Phi Crosswords

Here we are back at level 4 lockdown, with talk of bubbles, and quick scurries to the shops to wander round the aisles masked. Much was made a few days ago of New Zealand going back into lockdown for one case – except that by the time the BBC was reporting that factoid it was up to five cases, and the count is now in the fifties – no, seventies, just checked today’s announcement. Cases are beginning to pop up across the country, as a result of reasonably active cross-country travel, and a virus that gets infectious before it doles out the symptoms.

No, still not had my first jab yet – that’s next Sunday.

Today’s puzzle goes back to the last century, and is a Beelzebub from about a year after I started contributing. I have not modified it greatly, other than to remove the word ‘hyphenated’ from the clue enumerations, and to update an entry that had consisted of two words in the Chambers of the day, but which the latest edition has conflated to one. Oh, and in deference to the last post I took out an exclamation mark.

I had planned to use a puzzle from the BBC Music Magazine, but my 1996 box predates my association with them. I believe the current issue of the magazine is on sale in the UK – Beatrice Rana on the front cover, I think – and that contains my 300th puzzle for them. It hasn’t arrived here yet.

The other reason I was going to use a BBC puzzle was to preface some musings on the use of popular culture, bu this paragraph will have to do instead.

Many would say that a crossword on classical music is an obvious throwback, and not up to date. I was recently reading an article based around an interview with Will Shortz, and the interviewer noted that he was criticised for not including more up-to-the-minute items around current pop music, politicians and sporting figures. The use of these trending items would be more attractive and would bring in more solvers.

And yet I wonder whether that is the case. The pandemic has done far more for puzzle solving than a change in content, though it’s clearly less useful as a tool in an editor’s armoury. It’s already quite tricky working through some US puzzles – ‘OK, I’m looking for the forename of an actor playing a role in a TV show I’ve never heard of’ – and I often find myself wondering what would happen if you produced a crossword that included clues about (say) the nurses on Dr Kildare. A while back I stuffed an Independent puzzle with the names of bands with No. 1 singles from…well, quite a long time ago, and no-one spotted the theme. Some of them even I’d heard of.

The issue is severalfold. Popular culture is increasingly diverse and the chances for people to be across all of it are limited. Too heavy a reliance on it might lower people’s willingness to try a puzzle. And if you need to check a reference, well, there are fewer agreed sources, though Googlepedia is pretty darn good.

At best, unless you are extremely prescient or lucky, topical references attach a ‘Solve by’ date to your puzzle. Which some may be fine with, but you aren’t going to win an argument about the ephemerality of crossword puzzles with someone who has just dug out a crossword from 1996 and found it usable. Go on and try it.

If I remember to press the ‘Publish’ button this time round, then you will still have time in the UK to nip out for the Sunday Telegraph of 22 August (and you can nip out and I can’t). It looks like the Inquisitor of 28 August will be mine (though it may slip back to the following week) and there’s a Times puzzle on 31 August. 

 

 

Last time I was noting how marvellous it was to be able to sit outdoors and have a meal in the New Zealand winter. Today it would be a foolhardy person who even stuck their head out of the door – back to the winter storm cycle. The actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in Wellington to complete his series for Apple TV, is said to be considering moving here permanently; today is definitely one for the debit column.

I did say I would look back at puzzles of the previous century, and I’ve opened the battered box that contains those from 1996. It’s not a year I’ve looked at previously, I think, so there should be no risk of accidentally duplicating a previous choice. I’ve selected an Independent daily puzzle from March of that year as this week’s puzzle.

In typing it up, I found myself deleting exclamation marks from several clues. The exuberance of my 36-year-old self!  (Note the use of ironical punctuation.)  The use of the screamer is certainly frowned upon. The ones I removed were from clues where the wording suggested something outrageous was being said. But the wording did that – there was no need for a ‘!’ to nudge the solver with a metaphorical elbow.

In one case, the wording didn’t even justify it. That particular clue was an example of an ‘& lit.’ and I have seen comments linked to American cryptic puzzles which suggest that an exclamation mark is a hint to the solver that something &-litty is going on. But if it’s a good clue it still shouldn’t need it.

