General Discussion

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This page is for the discussion of general crossword related matters and other topics of interest.

Comments posted before 22/08/2022 can be found here.

This post is now closed. New comments can be posted here.

107 comments on “General Discussion”

  1. Responding to Rats about the late blogging of Buccaneer puzzles in the FT:

    Normally blogs for FT Weekend puzzles are published 12 days after the date of publication. This is because they were prize puzzles until the Covid-19 pandemic put an end to most if not all prize puzzles. Their blogs would be published the day after the deadline for entries. We had assumed that the ending of prize puzzles would be temporary and indeed some prize puzzles have now resumed. The FT however has not resumed its prizes, even after appeals have been made for them to do so. If it seems that the FT is never going to resume publishing prize puzzles then I think we should consider changing the blogging schedule.

  2. I know that I’m not the only one to struggle to recall even the Guardian Prize puzzles, just a week after publication, before the blog – and I find 12 days for the FT is really a stretch!

    Pete writes great blogs on the Saturday FT puzzle and I’d like to see more people commenting on them. I agree with him that it seems about time to review the blogging policy.

  3. It’s tricky. I think that in early 2020 many of us expected the pandemic to last only a few months. Now here we are >2 years later and “normality” is beginning to creep in. It’s clearly up to the editors what happens next.
    Maybe some editors will want to jump in and let us know their thoughts.

  4. I got “PALAVER” in today’s Guardian but assumed “PA” to be the state (Pennsylvania) so I looked up “LAVER” and found it to mean a bowl (possibly china) for face washing and assumed Picaroon had got east and west mixed up. Sorry Picaroon!

  6. Today’s expected Guardian Prize puzzle does not show up on my app. Am I the only one with this problem?
    This is not the first time a puzzle disappears – I’d say roughly one every fortnight – why would this keep happening ?
    Or is this to be expected from the Grauniad?

  7. Morten @6, it’s a Maskarade special and as I understand it because it’s a double grid jigsaw it won’t fit into the constraints of the ‘app’. The web page says “We are unable to display Maskarade’s cryptic crossword August bank holiday special online in the normal interactive format. Please use the PDF version to complete the crossword.”

  10. @Tim C
    Aha! That makes sense. It would have been nice if maybe the app brought up a message to that effect. Maybe that’s what’s happened before as well. I’ll have to start checking the website. Thanks ?

  11. Funny. That final ? in my post above was meant to be a :thumbsup: sign, not me querying my own gratitude!

  12. Morten@11 The blog only accepts a limited number of emoticons. I don’t think the thumbs up is one of them. You have to use special combinations of characters like colons and brackets followed by a space to achieve them. Go to FAQs from the menu here, and follow the link there to see what’s available. 🙂

  13. Hello
    Does anyone know why the guardian puzzle app sometimes does not award a ? for a completed puzzle, even though I have checked solutions and am pretty sure I have entered them correctly?

  17. I have been away, and took an old book of Guardian Crosswords with me (I’m a pen and paper solver, and wasn’t able to get the newspaper). I was delighted to come across an Araucaria, but am stuck on one clue. I know the answer, but I can’t parse it.

    The clue is ‘21’s French gentleman foreign. Are we 9s’ (6,7)

    21 is BRECHT 9 is CENTURION. The answer is MOTHER COURAGE. I know that is a play by Brecht, but that’s as far as I’ve got. In case it’s relevant, the book was published in 2003.

    Any ideas?

  19. Amazing how asking someone else gets your brain in gear. I’ve got it now. But I’ll leave it here in case anyone else wants to have a go.

  21. Thank you Anna! I was getting a bit desperate – had to try the Weekend puzzle instead, which I’d never looked at before.

  23. The Guardian was a special prize last week, the closing date for entries is this coming Thursday so the blog will be then or Friday I suspect.
    The FT has a nominal “prize” puzzle, the closing date used to be 11 days after a Saturday puzzle, the FT prize blog always turns up on a Thursday.

