In the light of the news a few hours ago, I thought it appropriate that this time the puzzle is not a new one, but is instead the APEX competition puzzle from 2010. What follows is a bit of a spoiler.

Stephen Sondheim was one of the regulars in Eric’s original circulation lists, along with his occasional collaborator, Leonard Bernstein. It’s reasonably well-known that work on West Side Story was repeatedly interrupted while the two of them wrestled with latest crossword in The Listener. Eric Chalkley sent off some appropriately-themed puzzles and snared the two of them for his Christmas competition. I wasn’t able to maintain the link, but I have not neglected to include Sondheim themes in the series (follow the link above).

Sondheim’s wordplay ability is familiar to most people from the artful lyrics scattered throughout his musicals, though the artfulness of the music is often an equal match. His puzzle-setting career lasted through 1968 and 1969, until Company claimed his attention. There were 42 such puzzles, all but one of which were collected in a book published in 1980. I cannot find my copy at short notice but there is an excellent blog about it.   That post refers you to this page which has Sondheim’s guide to solving the puzzles for an American market unused to cryptics, reprinted some 50 years later.  Chambers Dictionary at $5.50!

Many of Sondheim’s puzzles are homages to puzzles originally printed in The Listener series, so solving them will revive memories of their models (for those of us who remember that far back). If you can get hold of a copy, then of course you should, though you may find yourself lacking an arm and a leg subsequently.

The 2010 puzzle did find its way to its theme…

He is careful not to reveal his address, of course. I acquired it on that occasion from Anne Bradford, who has also recently passed on, at much the same age as Sondheim. Anne was also a member of the APEX group and contributed clues until a couple of years ago. (She was, in fact, the last on the list to require me to send a printed version rather than an electronic one; a good measure of how much crosswords are moving on from print-and-post to the print-off-and-email era.)

Anne’s magnum opus and an enduring contribution to cruciverbalism now and into the future is her Crossword Solver’s Dictionary, a new edition of which is due in February. I’m intrigued to see that the new edition is announced as the 8th while the one on the stool beside me is the 10th, so perhaps Anne has also triumphed over time travel. There can be almost no major setters and solvers who don’t dip into the book on a regular basis. It is not compiled simply as a series of definitions, like a dictionary, or synonyms, like a thesaurus, or examples, like a number of other word-books, but as a glorious agglomeration of all three, so that you can see additional links between apparently disparate meanings. Aha, says the solver, BRUSH has links to DANDY, FILBERT and POPE’S HEAD. Rather like the trains of connections originated by consulting Brewer’s Dictionary, it hardly matters what some of these links are – it is enough that they exist. But if they help to solve a clue, it’s a bonus. Who knows, there might be a tribute puzzle coming.

Sometimes people leave you, halfway through the woods…

Today (27 September) sees a Phi puzzle in the Inquisitor series. There’s a Pedro Quick Cryptic in The Times on 2nd December. If I don’t get round to the next update promptly, then there’s a 15×15 in The Times on Saturday 11 December, with an Enigmatic Variations from Kcit the next day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A day with a torrential downpour is always likely to facilitate website updates. So this time round you’re getting a BBC Music Magazine puzzle from 2016. If the presentation looks a little different, that’s because I’ve finally taken the plunge and expanded my software package repertoire to try some things in Crossword Compiler. ‘Try’ is definitely the verb I’m looking for but we’ll see how we progress.

The BBC Music Magazine puzzle has been mildly edited – in its original form it was linked to that year’s Proms programme. I’ve taken out some elements of definitions that pointed up that relationship as they no longer have the timely reference implied. For example, ‘composer with premiere’ became simply ‘composer’. The gentleman in question is still composing (and even has a premiere available on the BBC iPlayer as I type) but the definition no longer serves the original purpose. At least it wasn’t a case of “can’t use him – everyone will say ‘Who he?'”

The next fortnight sees a few puzzles – the usual Friday Independent appearances, plus a Telegraph Toughie on Thursday 25 November, and the Inquisitor on Saturday 27 November (which should free up time for the next update!).

To the unexpected puzzle: I decided (not that I have any say in the matter, of course) that it was about time Julian Barnes published another novel. (And there is one coming in April 2022, so I wasn’t far off. Not as close as when I decided that Nicola Barker was due a new novel, and found it was coming out the next day, but not bad.) But checking around led me to the man’s own website where I stumbled upon a crossword.

