The puzzle this week is from the BBC Music Magazine and my thanks to them for permission to republish. 2002 is a year I haven’t investigated much, but I do seem to have landed on yet another August issue. This must come from my opening the boxfile and sticking my hand in somewhere around the middle…
Puzzles coming up: a little run of those occasions when I get two on one day: a Toughie and the Times on 15 June; the Church Times and The Independent on 1 July; and Pedro in the Times accompanying Phi in The Independent a week later. Pedro also appears in June, on the 20th.
This week’s Independent Nina was Ray Henderson (no relation), the songwriter, and I included both forename and surname in the grid. Clueing your own name is a bit like reading a novel where a character shares it – in my case, it leaves me slightly uneasy, though I really should read Bellow one day, I suppose. There aren’t many famous Hendersons either – indeed, Bellow’s Eugene of the ilk may be most famous. I was gratified that the family had managed to snaffle a Nobel prize winner, though.
I’ll be revisiting the surname in a future puzzle, as there is a Henderson lurking behind a curious bit of popular culture. I may also do something around the activities of the people you find before me when you Google the name. The reason I have a Canadian dollar with my name on it (see my comment here) is that one was minted to commemorate a key Canuck victory in hockey (that’s ‘hockey’ as opposed to ‘field hockey’, of course; everywhere else the split is ‘hockey’ vs. ‘ice hockey’). The winning goal was scored by – well, you can probably guess his name; he went on to become a televangelist, which kept the name in the public eye.
When I attended a conference in Kingston, Ontario, I experienced repeat instances of people peering at my name-badge and saying ‘You know, that’s quite a well-known name you have there’. In the end, I made a joke to kick off my presentation ending with a suggestion that, for a fuller explanation, people should ask a Canadian. At breakfast the next day, a Finn came up and said, reprovingly: “We Finns know about ice hockey, too”.
Next time: a report from Phoenix, Arizona.
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