  25. What is happening to the crosswords on the Guardian App? Saturday’s Prize Paul didn’t appear until Monday, the Quick was missing yesterday but has made a belated appearance today, and today’s Cryptic won’t open.
    Sorry, I just needed a little rant. 🙁

  26. I wonder if that’s why the blogs are late, Crossbar. Unusual for neither Indy nor Guardian to be up by 9.30.

  27. Could be, PostMark. The Graun cryptic is on the website though, and I suppose the pdf is there too in the usual spot, but I haven’t looked. I’m just grumpy with the app.

  28. Most peculiar, Crossbar. I can’t tell if I’m the only one experiencing this but it’s midday and there’s no new entry of any kind for today – G, I, FT or anything else. No announcement or placeholder. And no other comments on this page, either. IS it me or is something up? This page appears to be working.

  31. Tim@30, was it just the surface you enjoyed? If not, did you solve it cold with no check letters, because I can’t. I would probably appreciate it a lot more if you supplied a link to the puzzle or the answer or both. Observing someone laughing at something you don’t understand is not a particularly pleasant experience, as I’m sure you’ll agree.

  32. Tony@31 I have solved this but do not want to give it away for others. I could put the answer on the latest Cyclops blog ?? If someone then looks they deserve the spoiler.

  33. Tony Collman @31 I might have had a couple of crossers when the penny dropped and I laughed. I didn’t want to post the answer straight away as I thought it would be more pleasurable for others to solve themselves, and also because it was a prize crossword in the latest Speccie and I’m not sure of the etiquette of posting answers to crosswords with a deadline. I’m happy to do so if requested, or happy for Roz (@32) to post instead. Here is the link to the crossword

  34. Roz@32, well done on solving the clue (might have known you would!). Please don’t post the answer on the blog for another puzzle, which I think would be improper. I respect Tim’s reasons for not publishing the answer immediately; it would be quite wrong, as he suggests, to give the answer to a clue in a prize puzzle before the deadline.

    Tim@33, (see reply to Roz, above). Thanks for the link to the puzzle. I think it looks too hard for me to solve. I will have another look at the clue and see if an amusing penny drops. Perhaps you will give the answer (or a link to the relevant 15² blog, if any) once the deadline has passed?

  35. Tony@34 I would not just bluntly put the answer, I would hide it away in reply to your last juvenile post on Cyclops. Now I know it is a prize puzzle I would refrain anyway and now I know it is the Spectator I will wash my hands of the whole affair.

  38. Tony @34… I will post the answer at some time in the future. I’ve only just realised that Lavatch is Picaroon of the Guardian although he has set some Guardian Geniuses as Lavatch

  40. Ha! I should have thought to find and then read the Meet the Setter before I wrote, not after! It seems Lavatch’s first work was for 1across magazine, not the Listener and Tom Johnson spotted his work there.

  42. With the passing of the queen I am curious as to how the oft used “ER” will now be plied by setters. When used, will it be qualified with an “ex” or an “old” or something similar? Googling, I find the queen’s actual royal cypher was EIIR and Charles’s will be CIIIR. Can the latter be shortened to just “CR”?

  43. Surely ‘former Queen’ is reserved for cluing the letters -ANNE-?

    Replacement for dead Queen still unknown? That’s not true! (6)

  45. Interesting how folk seem to know the correct story about Lavatch and “1 Across” but get it totally wrong. Lavatch sent me a selection of unsolicited cryptic crosswords for possible publication. I jumped at the chance of featuring work by him as I knew he would be going places. Within a year of his debut in “1 Across”, I had invited him to join the Spectator team.

    Let’s get the story straight.

  47. Thanks Tom. What you have now reminded me of, but haven’t made quite clear in straightening out my garblings (and I hope I’ve got this right!), is that you were, I think, the first editor of 1across magazine, which is where Lavatch “sent a selection of unsolicited cryptic crosswords for possible publication”.

  48. Tony
    No! I was not the first editor of “1Across”. Mike Rich preceded me as did Enigmatist. I was editor from 2000 to 2016. Lavatch may have appeared in the Listener prior to his submissions to me. Only he can verify the time frame. But I can certainly claim to have encouraged him and invited him to join the Spectator team. He now ranks amongst the top ten British compilers. I am proud to have set him on his crossword career.

