Comments on: Inquisitor 1145 – Ulula by Ikela

By: petebiddlecombe

petebiddlecombe — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 11:32:08 +0000

Alec Robins may not have his own entry in Azed’s book, but if you read the introduction, he gets his first mention on page 3.

By: Colin Blackburn

Colin Blackburn — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 15:38:41 +0000

As nmsindy says Azed's book only covered living setters, at least when it was written. An authoritative list of Listener Setters is available but it doesn't give the real names of all setters. Under Zander it only has A. Robins.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 14:14:20 +0000

Yes, I can see how that happened. Azed’s book which I dip into all the time, is not a history of crosswords as such, but a directory of (current) setters. One of the criteria Azed used was that setters who have passed on were not eligible for inclusion. So no mention for AR.

By: Hi of Hihoba

Hi of Hihoba — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 12:38:56 +0000

This is a very late comment, so I won’t be surprised if it goes unnoticed, but I have sympathy with kenmac too. My “bible” on crossword setters is Jonathan Crowther’s “A-Z of Crosswords” and Alec Robins is not mentioned in any of his three incarnations. I did manage to finish the crossword, but only after some fairly hefty googling, and I have to admit that the Brian Close anagram came to me days after finishing the rest. I have to say that the ULULA reference was really much too obscure except for the cognoscenti!!

By: HolyGhost

HolyGhost — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 22:27:31 +0000

{composed before Ken’s comment #15}

I have some sympathy with Ken’s comment at #9 – the puzzle was a touch clubby? Nevertheless, the theme was fair game – a nicely constructed grid with pleasingly located symmetrical ‘special’ entries.

Even though I’ve never read a crossword book or taken one on holiday, bells were rung by Observer/Everyman, Guardian/Custos, & Listener, tho’ not Zander.

And I was pleased to find out about Alec Robins (for once I’ll waive my criterion of inclusion in Chambers Biographical Dictionay) … so thanks to Mike L. for his editorial decision.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 19:56:17 +0000

I’d just about reached the age of reason then, kenmac, so was maybe was just ready to tackle crosswords…

By: kenmac

kenmac — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 19:48:08 +0000

Sorry everyone, I meant no offence. Perhaps I had had too much of a stressful day. As I said, I’m sure if it was my week I would have tried harder. I had also been misled by the OLGA/LOLA confusion noted above and could get nowhere near the book title.

Mea culpa.

And nmsindy, old/young is very subjective, how does born in November 1954 fit on your scale?

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:14:33 +0000

Those were the very collections, Colin (at #13), that I was referring to at #12.

By: Colin Blackburn

Colin Blackburn — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 15:02:35 +0000

Custos was instrumental in getting me into crosswords. His ABC of Crosswords was where I learned the principles formally. I’d also flag up two of his collections, Crosswords for the Addict and Crosswords for the Discerning. These two books, along with Don Putnam’s earlier companion volumes, offer graded introductions to crosswords from armchair cryptics through to tougher thematics.

I’d like to say thanks to Mike for the tribute.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 10:26:24 +0000

I must confess to being quite surprised that kenmac, an experienced blogger of Inquisitor puzzles on this site, had never heard of Alec Robins/Custos/Zander.

The encouraging thing might be that this might mean kenmac is one of the younger solvers Azed and others are trying to encourage to become involved!

Personally I remember solving Custos puzzles in the Guardian in pre-Indy days and taking books of puzzles of his on long journeys because you knew the clues would be clear and fair and you’d be very unlikely to get stuck with no dicts to hand. I think he chose Custos as pseudonym as it means Guardian in Latin. Why I’m surprised is that Don Manley’s Chambers manual refers to him extensively and he wrote part of the reissued Ximenes book (a book I’d very strongly recommend to anyone interested in ‘advanced’ crosswords).