Saturday 26th October 2013 in Sheffield celebrating Nimrod’s 50th birthday is where the puzzle in its final form started.
But the story really started about ten years ago…
I had already had one Independent Weekend puzzle published and I hankered after repeating the adventure. I came up with the idea of hiding the emergency services, FIRE, POLICE, AMBULANCE and COASTGUARD and depicting the emergency number with blank squares. I also decided that the title should be “Who Ya Gonna Call?” in the hope that solvers would be misdirected into thinking of Ghostbusters. The then editor Mike Laws (RIP) seemed to like it though he told me there were too many short words (three and four letters) and that FIRE would be better spelt out as FIRE BRIGADE or FIRE SERVICE. Being the amateur that I am, I shied away from changing it as too big an exercise. It sat on my back burner on a pile marked, “I’ll get around to this again someday” but of course, I never did.
In Sheffield I found myself in discussion with (as I remember) BertandJoyce, BigDave and Anax and the conversation, inevitably, revolved around crosswords. As the conversation moved to The Inquisitor there was much awe and respect for some of the ideas that the various setters dream up. Anax, a well respected compiler said something like, “I could compile the puzzles but it’s the ideas I have trouble with.” I replied that I was totally opposite in that I could come up with loads of ideas but constructing the grid and composing the clues was hardly my strong point. At which point, Anax and I, virtually simultaneously, said, “we should collaborate.”
As I left the hostelry a few hours and many beers later, Anax said, “don’t forget to get in touch” – probably thinking, “that’s the last I’ll hear from him!”
A few days later I sent him my puzzle to cold solve and to my surprise he came back and, basically, said “too difficult.” At that point I shared the solution along with Mike’s comments.
WOW! Within about half an hour, he replied with the reconstructed grid. The guy is a magician! The grid construction was now in its final form. Ten years of procrastination was wiped away in 30 minutes!
We then decided that we’d share the clue writing at which point Anax called a halt as he had the idea of replacing the blanks with unclued letters. After contacting Nimrod to find out which method was preferable (there was no preference) we settled on the extra letters idea. Back to the clueing. I felt proud as I clued the first half dozen answers in about an hour at which point Anax announced “finished.” I tell you, that guy’s a magician!
One or two of the clues that remained are mine. The rest are his. I could never have come up with anything as elegant as 12d, for example.
Following the normal progress of these things, Nimrod (and his team) cold solved it and the feedback was generally very good. As we were reaching the final stages I suddenly had the idea that we should try to build some misdirection into a couple of the early clues to further suggest Ghostbusters but it was too late. Any changes would have resulted in the possibility of inconsistencies that we bloggers find annoying.
Last thing for Nimrod to do was to ensure that its publication didn’t clash with my blogging week and there you have it.
Thanks so much for the positive feedback. I certainly wanted to remain anonymous until after people had begun to comment but Duncan (Sherlock) Sheill’s powers of perception were much too good. 😉
KANDY is set to appear at some unknown time in the future as we (read I) have a few ideas going on and Anax (the magician) will surely be able to clue anything I throw at him.
In the meantime stop singing that Ray Parker Junior song to yourself and, if you can’t, Who Ya Gonna Call?
kenmac
(for dramatic purposes some incidents and quotations have been fictionalized)
Thanks Kenmac & Anax for a great puzzle – much enjoyed.
As with Anax, my biggest problem (and I suspect this is the case with most other setters) is coming up with an original but sensible theme and/or gimmick and it’s becoming increasingly so. My fledgling ideas are often “hijacked” by others before I can even construct a suitable puzzle.
So, Kenmac … if you have ‘loads of ideas’, please get in touch!
Hopefully see you in York in October?
I entered as S.LIMER, but I think I would have got the prosecco by now if I’d have won. Still, here’s hoping…
Thanks for the background info to the puzzle kenmac. We really enjoyed solving it.
Very enlightening to read Kenmac’s blog. I’m a great fan of Anax so it’s good to know that another Kandy puzzle might be in the offing. I enjoyed the puzzle but it was difficult and I eventually completed it on the Monday a week after publication. Interestingly, well I think so, I’ve only attended one ‘Sloggers and Betters’ type get together and Nimrod’s birthday bash was it, and I chatted to Kenmac and enjoyed Anax’s speech. It’s very definitely the nearest I’ll get to creating an IQ. A bit like being on your own in the same hotel as the bride and groom on their wedding night.
Many thanks to Ken for creating the idea and grid concept for this, and I’m delighted to say we do have one or two more ideas in the pipeline.
For this puzzle, the way the grid was constructed led to a highly enjoyable bout of clue-writing. Making the redundant letters work within the clues was a lovely challenge. In the past – working solo – I’ve occasionally given myself unusual clueing constraints but this was the first time I’ve felt a real sense of responsibility in making sure everything eventually slotted together; a responsibility heightened, of course, by it being a prize puzzle in such a prestige series.
On the whole it seems to have gone down very well, which gives me great encouragement for the time when the next is ready for concerted clue work.
Delighted, kenmac, that puzzle appeared because I remember you explaining at a number of S&Bs the difficulties with the “second” puzzle. I hope a third will appear with a much shorter gap!
This puzzle really got under my skin. Very tough, because of all the ‘spare’ letters, but once I got a smell of the solution, it completely seized me. Good job I had plenty of time last week…