  49. What astonishes me is how he can maintain such high standards while also being so prolific. And I thought that even before I knew he was Lavatch as well as being Picaroon, Buccaneer and Rodriguez…

    Does he have any other pseudonyms I don’t know about?

  50. Tom, thanks for the further correction. I think I will stop publishing crossword trivia until I have given myself a course in fact-checking. Anyway, I’m sure we all owe you a debt of gratitude for bringing James’ work to a wider audience, even if it’s clear his talent would have brought him through at some time anyway. Thank you.

  51. Re “Queen” = ER: I don’t suppose there’s any harm in passing this on. Mike Hutchinson has told me that he’s asking setters not to use “The Queen” for ER from now on, but they are free to use “queen” (i.e. not specific) for R (presumably “king” also). Worth bearing in mind for anyone who wants to send him a puzzle.

    This might well be the policy of other editors.

    I suppose “The King” for CR will be valid now.

  53. Crossbar – I guess the point is that she’s no longer “the Queen” – you’d have to be more specific in the reference, ie “Queen Elizabeth”, just as GR would need to be clued specifically as King George.

    ER could also be King Edward.

  54. Widdersbel, I get it about “the Queen”, but I still have a feeling that I’ve seen just “king” giving GR, without George being specified. Sadly I have no proof to hand.

    That would be nicely misleading to clue ER as king. 😀

  55. We often see words like ‘president’ or ‘prime minister’ referring to people previously holding the title so, as long as the definite article is not present ‘king’ or ‘queen’ should be allowed for previous sovereigns.

  58. Once a month there is a clue setting competition. 9D with the asterisk is just a DEFINITION.
    You need to send in a cryptic clue for 9D with your entry. The best three get prizes.

  59. Aha. Many thanks Roz. I thought that clue was a bit minimalist! Closing in on my first ever Azed finish so very excited

  60. Good luck, you have got to this stage very quickly. Took me about two years to get good at Azed although I did start them too soon I think.

  61. Am I the only one to feel misled by the rubric in this month’s Guardian Genius Puzzle (No 232, Pasquale)?
    The rubric states “Wordplay in the other eight across clues contains a superfluous letter that should be ignored”. Unless I am very much mistaken (which I accept is entirely possible), I think it should say “Wordplay in the other eight across clues has a letter missing which should be inferred from the definition”, i.e. more or less the exact opposite of what it does say.
    Would anyone like to either agree with me or gently put me right?

  62. I think you’re correct George @61. I made the same comment in the thread for last month’s Genius yesterday… see here. The letter omitted from (not superfluous to) the wordplay spell out the name.
    There was also a problem with the submittal form not accepting the single central letter, but that’s been fixed now.

  64. Thank you Tim@62 for directing me to your post and subsequent comments on last month’s Genius thread. Being new to this site, I hadn’t discovered that thread and was unaware of its existence. I’ll know where to look next time. BTW, apart from the misleading rubric, I enjoyed this month’s Genius and last month’s as well, which I thought was particularly inventive.

  65. TimC, haha! Very good! Thanks. I didn’t put much into it, because I thought I likely wouldn’t know the TV program (don’t own a TV), but I’ve certainly at least heard of the relevant one, even if I haven’t watched any episodes.

  67. Today’s Guardian Prize won’t open in the Android app. This happens fairly often. I’m wondering whether the problem is with puzzles that have one or more solutions across more than one light.

  68. Quick question folks. I know that Chambers is the bible for the answers, is there a similar Thesaurus one uses? I’ve often found the word similar to X as the definition does not appear in my list when Googled (Oxford Languages most often, but others present occasionally). If there is an official crossword tome for these I’d be greatful to be told. That said, it may well be part of the setters’ art to make one stretch for the solution.

  71. There is also Chambers Crossword Dictionary which I bought recently and am finding it useful. I suspect the contents are very similar to Bradford’s.

