Guardian Crossword stats – 2022

by

Posted on behalf of Mitz

When I produced my summary of the Guardian crossword statistics in 2021 I talked about the bonanza of records – well, 2022 has not seen quite as many but there has nevertheless been plenty to report. There have been 2 debuts and a new collaboration, 6 personal frequency records and another 3 personal records matched. Two setters reached the landmark of 100 puzzles – or more accurately I should say that one setter did it twice – and we also saw a setter reach 1,000 puzzles, only the 4th to do so in the entire history of the Guardian crossword.

More of that shortly, but first here are the setters’ totals for the year. A total of 27 individuals were active plus the aforementioned collaboration:

Paul – 40 (down 4)
Picaroon – 38 (up 12 – new personal record)
Vulcan – 26 (up 1 – new record)
Nutmeg – 21 (down 2)
Brendan – 20 (down 1)
Brummie – 20 (up 2 – joint record)
Qaos – 19 (up 3)
Vlad – 16 (down 1)
Philistine – 13 (up 1)
Tramp – 13 (down 2)
Anto – 12 (up 4 – new record)
Imogen – 12 (level)
Pasquale – 12 (up 1)
Crucible – 8 (down 4)
Fed – 6 (up 2 – new record)
Matilda – 6 (down 1)
Boatman – 5 (down 1)
Carpathian – 5 (up 2 – new record)
Maskarade – 5 (level)
Pangakupu – 5 (debut)
Harpo – 3 (up 2 – new record)
Enigmatist – 2 (level)
Chandler – 1 (debut)
Kite – 1 (level – joint record)
Mobo (Harpo and Tramp) – 1 (debut)
Pan – 1 (down 13)
Puck – 1 (down 5)
Soup – 1 (level – joint record)

The jump in frequency from Picaroon is very unusual – I can only find a couple of bigger year to year increases in the entire history of the Guardian crossword, and these involved the most famous setter of all at the height of his powers, and another where the setter concerned (Crispa) returned to her former frequency after a quiet year. What makes this even more of a stand-out is that Picaroon has been very steady in the low- to mid-20s since 2015.

The only setters that were active in 2021 but were not seen in 2022 were the collaborations of Bogus (Arachne, Nutmeg and Puck) and Enigmatist & Soup. Despite a handful of Rosa Klebb puzzles appearing in the FT in the latter part of the year there have still not been any new Arachnes, so we can fervently hope that she’ll be back sometime in the new year.

Puck’s only appearance was his lovely tribute to Prunella Scales (28,790 – 22nd June 2022). Crucible has not been seen since August, and Pan’s only daily came in early February (along with a single Quiptic in January). I hope that they are all well.

The landmark puzzles of the year were as follows:

100th puzzle
Imogen – 28,676 – 9th February 2022 – 37th setter to reach this milestone, 3rd slowest (only Logodaedalus and Gemini took longer)
Vulcan – 28,764 – 23rd May 2022 – 38th to reach this milestone, 8th fastest

1,000th puzzle
Paul – 28,787 – 18th June 2022 – 4th setter to reach this milestone, 2nd fastest (only Araucaria reached it more quickly)

At this point I can mention as an aside that I no longer have to include caveats such as “fastest setter whose debut came since the start of the archive era”. I now have a complete record of the setters of all puzzles going back to December 28th 1970 when pseudonyms were first introduced. Watch this space for more…

Debuts
Pangakupu – 28,696 – 4th March 2022
Chandler – 28,831 – 9th August 2022

First collaboration
Mobo (Harpo & Tramp) – 28,713 – 24th March 2022

Two more landmarks are coming up soon in the new year: Boatman’s puzzle on December 28th was his 99th daily, and Vlad is on 98; given their respective frequencies in recent times Vlad will probably get to 100 first. Nutmeg is now on 179, so she will get to 200 by the end of 2023 if she can match her 2022 total.

Speaking of Vlad, for the first time since his debut in 2015 he has dropped back from his total of the previous year, albeit only by 1. 16 puzzles nevertheless represents very much an above-average return for most setters.

Brendan, Brummie, Nutmeg and Picaroon all appeared with at least one puzzle on each day of the week. Brendan is an old hand at this game – this is the 5th time he has done so – and Nutmeg has done it once before (in 2020), but for the other two this is a first-time achievement.

