From time to time in the 90s and early 2000s I’d produce a Jumbo crossword for The Independent. These appeared on Bank Holiday weekends or at Christmas and Easter. The grid was 27 squares by 27, and there’d be a cryptic solution and a ‘Quick’ solution. So two grids had to be filled. Finding intersecting long phrases is no easy task, and having to do so twice in the same grid could be quite challenging. The first example (and it may be a while before I add a second, as I don’t have computer files for these, and it’s a lot of typing!) gets round this by putting the long phrases round the edges. Even so, I note that there’s greater reliance on titles, quotations and the like, rather than standard dictionary entries.
I’m only putting up the cryptic version – see note about ‘lot of typing’ above. My thanks as always to The Independent for allowing republication – I don’t think the Independent Jumbos have appeared in book form. The paper currently carries a Jumbo General Knowledge puzzle every Saturday, but not on the website, I think. See the link in the Blogroll for access to the daily cryptic puzzle.
1999 Independent Christmas Jumbo
1997 Independent Christmas Jumbo
2003 Independent Easter Jumbo
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