There is a screamer in the notes to the 1996 puzzle, marking a reference to an exclamation. That seems to be the time you can use one – lo! ah! ugh! and so on – though often it’s disregarded. In terms of wordplay it can be quite hard to manoeuvre the interjection to the end of the clue so the exclamation mark blends in. We’ll have to see what we find as we explore the rest of the box.

I have finally come to the attention of the vaccination brigade – two text messages, an email and a letter, all within three days last week. Marjorie is most put out that she only got the one text message…  Still, they seem to be keen to jab my arm, yes?

So ho! to the website to book, only to find there were no appointments within 75km for the next few weeks. But there’s a phone line, about which there have been discouraging comments citing two-hour waits. We get straight through. First jab at the end of the month, follow-up three weeks later: sorted. Except I then found that there are appointments going begging most days in Wellington – close to a walk-in service, say colleagues taking advantage of it.  Last time I checked, that was well within 75km of here.  There again, I have sufficient experience of the interaction between Government and technology not to be entirely surprised.

The usual Independent puzzle next Friday, and I’ll be back with an update the following weekend. Just in case I don’t get round to it promptly, I’ll note that there’s a Times Quick from Pedro on August 20, a Times Jumbo on August 21, and an Enigmatic Variations puzzle from Kcit on August 22. At least any update won’t be postponed due to excessive amounts of solving.

Being able to sit out and enjoy a meal is always one of the pleasures of summer. Being able to do so in July is something of a rarity, whatever the Northern Hemisphere may think. Doing so a week after a torrential winter storm is sort of perplexing, but we have made the most of it. There’s even a glancing reference to this sort of weather in the puzzle this week – one from the Church Times in 2011 – uncannily prescient of me, don’t you think?

Apparently, Australia is sending us another storm tomorrow, so the sudden sunshine has seen us out in the garden: mowing, despite the lawn still being too damp; and setting up a new raised bed, and equipping it with lettuces. So only a quick update today, at the start of a week with a trio of puzzles: a Times Quick cryptic on Monday 26th, a Telegraph Toughie on Thursday 29th, and the usual Friday Independent appearance (yes, there’s a Nina this week).  There’s a 15×15 Times cryptic on 5th August as well.

All being well, I shall be back in a fortnight, and I’m pondering opening the delights of my twentieth century puzzles again.

Not for the seventeenth time, I find myself sitting before WordPress with other pressing things to get on with, and no idea what I’m going to write here. Still, the fact that the puzzle I’ve just put up is an Inquisitor from 2012 that was presented without a pseudonym gives an outline of a topic. (2012 means that there is a fifteensquared blog for the puzzle; just the usual note to solve first and consult blogs after.)

I have done a number of ‘anonymous’ puzzles over the years (and there’s another currently in a pipeline somewhere).  When ideas are coming (and wouldn’t it be nice if they did that more often…) they come from all directions, and one’s own pseudonym isn’t immune. The letter Phi itself can be represented by bars in the grid (yes, there’s one like that), and it has relationships with other Greek letters and their symbolism. I’d also suggest my wn background in astronomy, though to be honest I doubt whether Phi Canis Majoris (to choose at random) would be visible without the assistance of a telescope.

Even the preceding Inquisitor I put up was anonymous, so I’m clearly on a roll with these at present. One potential difficulty is that using one’s own pseudonym as a theme requires the expectation that a solver will recognise it. That’s not really the case – ideally, one should always assume the puzzle appearing today is the first one a solver is tackling, requiring no previous knowledge. It’s not quite the same with books – you pick up Volume 6 of The Twilit Hunger Games at Hogwarts and there’s a strong chance that there is going to be some backstory you will need to assimilate. But each crossword should be a standalone experience.

I do have a concept of a sequence of puzzles, each of which is standalone. Collectively, over a period of weeks, the puzzles combine to form a meta-puzzle, for the people who come along for a ride. Like many such concepts, whenever it gets near the drawing-board it flutters gently back to the floor. But I shall keep at it – an idea I’ve been trying to grid for a couple of years now finally gelled this week, so one day, perhaps…

Only the Independent Friday puzzles coming up just at present, but there’ll be something extra to report when I reappear in a fortnight.