  72. Since this topic was last discussed, I’ve acquired a copy of Bradford’s blue book. This doesn’t work like a thesaurus – it’s a book of lists. I think the other one, the red book, might be more like a thesaurus.

    Chambers Crossword Dictionary is like a thesaurus – but with “crosswordese” synonyms as well as literal synonyms. Very useful as a solving aid.

    The advantage of both for crossword solvers over a regular thesaurus is that entries are listed by word length.

  73. Bradford’s Crossword Solvers’ Dictionary is not really like a thesaurus, but is a unique work in which for each alphabetically-listed entry, a list of words is given, all compiled by (the late) Anne Bradford while actually solving cryptic crosswords, which may be synonyms but may also be associated in some other way with the headword — a way that could be relevant to a solver.

    I bought a p/b 5th (2003) edition very cheaply a few years ago, via a second-hand booksellers’ aggregator, and it is still very useful, especially for the tougher species of cryptic.

    Amusingly, if you go on Amazon, you can learn that “frequently bought together” are the following three books:

    1. One copy of Bradford’s Crossword Solver’s Dictionary @£11.99
    2. A copy of Bradford’s Crossword Solver’s Lists @£12.15
    3. Another copy of Bradford’s Crossword Solver’s Dictionary, this one @£13.99

    and at the click of a button, you can add all three to your basket for the knockdown price of £38.13 (the sum of the individual prices).

    Bargain!

  74. As an aspiring cryptic setter, I was wondering if anyone has a suggestion for a place where I can submit my puzzle and hopefully get some feedback?

    Thanks!

  75. Joshua@74.

    Have a look at Mycrossword.co.uk it’s a community of amateur setters and solvers of all levels of ability and experience. Mostly a friendly bunch too and they’ll certainly give you constructive criticism in a positive way.

  76. Thanks very much to Tim C @71, Widdersbel @ 72 and Tony Collman @73. Time to fumigate the moths in the wallet I suspect.

  78. Joshua @77, on there you will find PostMark and Widdersbel there (under the same names as here), as well as Rob T on here (as Henri there). Not sure of any others on here. I’m on there as jugular. The feedback I’ve found is gentle and constructive so it’s a good place to start and hone your skills.

  79. As I’ve described it elsewhere, it’s a safe space for amateur crossword setters.

    You can also submit your puzzles to Rookie Corner at Big Dave’s crossword blog – but note the regular reviewer Prolixic will hold you to very high standards!

  80. I think the best setter of cryptic crosswords is Neo in the FT (he is precise and funny and, usually, solvable is why). Who do you think is better?

  81. I would have to say Enigmatist/Io is easily the best setter for the dailies , unfortunately we get very few puzzles. Try this recent clue.

    With a single dash, we see him lose his get-up-and-go! ( 8 )

  82. Toodles, everyone has their favourites, depending on whether they prefer challenging or funny and solvable. Roz prefers challenging, and doesn’t really care about funny or smooth surfaces, hence her choice of Enigmatist/Io; I’m guessing she would also like Maskarade/Gozo for the same reason.

    I, like you, prefer funny and solvable. For me, on the easier side, that means Matilda or Orlando (if he’s still around), and on the slightly harder but still solvable side, that means Brendan, Arachne, Philistine and Nutmeg. My favourite of those depends on whose puzzle I’m playing with at the time. If I had to pick one, I’d go for Brendan.

  87. Oh man, I’ve got serious James Brydon withdrawals. Smashed the Buccaneer in near record time. Still no Rodriguez to speak of and Picaroon’s too long a wait as well 🙁

  88. Rats@87 it was Picaroon for the Guardian on Saturday just gone, no discussion for a week.
    Mig@86 the main bias in crosswords is the anti-science bias.

  90. FYI (anyone who hasn’t already done this): I put that rubbish @83 through Google Translate. Apparently in Malay, it’s some sort of advert for gambling slot-machines. Just ignore.

