Comments on: Inquisitor #1 – Message from Loda

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nmsindy — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 00:11:05 +0000

Yes, that agrees with what I recall. Why I remember it so well is that it was the first advanced crossword I ever did (which opened a new world which led me – eventually – to the Listener).

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petebiddlecombe — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 00:05:53 +0000

Just for the record: The first ever weekend mag crossword was just called “Crossword”, on a page headed “Independent Pursuits”, on 10 Spetember 1988. It was by Mass. (Copy found while looking through some old crossword files.)

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nmsindy — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 12:52:45 +0000

From memory, I think the first was by Mass.

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Phi — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 08:54:17 +0000

My first Independent Magazine puzzle was 8 October 1988 – No. 3 or No. 5 I think, and called Leading Lights – it’s somewhere in a large pile of boxfiles behind me, so I can’t easily get at it to confirm details. I think No. 1 was Corylus, but I’m prepared to stand corrected.

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Mike Laws — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:58:51 +0000

Slight corrections, etc. There were 350 puzzles in the original slightly glossy Independent Saturday Magazine, before it had a makeover into its current format, at which point it was simply “Crossword” and the numbering restarted at #1. For some reason, the crossword was omitted from the issue which would have contained #119, and that number never appeared. Presumably the crossword was used later, but with a new number. Then for a brief period, the crossword shifted to the Weekend section of the broadsheet, and was renamed “Weekend Crossword”, which it remained when it moved back into the magazine. I renamed it Inquisitor to give it a proper identity, intending to carry on with the correct numbering. Inquisitor #1 was to have been #950, but disappointingly,I was overruled on that.

The grids are limited to 12×12, 13×13, or very occasionally 13 (columns) x 12 (rows) for production and available space reasons – a pity. When it was briefly in he broadsheet, the grid was huge.

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petebiddlecombe — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:08:32 +0000

I’m sure you’re right about the sizes – the Indie puzzle doesn’t go in for the weird and wonderful grids sometimes seen in the Listener – hexagons for beehives and the like. Sadly these seem to be uncommon in the Listener puzzle too these days. September 88 sounds correct now you mention it – I’m pretty sure I was sitting in the Proms queue while trying to solve that first Indie mag puzzle – about 18 months after my first goes at the Listener.

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nmsindy — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:44:01 +0000

I’m open to correction, but the grids for this puzzle are v much the same each week, 12X12 or 13×13 I think. I can’t think of any other puzzle that renumbered once, not to mind twice. I think it’s a pity. I think it started in Sept 88, because that was first time I ever tackled an advanced, themed, crossword, eventually graduating to the Listener.

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petebiddlecombe — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:11:19 +0000

So they are. Moral: check both ends of an “A => B” that you don’t understand in Chambers before displaying your ignorance to the world.

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Nestor — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 09:24:47 +0000

A printer’s en is a nut (qv in Chambers) and an em is a mutton.