Phi Crosswords

The continuation of a barred grid series should never be taken for granted. A couple of years ago The Telegraph proposed to stop the Enigmatic Variations (EV) series on the grounds of lack of space in the paper version. So much for the new horizons and possibilities offered by cyberspace. Indeed you still hear the old line trotted out about how you cannot do things online because not everyone has access to the internet.  I can see that this might be an argument about (say) online banking, but it hardly seems appropriate for a more techno-savvy group like crossword solvers. Even some of us oldies have been using computers for 40+ years now. (And no-one seems to stop TV advertising because not everyone has a television.)

In any case, despite dodging that last bullet, the EV is to be discontinued (from the end of July) so that things can go online only – The Telegraph’s puzzles, if accessed online, will have to be solved interactively only – no PDFs allowed. The EV apparently cannot be presented in an online form, and it is not viable purely in its ‘dead-tree’ version.

Let’s unpack this.

Most EVs have entries you just write in, exactly like a Toughie. They may be jumbled, they may later need overwriting, but it’s still only letters in cells. You need a facility to revisit and adjust even when solving the daily, and most EVs require no more. There will be puzzles with complications that render them impossible to solve online (I’m looking at you, hexagons), and highlighting may have to go by the board, but there’s not enough in those considerations to invalidate the basic argument that an EV is just a daily puzzle without black squares.

The reluctance to include PDFs is bizarre. As I write this I can see the blog for Guardian 28,755 on fifteensquared, and the blogger was only able to access the puzzle because they tracked down the PDF. This looks like The Telegraph committing to 100% uploading success without a failsafe or back-up. Good luck with that.

Even allowing for that, you have to wonder whether much thought has been given to how people solve. There will be many who want to do so on paper – indeed, I’m writing the first draft of this rant with a fountain-pen (though it is a retractable one, and a fascinating technological mesh of springs and clips it is too). A blanket adoption of ‘online only’ might turn into a ‘Here, foot – meet bullet’ moment. Indeed there has already been a suggestion that some of the puzzles will continue to have printable options – so why not all? If it’s not a fiddle to include a piece of software for some things, then why not standardise it? It really isn’t hard (and all the other papers manage it).

Anyway, no new puzzle this week, but I have converted one of the EVs already on the site to an interactive format. One of my first choices turned out to be one of the impossible ones (it required inverted letters in cells), but Full Marks only ever required you to write answers into the grid. The puzzle even sidestepped the highlighting element by getting you to fill in an otherwise barred-off cell.  What has defeated me so far is the inclusion of the preamble, but I think that may still prove doable. (Suggestions welcome.)

What has been added to the site is a blog on my recent EV, Additive, and some of the comments there relate to the announcement.

The next fortnight sees the appearance of the usual Friday Independent puzzles, plus a Times daily on 16 May and a Pedro in the Times Quick Cryptic series on 24 May. These will be available to solve online and with print options, and two can even be found on paper (in a specific geographical region). 

I was shocked yesterday to click through to fifteensquared and see that Neil Shepherd had died suddenly. His site, Alberich Crosswords, is one I have always referred people to for advice and for publication in a supportive environment. The proviso regarding medical reasons that is currently under ‘Latest News’ has become very poignant. I sincerely hope someone can be found to continue providing the support, advice and exposure that Neil so unstintingly offered. Meanwhile, do go and look at his site, and check out his puzzles (I just have). It’s far more elaborate than anything you’ll see here.

The new puzzle this time is the Inquisitor that shares its setter’s blog with the Enigmatic Variations puzzle I put up last time. (There’s also a solving blog available.) The two did indeed appear over the same weekend – I always feel both pleased and annoyed when this happens. Always nice to be published, of course, but I do feel a little for those who cannot escape my style. Today’s Inquisitor (still on my solving pile) is by Ifor, so Kcit’s appearance tomorrow with Additive is less of a monopoly.

I’ve just heard that Kcit is also going to supply the Telegraph Toughie on 12 May, just before my next update. Otherwise the Friday Independent puzzles carry on as usual.

Easter, and the combination of warmish sunshine and boisterous gales is hurling feijoas to the ground in their scores – something in excess of one hundred this week alone.  I have just decanted a cupful into a fruit loaf without any apparent diminution in the baskets and bowls of them that we have around the kitchen. We will have to start covertly leaving bags of them on neighbouring doorsteps.  Last year I couldn’t even offload quantities at work because of cries of; “No, no, our own tree’s doing very well”, and this year WFH might as well mean Watching Feijoa Heaps.

What will happen when our other two trees get their eye in is anyone’s guess. A neighbour’s tree is lobbing some over the fence as well.

The new puzzle this time round is from the Enigmatic Variations series, and because it’s fairly recent (2018) there’s a setter’s blog (which, unusually, is a double blog – I think IQ and EV were both mine that weekend), and here also is a link to the fifteensquared solver’s blog. (You might want to try the puzzle first.)

My forthcoming puzzles are the usual Friday appearances in the Independent (22 and 29 April), while Pedro appears in the Times Quick slot on 27 April, and I also have the Times 15×15 on 28 April. And if for whatever reason I don’t get around to updating the blog in a punctual manner in a fortnight’s time, there’s a new EV on 1 May (unless, as is always the case, exceptional circumstances intervene).

Apparently I’m an impounded boat. (I was watching a yacht gliding smoothly across Wellington harbour just a couple of hours ago, which convinced me that I’m right to stick to using the word for things with sails.)

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-grant-shapps-orders-detention-of-russian-owned-superyacht-named-phi-in-canary-wharf-12577407

https://www.charterworld.com/index.html?sub=yacht-charter&charter=m-motor-yacht-project-phi-11958

As Royal Huisman say: The yacht name, PHI comes from the ‘Sectio Divina’ Latin expression, which means the ‘golden ratio’ and refers to the formula that governs the continuation of dimensions and shapes in natural proportions throughout the design. True to her name, the yacht features highly innovative well-proportioned design elements resulting in a beautiful, modern superyacht.

Well, I’ve put a bit of weight on during the various lockdowns, but I don’t reckon to have reached that sort of tonnage. I think I prefer the quote from the current edition of Cosmos magazine, about the hard problem of consciousness: “It therefore possesses very high ?, implying it has a high level of consciousness. The theory predicts that whatever gives you a maximum of ? leads to a very precise prediction: maximum existence.” These neuroscientists are on the ball, even if it does sound a bit like a computer game. I’ve noted before how ? gets attached to all sorts of things, resulting in things like the engagement of Nicola Barker with Lacanian algebra in the closing pages of her novel H(A)PPY (intense, funny and needing to be printed and read in colour).

[OK, the question marks in the preceding paragraph are all meant to be instances of a capital Greek phi, which WordPress carefully puts into the draft, before replacing them when you publish. This seems to be self-defeating.]

To help keep your existence maximised, I have a new puzzle on the site for you: a BBC Music Magazine crossword from August 2018. There’s also a setter’s blog on my recent Magpie puzzle, 17 downs.

And should your existence levels slip awaiting the next update, there are no fewer than five puzzles appearing from me before I blog again: in addition to the two regular Friday Independent puzzles, there’s a Telegraph Toughie from Kcit on 6 April, a Times Jumbo on 9 April, and a Church Times puzzle on 15 April (which is Good Friday, though the puzzle itself doesn’t strike me as particularly paschal). 

Don’t forget to buy your Easter eggs.