  91. Just getting into cryptic crosswords – and very much enjoying the discussion and assistance on this website.
    I also feel the need to share a delightful coincidence:
    I “entertain” the family with my current favourite clue. At the moment, this is from Guardian 28,895 “Vital periods of rest for Spooner and Bones (8)”.
    How pleased, I was then, to be subsequently given a copy of Alan Connor`s book “Two girls, one on each knee (7)”.
    Or, am I unaware of a specific anatomical humour within the crossword world?

  92. Laccaria, as you see, spam that gets through the filter is soon deleted by human moderation (Kenmac, I assume). Careful you don’t activate a link trying to copy it for translation; they’re not all adverts, as I’m sure you appreciate.

  94. Tony@92 – no worries. I only copied the first line, that was enough. Yes I’m very cautious about ‘phishing’.

  96. I see that in the Guardian Cryptic comments, there is a suggestion that the homophone complaints could be simply avoided by referring to homophone elements in wordplay as ‘puns’. It strikes me that changing the nomenclature in no way obviates the problem that people pronounce words differently — ‘Korea’ will not sound the same as ‘career’, nor ‘toy’ the same as ‘tie’ (I spent 40 years living in Brum), for all crossword solvers, regardless of whether one calls such word play a pun or a homophone. A pun works because the different words/phrases sound alike — if the two words/phrases do not sound alike to Joe Bloggs then it won’t work as a pun.

  97. Pserve_p2, isn’t the point that ‘homophone’ with the scientific overtones of its Greek roots sounds so much more precise than ‘pun’. Aren’t puns often funnier when the sounds aren’t too exactly alike and it takes a moment for the likeness to register?

  98. Does anyone know how to get the post numbers back? On mobile and desktop I just see the name and time with the post content in a bordered box. Same thing in Safari, Chrome etc. Have tried requesting desktop site to no avail

  101. Wellcidered @91: The History of the Crossword by John Halpern is an informative and very entertaining book. (John Halpern is Paul in the Guardian and Mudd in the FT.)

  102. TC@97: yep! you’re right. Setters can continue making the link between words which sound similar in exactly the same ways (using indicators such as ‘in audition’, ‘on air’, ‘stated’ etc.) yet if we commenters and bloggers avoid calling these ‘homophones’ that may well remove the red rag which currently provokes a flurry of “Not in my accent it isn’t!” complaints.

  103. Is there any fifteen squared merchandise? If not there should be. I could very much see myself sipping on a fifteen squared mug while working on a picaroon…

  105. Tony Santucci @101: Thank you for the recommendation. John Halpern`s History of the Crossword is indeed very entertaining. I particularly enjoyed the piece where the setter`s mind runs riot in the restaurant.

    I continue to be grateful for the guidance and explanations in the specific blogs.
    As a “newby” I had, however, to google the meanings of “surface” and “LOI” used in the comments.
    Now I know, I shall be particularly pleased if my LOI is (clue) number eleven.

  107. I just heard about this wonderful book while listening to Andrew Marr’s daily podcast on LBC. I think it will appeal to all word lovers – whether setters, bloggers or solvers

    AN EMOTIONAL DICTIONARY
    by Susie Dent

    I won’t post a link to the reviews which appear on sites where the book is for sale – but you can google it for a description of the contents – here is a taster of what the book contains:

    Whether it’s the distress of a bad haircut (AGE-OTORI) or longing for the food someone else is eating (GROAKING), the pleasure found in other people’s happiness (CONFELICITY) or the shock of jumping into icy water (CURGLAFF), there are real words to pinpoint exactly how you feel and Susie Dent, Queen of Countdown‘s Dictionary Corner and lexicographer extraordinaire, is going to help you find them.

    Here are 1001 terms everyone needs, whether it’s the best kind of hug (CWTCH), the relief found in swearing (LALOCHEZIA), or the ability to endure till the end (PERTOLERANCE).

    It’s time to rediscover the lost positives of language (and be more GORM); find out how a stork gave us the word for the love between parent and child, and who the first MAVERICK was. Packed with unexpected stories and unforgettable words, on a mission to describe the indescribable, this life-enhancing book will deepen your vocabulary as much as it extends it.

    Welcome to the first truly human dictionary, as idiosyncratic and unusual as you are.

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