Sorry end rant

nms@27: Your description of how things “should be” for a daily cryptic corresponds fairly well to the type of crossword I most enjoy solving in my lunch break. I make no claim that these are in any way better or worse than any other type of crossword.

PB – I agree in some senses but cliquey-ness is not simply reducible to difficult or ambiguous aspects of clueing – one of the things I find that my uni friends struggle with the most is the almost unending possibilities which could be abbreviated. Sure you can say something like “refer to Chambers” but that is no less cliquey than compound anagrams et al. as far as the new solver is concern. “R = recipe” for me is no more ‘fair’ than expecting someone to mentally divide TimeWarner IMHO.

NMS – again, for me, I would think I never solve a Thursday puzzle without making recourse to (via dictionary or from the fodder) words I don’t know – that’s because I’m naiver than the average solver no doubt but re-inforces my point re. fairness being relative (I refer you to Brendan’s CSARDAS in yesterday’s Graun for precedence – is that fair? or not?).

Thanks all – I’m not often encouraged in my desire to discuss ‘style’.

There are no agreed rules, but conventions have grown up over time. FWIW, my views would be that the main purpose of a puzzle is to entertain, it should be fair (ie the solver should understand why he got the answer), for daily 15X15 cryptics the vocab should be familiar ie the puzzle should be (after a good deal of practice) usually solvable “on the train” without having to consult anything, and, finally, the definitions used should be verifiable in a dict.

My problem with inexact indicators is that someone uses one in a clue where the answer is obvious, and then someone else uses it where the answer is slightly less obvious, and so on. Then the indicator becomes regarded as standard, but this means that for any newcomer to crosswords it is a convention that has to be learned.

My dislike of certain constructions, such as the unsignalled requirement to split a clue word and the two stage process required in 26ac of this crossword, is that in my view they tend to make crosswords cliquey.

One thing on which I am sure we can agree is that we should choose what we allow or disallow in terms of current preferences, not in the name (or, rather, pseudonym) of an excellent crossword compiler who has now been dead for about 40 years.

As always, I have no quarrel with people whose preferences are different from mine.

Half of the things we cite as “fair” and “Ximenean” are simply conventions which have arisen without any recourse to Derrick Macnutt or without a real concept of what “fairness” might even look like. How did half of the standard indicators become standard in the first place? Not because of any rules per se but because someone pushed the boat out and people went with it.

Although I despair at a lot of popular culture, I do think it has a place in crosswords, more so than references to classical mythology or the Bible, which are no longer taught in depth at most schools.

As for rules, I think we do need to have some conventions, but crosswords are supposed to be cryptic and it’s an editor’s job to ensure that clues are reasonable, but to encourage innovation.

In terms of crossword ‘standards’, I feel that rigidity in rules can only reinforce the already slightly cliquey reputation of cryptics. Do crosswords exist in order to test the mind, or in order to reassure an exclusive set of people that they know all of a finite set of rules? For me, without innovation and daring, there can only be sterility. Just sayin’.