Mr. Barnes has reached the age of 75, and two of his loved ones decided to set him a crossword. Not just any old crossword but a proper Listener-type puzzle, with bars and thematic entries and an endgame. And cryptic clues in French – Barnes is a celebrated Francophile – the setters note that solutions are in the same language as the clue. One clue starts off in English and drifts into French, but as it is for a French word adopted by the English, I suppose that is acceptable. (One clue has a burst of German not reflected in the language of the answer.)

It’s very entertaining, particularly if you’ve read JB’s books (such knowledge means that the triply unchecked entries are not as fearsome as they might seem). There were one or two clues where I was moved to call for a bargepole so that I could fail to touch them, but there are also plenty that wouldn’t engage an editor’s blue pencil. Camilla and brother are to be congratulated. I wonder whether the fact that a crossword was deemed an appropriate commemoration reflects cruciverbalism among the Barnes hobbies.

I pasted the link in below, thinking you could click through, but WordPress seems to have gone the whole hog in some way, and given you a printable link. Enjoy – you can also reach the puzzle from the current home page on the site at julianbarnes.com.

 

 

It’s the time of year when I have just completed my Christmas puzzle for the Independent. The one for BBC Music Magazine went off some time ago. It’s a little like filming TV specials – in the UK, actors and crew would be all dressed in furs, dodging fake snow, in August, so that the punters would have something seasonal in the depths of winter.  The fact that the puzzles went off this week also means that I had been coming up with the ideas up to a month ago. So now, of course, Easter is looming (but these days crème eggs are in the shops all year round, so that seems a normal state of affairs).

The other seasonal puzzle is, of the course, the annual APEX crossword, which was completed back at the start of August. The theme there is rarely Christmassy of course, so that feels a little different. I gather, too, that I have a puzzle appearing on Christmas Day this year – online only, so you won’t have to find a newsagent. More of that anon.

The puzzle this time is from 2016, as promised. It certainly felt closer to my way of thinking – not that the earlier ones feel that distant. Since we’re closer to the present day, the reliable fifteensquared has blogged it, and there’s a link to that blog with the solution. What we need here, of course, is a link to the newly-uploaded puzzle.

There are a couple of appearances in The Times before I next add an update: a daily on 4 November, and a Quick on 10 November. There’s something else in the offing but I’m not going to devote anything more than this sentence to it for now.

A fortnight ago it was one of those spring weekends when the garden beckoned.  Shortly afterwards it was one of those weekends where sitting at a desk to write a blog reminded you that certain muscles hadn’t been used in the months since the garden last beckoned. So no blog, alas.

This time round I’m completing my exploration of puzzles from 1996 with Church Times 332 from April of that year. At least a couple of occasions where I thought ‘Did I really write that clue?’ and the answer was ‘Yes’, so perhaps my style has evolved. I couldn’t exactly tell you how, though. Less chance of spotting evolution for the next wee while – the box I’m drawing from for the next round is from 2016.

October is a quiet month for Phi and Pedro and Kcit puzzles – from now on I think you have only my Friday Independent appearances, and one of those is on a Thursday. Next Thursday, in fact – 21 October marks a centenary. It’s one of those puzzles where you cannot assume the average solver has the breadth of knowledge. People in the know may feel short-changed, but it’s a question of pitching the subject. If you want me to base a puzzle on (say) Terry Pratchett, then I could include WEATHERWAX to the bafflement of all but devotees, so instead I’m likely to use JINGO, or possibly FIFTH and ELEPHANT.

The Independent puzzle I’m about to clue is a precise example of this, featuring a creative artist with a significant birthday in 2021. Fortunately the oeuvre includes titles that are also common phrases – so they’re the ones going in. The title with an attractive neologism or two has to be discarded. Yes, it is a nice word, and yes, it may even not be this person’s neologism, and has been used elsewhere, but that doesn’t mean it is common enough to use.

Today is the big vaccination day for New Zealand, bringing the average for the country up to the average for, well, Wellington. There are road signs and other pointers all over, though I was surprised to see one vaccination station located in what was, until quite recently, a noted gang haunt. The locale has been comprehensively made over, to be sure, but the notoriety of the address still jangles the memory of those of us who’ve been around a while.

Back when October is fading into November.