Wouldn’t you know it – it’s another holiday weekend? A fortnight ago it was Wellington Anniversary Weekend, and now it’s Waitangi Day, with a Mondayised holiday coming up. More implausibly still the weather is good again.
But it would be bad form to use that as another excuse for deferral. There are timely things to mention. Last Sunday saw a Kcit Enigmatic Variations puzzle called Star Quality, which will be graced by a setter’s blog next week. Meanwhile today’s update is a Phi Inquisitor puzzle called Star Quality, which is a remarkable coincidence, I’m sure you’ll agree. More of that in the blog next week…
Two days ago Sir Jeremy Morse passed away at the age of 87. He was an unmissable figure in the crossword world, not so much as a setter (though there are some Esrom puzzles around and also some Sesrom puzzles set with his son Richard), but as a longstanding solver bridging the eras of Ximenes and Azed. The rest of the world will have known him as a banker of note, while cruciverbalists and aficionados of detective fiction will know him as the source of the name of a certain Oxford policeman. It was an honour that he stayed with the APEX list when I took it over, and I always looked for the airmail envelopes in our letterbox. But when Richard Morse suggested last year that his father was unlikely to submit a clue, it felt like the end of an era. I’m hoping the next update will contain something appropriate.
Speaking of APEX, I am hoping to get the clues out for judging over the rest of the weekend. I did extend the closing date a week (Waitangi Day is rather temptingly placed for that), and at least one solver is taking full advantage of that.
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