The puzzle for Easter is a Beelzebub puzzle from July 2011.

We have just had a flurry of reports about the various anniversaries of lockdowns and other aspects of the pandemic. One thing that I do now that I didn’t then is to consult Google Discover in my smartphone app. I cannot recall when I started  doing this regularly and I don’t think I’m too obsessive about it – at least, it’s not directing me to sites about obsessive use of apps yet. And it does throw up some oddities that I would not otherwise encounter.

I found this week that I had received a passing mention on a New Zealand news site, back in July 2020. The article is here. I’m delighted to note that David Tossman is back in charge of things cruciverbal at The Listener (NZ). There was a curious period in the middle of lockdown when the overseas owner (German, I think) decamped like a startled hare leaving a number of going-concern titles in the lurch. There was a hiatus while new owners were acquired, and the presses restarted, and all is now good (or as good as anything is in print journalism these days). David mentions meeting me (the late Rex Benson was also of the party) and in my rather lackadaisical way I have never followed through.

He is posed beside the UCL Jeremy Bentham exhibit (well, what do you call it?). I have passed it a few times and there was always Bentham’s skull in a sort of bell jar between his feet. There were rumours that multiple thefts of the skull – often for the purposes of rugby – had led to it being removed, and even its replica being withheld from display. I wonder if it was there then.

Once you start thinking about the oddities of lockdown, other possibilities come to mind. I have largely stopped using cash – New Zealand always had a focus on electronic payment methods, but I kept coins and notes around for buying coffee and so on. But no longer – it still seems odd not to hand over money for small purchases, but I’ve just stopped.

The other odd thing lies in a couple of subscriptions I have, both to BBC monthly magazines. These are both published by the same not-quite-BBC company, distributed by the same distributor, and even come in almost identical envelopes. Last week, both The Sky at Night and BBC Music arrived on the same day at the end of March. The music magazine was the April issue (with an excellent couple of Malcolm Arnold symphonies on the cover disc), but The Sky at Night was the February edition full of conjunctions past their sell-by date. Obviously there was still plenty of interest (astronomy doesn’t move that quickly), but the two month gap is curious for two horses from the same stable.

I have just sent out the Apex 2020 results to the regular participants. The puzzle itself will go up in a fortnight’s time, along with the winning clues to – well, that would be telling just now. Between now and then, apart from the usual Friday appearances in The Independent, you get a full range of my Times puzzles: a daily cryptic on 8 April, a Jumbo on 10 April, and a Quick Cryptic on 15 April.

There’ll be a couple of setter’s blogs added to the site in the course of the next week, covering 8×8 from The Listener and Spoiler Alert from the Enigmatic Variations series. Just got to write them now…

 

In these current times, ‘dinner’ is not the word – but I’ll use it.  I’m getting this weekend’s update published promptly so that I can get my beauty sleep before my first breakfast-time Listener Dinner. The timing is fine – 8 am NZ time – and would have been much worse in a couple of weeks once both sets of clocks have changed (and in opposite directions).  Still, Marjorie has a 6am Zoom this coming Wednesday (but we can blame Americans for that…).

I have no skin in the game for this year’s announcements – my next Listener puzzle pops up next Saturday (27 March), so next year’s event is the one I will have an eye on. And no need to come up with an apology for absence this year – somehow one never wants to say the same thing over and over again, but new ideas come at a price too. The opportunity to augment events by prudent use of Zoom, Teams or whatever the Google one is called may be one good thing to come out of the current situation.

It will be interesting to participate in what will be my largest ever Zoom meeting. While the maximum number of attendees has been set at 500, I doubt we’ll get that, but a three-figure quantity seems guaranteed. I think my previous best has been the low 70s, which is a fair bit scrolling sideways on a Zoom screen.

The day after the Listener puzzle comes an appearance by Kcit in the Enigmatic Variations series in the Sunday Telegraph. A quiet weekend for solving – and fortuitously just before the deadline for submitting my next BBC Music Magazine puzzle. Which is what you have this time round – from April 2011. Do get the latest issue (April 2021) with its symphonies by Malcolm Arnold.  The centenary of his birth actually falls later this year and, yes, there will be some puzzles from me about it. Otherwise Phi-day in The Independent will roll around as usual, including a Nina on Good Friday.

There will, of course, be setter’s blogs on both puzzles from the weekend of 27-28 March in due course.

The quiet of next weekend will allow me to get out a reminder to APEX participants to vote before the deadline of 31 March. Many have and we have a contest under way. There are still about seven clues in contention for the honours so do not think it’s too late to have an impact. I will collate the results over Easter, and at the start of May you will get the 2020 puzzle as the puzzle of the fortnight.

 

I thought I would have to resign myself to there being no puzzle this time round, as it is a very busy weekend. But somehow I have squeezed in producing a barred and a Jumbo grid, and I still have time to put up a daily puzzle from November 2010. There’s a Nina for you to find, and the solution page contains a link to a solving blog.

I have also expanded my blogroll after receiving the request I have finally authorised in the comments. I am happy to add blogs (I keep having to increase X in the Show X entries box) though I do have a look at them first. This one is an effective gathering of links to various puzzle sources, including Sudoku and computer games like The Room (I have Volume 1 and am still trying to find time to explore it…) The  range of crossword items is very good and I will have to look at a few of them myself. This new addition is called Undisclosed Enumerations.

Some thing called Undisclosed Enumerations is bound to be some way down an alphabetical list. It reminds me that, back in the day, and back in my home town, taxi firm names evolved from ABC Taxis to AABC Taxis and eventually reached AAAAAAAATaxis, before Yellow Pages got overtaken by the internet.  AAAAAAATimes for the Times, anyone? (Not that starting with U seems to have disadvantaged Uber particularly.)

Back in a fortnight. There’ll be a blog on Targeted Treatment going up in a couple of days, assuming I find time to write it. Then there’s a Times on 18 March, but otherwise you have my Friday appearances in The Independent to look for. Next time I will be encouraging some of you to tackle the Inquisitor of 27 March, if only because the Listener and EV puzzles that weekend are both by me.

“You don’t expect me to work in this heat,” said my lithium battery, and promptly discharged itself, leaving me with an unresponsive mower, and two lawns still to mow. It has now relented and is agreeing to charge.

So time generated to put up this fortnight’s puzzle, which is from the Church Times in 2011.  I’ll be looking at other puzzles from that period in the next cycle, if anyone is attempting stylistic analysis. And if they aren’t, of course – from my point of view, I just have one box-file open at a time!

It’s a busy weekend for us with a large fun-run-cum-walk on in Wellington tomorrow. It’s faintly odd that we have to travel in wearing masks on public transport, only to mill around with a few thousand unmasked others to walk Round the Bays. But it’s looking to be a good day, and perhaps fortunately not as hot as today is turning out. It will delay me downloading Azed until almost the time UK newsagents open. But it is all a bit sudden after a week where we’ve been back at a higher level of lockdown, with many in Wellington working from home, even though the community outbreak was in Auckland.

Forthcoming puzzles include next week’s Inquisitor (27 February) and a Times Quick Cryptic on 3 March. The Independent daily on 26 February has a theme that originates here in Wellington as well, but you’ll be doing very well to spot it!