Cryptic Crossword Corner
  • Telegraph Crosswords
  • The Stickler Weekly
  • Times Crossword Club
  • Times for the Times
  • Undisclosed Enumerations
  • Unscramblerer

Comments

  • Tim Myall on Listener Awards weekend
  • KMB on An unexpected addition
  • Phixwd on Updating the blogroll
  • KMB on Updating the blogroll
  • Erin on On not mowing the lawn

Copyright © 2021 · Beautiful Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in