Phi Crosswords

I thought I’d say a few words about the puzzle I put up at Christmas. It’s not really a setter’s blog, so I’m not putting it there.

I don’t know how the puzzle went down as I’ve received no comments. I set it forty years ago, while I was at Oxford University. At that time, I had experimented with a number of Patience-related crosswords. The basic Klondike variant where you put red on black on red and so on allows for a puzzle where you can clue words in groups (Clubs, Diamonds etc.) that then have only a degree of randomness in their placement – rather better, I feel, than simple alphabetical order. In addition, all the ‘Clubs’ clues having answers beginning with C gives some useful information to the solver.

Clock Patience was the largest of these, and it took a lot of work. This was in the days before I had access to computer-aided graphics as a matter of course, so there was a lot of compass work to draw circles, and the whole thing was handwritten until a typed version was prepared for submission. The first chunk of work, though, was to lay out the cards. I decided to play through several hands of clock patience, noting the order of the cards at each number as I did so. That would give me the structure of the grid. If I was incredibly lucky, one of the several hands might even come out. My expectation was that I would find one that got 80% of the way – enough to keep people playing through.

I shuffled the cards and I played a first hand.  It came out. I arranged the cards according to my notes of the game and played it again. It came out again. Clearly I had to use that one. All these years later, I still agonise that I may simply have made the same error twice and the thing actually sticks four cards in: King, King, King, King. So one reason for putting it up was to see whether a solver could confirm that the patience played out successfully!

What went up today is an Independent daily puzzle from 2008 – I see it’s actually the one from the week immediately after the last daily I put, so you should be safe from significant stylistic changes. And I need to dig deeper into the box next time round.

Sometimes I get notice of a forthcoming puzzle too late to fit into my fortnightly schedule, so I can only retrospectively point you at the Pangakupu puzzle in the Guardian on 18 January. Coming up next Sunday is an Enigmatic Variations puzzle by Kcit, with a Telegraph Toughie a few days later on 2 February. 

A happy new year to you.

It has been a surprisingly busy week, working through the last of the Christmas puzzles to embark on the ones piled up behind them. The clues for the 2022 APEX puzzle are coming in, and APEX 2023 has been gridded.

The solution to Clock Patience is now appended to its page. Next time I may say a little about its history.

The puzzle this time round is a Beelzebub from Christmas 2008 – I might as well squeeze in one last seasonal puzzle! It does reveal the limited scope we had for seasonal fun and games. I had a couple of lines to warn of a gimmick, whereas the Observer and Guardian run to paragraphs.

January is shaping up as a quiet month for published puzzles – the Independent Friday puzzles are now back on Fridays, after some sidesteps over the holiday period. There’s a Times Quick Cryptic from Pedro on 18 January. Further ahead (and there’ll be a reminder next time) is an Enigmatic Variations puzzle at the end of the month. 

Those who notice the numbering of puzzles will be aware that the Telegraph Toughie is due to reach a significant milestone right at the end of the month, and I gather plans are in hand for something special. Somewhat further ahead – though perhaps no longer as far ahead as I would like – is Inquisitor 1800. Dates for your diaries to follow.

Here we are on Christmas Eve (in New Zealand at least), so here’s a puzzle for Christmas (though not a Christmas-themed puzzle).

It’s not the oldest puzzle on the site, but it’s not far off: the completion date is September 1982. It has stayed with me while going round the world, and – notwithstanding my comments last time about my desk eating paperwork – it has not been lost.

It has been sitting in the submissions queue of an outlet for about forty years but, as you’ll see, it really is too big to be published in – well, in pretty well any outlet. Even here it is presented as a PDF: Clock Patience. Some of it is hand-finished as I don’t have that much skill with graphics! I can’t actually recall receiving any editorial comments, so it may not be readily solvable. That’s a shame as there’s a feature of it I would have liked to have had confirmed.

There are 88 clues – think of it as a standard 36-entry Letters Latent puzzle, with 52 clues representing a pack of cards added on. I went through them all earlier this month, and most passed muster. There were a few that passed muster only after sucking air in through gritted teeth, and some where a few small tweaks were made (including a monarchical reference). Only four got the complete rewrite treatment, so I felt fairly pleased with my early-twenties self. But the solving is the true test, so now it’s over to you.

I’ll put the solution up next time (that will be another PDF as I’m sure you’ll want to read the letters in the cells), along with a brief setter’s blog.

There are already seasonal puzzles around, and the stack will only increase. I am not putting up a new puzzle this time as there is too much going on; not least the puzzle I am intending to put up on Christmas Eve is taking rather more work to prepare, so I need to clear some decks.

Before that the annual APEX puzzle will be going out to participants, and there will also be a setter’s blog (on Wednesday or Thursday this week) for the recent ‘Entity’ in the Inquisitor series. I have a set of proofs awaiting attention too (for Monthname 202x, so within seven years; that implies no real urgency, I guess, though the readiness of my desk to eat documents implies the opposite).

I shall limit myself to noting the puzzles I have coming out before Christmas: there’s a Pangakupu in The Guardian on Tuesday 13 December, with a Times puzzle the following day. Then there’s the regular Friday slot in The Independent on 16 December. And then the pattern breaks as I am next in The Independent on Christmas Eve (a theme that I reckon will be both very obvious and quite obscure). I have been advised that I have the New Year’s Eve slot too, but I can verify that next time.

Get ready for the puzzle rush…