The Saturday Prize puzzles were distributed as follows:

Paul – 13; Picaroon – 9; Brendan – 7; Vlad – 6; Maskarade and Philistine – 4; Tramp – 3; Brummie and Crucible – 2; Boatman, Imogen and Nutmeg – 1

I won’t go into the all-time top 10 here, as there is a piece coming that will explore this in more detail. However, I will say that next year Enigmatist is very likely to break into the all-time top 5 longest serving Guardian setters (and I’ll add that I wish he would appear in the Guardian more often). Barring the gentleman in the top spot, the other members of the current top 5 may surprise you…

To the Quiptic: these puzzles were provided by 9 different setters, with Hectence stretching her lead at the top of the tree:

Hectence – 10
Anto – 9
Pasquale – 9
Carpathian – 8
Chandler – 8
Matilda – 4
Bartland – 2
Pan – 1
Kite – 1

Hectence has now set a total of 193 Quiptics and so is reasonably likely to become the first to reach 200 next year. I wonder if she will ever be given a daily slot? The rest of the top 5 all-time is unchanged except for the one additional Pan: Moley (147), Pan (116), Arachne (101) and Don Putnam (83). For Chandler, Bartland and Kite these appearances represented their Quiptic debuts.

Picaroon became the first setter as far as the records show to set 3 Genius puzzles in one calendar year – he provided January, September and November. Pasquale, who yet again was busy in all formats, was seen twice – in March and October. The other Genius puzzles were by Chandler (February), Soup (April), Qaos (May), Harpo (June), Karla (July), Pangakupu (August) and Jack (December) – the last of which was one of my favourite puzzles of the year.

Alert readers will note that this means Picaroon has been the most prolific Guardian setter of the year over all formats, and that is before I mention the extra Holiday Jumbo crossword that he provided for a summer puzzle supplement published in July. 2022 is the first year since 2012 that has seen Paul knocked off the top spot.

I have been able to fill some of the gaps in the Genius archive since last year’s round up, but there remain 27 puzzles from early in the series that are anonymous. Putting those to one side, the top 5 Genius setters are Paul (27), Enigmatist (18), Picaroon (15), Puck (14) and Qaos (13).

55 comments on “Guardian Crossword stats – 2022”

  3. Magic darts there Mitz. That’s quite a small group of active setters for a 6 day a week paper. Said he wistfully.

  4. I’m in awe of your analysis and record keeping, Mitz. Agree with your comments re Arachne and Jack and I’m looking forward to the upcoming centuries from Vlad and Boatman. Picaroon’s astounding productivity never ceases to amaze.

  5. Really interesting, Mitz, many thanks. If material could be produced in due course re the appearances of setters right back to the start of the Guardian pseudonyms in 1970, that would be totally fascinating.

  7. Many thanks for this , very interesting , the brief mention of Gemini reminded me of how the puzzle used to be. Perhaps Bunthorne, Gemini and Fidelio in one week, those were the days.

  9. Thanks for the interesting stats, Mitz.

    Roz @7, I occasionally dip into the Guardian’s Bunthorne collection paperback. Pretty tough, but great fun (‘Amundsen’s forwarding address (4)’ was his, wasn’t it?) and a lot of ingenuity. Probably more General Knowledge required of the solver than today’s daily puzzles, though.
    Unfortunately, not being into cryptics at the time, I missed out on the tribute book to him.

  10. @Roz
    22658 Wed 23 Oct 2002 Gemini
    22660 Fri 25 Oct 2002 Fidelio
    22661 Sat 26 Oct 2002 Bunthorne

    The only time these three appeared in the same week, believe it or not!

    @paul b

    Do you remember the Austin cartoon?

  11. Thank you Mitz, I must have scratched my head that week. It was never a formal thing but the Guardian did tend to put the tough setters on a Wednesday and a Saturday.

    Twmbarlwm@9 Bunthorne was certainly fearsome at times , I remember “mush” top right corner coming down. He took me the longest of all setters to get to grips with.

    Paul@8 I believe he was in jail when setting but not sure if it is true. Very sparse, concise clues, difficult to get a hold of. Once solved the answer would fit the clue perfectly.

  12. @Mitz I don’t, unless I’ve now forgotten it, which is eminently possible. I remember the article on the subject, which was entitled Oi! I fled! Also, IIRC, there was some guy called John (not a Biggles, but a famous crossword person: wish I could remember his surname) who was F’s mentor, and who kind of pre-edited his stuff, as far as I know. I have all the Pengiun Guardian books, so I can still access his (and Bunthorne’s) work.

    @Roz yes he was, well, at least he was when he wasn’t escaping, or trying to escape. I was led to believe he was a person with special needs, as we would describe him today, who was, due to various infirmities, something of a kleptomaniac (again, IIRC).

  13. Paul @12, John Perkin was Guardian crossword editor around that time, but he was also friendly with John Sykes, serial winner of the Times Crossword Championship.

  14. A very interesting analysis. Paul b could you elucidate please as searching for “Oi I fled” revealed zilch.
    Thanks Mitz

  15. “Oi, I fled” is an anagram of Fidelio, Guardian setter Tony Fontaine from 1991 – 2003. As Paul says, he was residing at her majesty’s pleasure for some of that time, except for an occasion when he escaped. The headline was of an article relating the story, and the Austin cartoon featured a copper reading the scrawled “Oi, I fled (7)” on a wall, saying “Sarge, I think I’ve found a clue!”

  17. #13 twm yes it was John Sykes who helped Tony. I was at a Guardian do where all three (i.e. inc. J Perkin) were present. I have a strange feeling that JP was taken ill that very day. Anyway I was a full on ligger at that point, though — temporarily, I should make clear — a non-drinker, which could have been something of a bar (so to speak) to progress.

    Incidentally, in Guardian Penguin Book 8, among other delights set by the likes of Hendra, Lavengro, Xerxes and Fawley, there is at number 31 (pp 68-69) a puzzle set by Bunthorpe.

    Well there’s Grauniad for you. Anyone know who Xerxes was?

  18. Xerxes was one of 9 setters in the stable at the end of 1970 when pseudonyms were introduced; their final puzzle was published in November 1980. That’s all I’ve got – no real name or anything else.

  21. No need to apologise, Roz!

    Not much is known about Plodge, I’m afraid. Debut December 1994, final puzzle October 2002, and 23 of them are available online in the Guardian archive – this is the earliest. In one of his Editor’s Blogs, Hugh Stephenson did confirm that she was female, but it seems that she preferred to remain anonymous.

  22. Aha! So I am privy to some knowledge which remains a mystery to many n the crossword world — I was in touch with Plodge regularly during my early years of editing Araucaria’s “1Across” magazine.

  23. @Tom – if you’re willing to share (and if you think Plodge wouldn’t mind) please do let me know. There is a piece in production about the history of the G crossword and it would be lovely for it to be as complete as possible.

  24. Found this all fascinating – both the summary and the splother that follows it. Thanks to all and especially Mitz for the record keeping that got the conversation started.

  25. Thanks for compiling these stats Mitz, I enjoy reading the ‘annual review’. Oddly enough, only the other day I wondered if I had missed something by Crucible lately as I hadn’t seen the name for a while, I hope nothing serious is amiss and he pops up again soon. Now I’m also looking forward to the forthcoming article that you mentioned!

  26. Thank you Mitz @ 21, I did suspect Plodge was female, maybe the only one apart from Crispa at the time. I am quite content for setters to be anonymous, prefer it really, I just wanted rough dates and number of puzzles.

  27. Plodge’s total number of Guardian crosswords was 59. Other female setters from her period? You mentioned Crispa, and also there were Audreus and Auster. Arachne’s debut wasn’t until 2006 and of course much later we have Nutmeg, Matilda, Carpathian, Hectence…

  28. Thanks for the fascinating stats, Mitz – and everyone else for the comments and conversation, which are all very educational for me. Aside from Araucaria and Rufus, I don’t recall paying much attention to setters’ names when I started solving semi-regularly as a student in the early 90s. Many of the names are familiar but I can’t say I ever had a favourite – nor any I particularly feared (found them *all* bloody difficult in those days). I remember Fidelio but didn’t know his fascinating back story.

    Probably only really became interested in setters – or even truly aware that there were real people behind the pseudonyms – when I discovered fifteensquared (2008), which is one of the many great things about this site.

  29. Gazzh @25 – yes, same here. I like Crucible. Hope it’s just a productivity blip and we see him back soon.

  30. This is all so interesting. When I first started solving in the 70’s, Araucaria (of course) and Custos (an answer in Maskerade Christmas puzzle) were my favourites. Do you know what happened to Custos?

  31. This is all so interesting. When I first started solving in the 70’s, Araucaria (of course) and Custos (an answer in Maskerade Christmas puzzle) were my favourites. Any statistics for Custos?

  32. Custos (Alec Robins) was active in the Guardian from September 1974 to October 1996 – in that time he provided nearly 950 puzzles. He wrote a book called Teach Yourself Crosswords which was published in 1975 and he had collaborated with the legendary Ximenes before joining the Guardian stable. He died in 1998.

  35. Custos and Janus my favourites when I started . I think Custos was involved with Everyman as well for a while.

  36. I’ve just dug out Ruth Crisp’s Teach Yourself one: Crosswords, How To Solve Them, Hodder & Stoughton 1992. She was Crispa, obvs, and set Times, Sunday Times and DT dailies anonymously. Pseudonymously she was also Vixen (FT) and Marcy (Indy). Born 1918, died 2007.

  38. Absorbing. Thanks all – and Mitz in particular for this fascinating data; most diverting…
    Twmbarlwn@9 – I believe Bunthorne’s wonderful, glorious MUSH was the answer Araucaria gave when asked if he had a favourite crossword clue (not one of his own we note!)

  39. paul b @33 – thanks for the link, I’ve printed out Cook’s Tour and will enjoy having a go at it later

  40. Looking forward to seeing the full list – there must be more setters I don’t remember as I only started solving in the early 80s. I can’t do the same with the big clue list as I don’t think there is a viable way to extract clues automatically from the newspaper archive sites let alone the solutions, and typing them in manually would take years!

  43. Mitz @51 – this is truly awesome!
    You have set us off on a ‘wonderful journey, as Alan Connor says. There’s hours of fun ahead, following all the fascinating links.
    I can’t thank you enough. x

  44. Thank you so much for this, Mitz, which clearly took great time and effort to do. A wonderful record of the puzzle series.

  45. It’s been a massive labour of love putting it together – I’m so pleased that other people find it interesting too!

    A note on setter longevity, which I mentioned above: if we just take the first credited puzzles (i.e. from 28/12/1970 onwards) the top 5 looks like this:

    Orlando – Debut: 18/03/1974 Last: 04/11/2019 Duration: 16,667 days
    Araucaria – First credited: 04/01/1971 Last: 26/11/2014 Duration: 16,032 days
    Enigmatist – Debut: 29/03/1979 Most recent: 22/07/2022 Duration: 15,821 days and counting
    Gordius – First credited: 01/01/1971 Last: 17/04/2014 Duration: 15,812 days
    Audreus – First credited: 05/04/1971 Last: 09/01/2013 Duration: 15,255 days

    However, if we take into account known debut years back into the anonymous era pre-28/12/1970 then the estimated top 5 is a little different:

    Araucaria – estimated duration 20,777 days
    Crispa – e.d. 18,599 days
    Gordius – e.d. 17,272 days
    Orlando – 16,667 days
    Audreus – e.d. 15,985

    It is already 172 days since Enigmatist’s most recent puzzle puzzle, so the next time he appears he will overtake Audreus and enter the top 5.

  47. A stab in the dark here, but I seem to remember a conversation with someone — and I can’t remember for the life of me who that was — about a young man who had a few puzzles set in The G. Whoever it was told me that he had tried to help the young man, not just with his puzzles but with life in general, and that unfortunately the young man had eventually taken his own life, such were his difficulties. And I think I remember that the compiler concerned was Gromwell.

    That conversation took place a very long time ago, and the gentleman with whom I spoke was obviously some kind of a guru to me, but alas I can’t think of his name.

    If you’re still out there, and you see read this, please do drop me a line!

  48. Just one last thing before beddy-byes: does anyone else remeber a Guardian crossword fan called Mog? He (famously) had what he called ‘a shoe-box’ containing probably every puzzle published in the last thousand years, and he was a great guy, with whom I conversed online, a good few years ago. He was an absolute mine of information, but I’ve lost contact with him, of course. Again, if he’s still around, or if any of you know him, he could be a source for some gen on those lost names.

  49. @paul b

    Your recollection regarding Gromwell chimes exactly with a comment below the line under the article – the suggestion is that Mike Laws (Fawley) may have been Gromwell’s mentor.

  50. Impressive achievement Moaljodad. Thank you for such a wonderful gift to us all, and for putting it all together on the Guardian Crossword blog@41. Bookmarked for future pleasure, delving into archives.

  52. This is fantastic Mitz. I started solving whilst at university in Hull in the mid-seventies. My first puzzle was set by the Rev. When are you back in Liverpool for a pint?!….

  53. #49 yes Mitz, I’ve seen that now. It’s very likely to be Fawley I was talking to, as he was a big mate of Enigmatist’s, and E (among others) was a big help to me when I was learning. Laws impressed the hell out of me, really knew his crosswording onions, and was Times Crossword Editor for a while, although his possibly unorthodox, and perhaps un-Timesey style of editorship meant that the tenure was not an extended one. According to myth, a certain unched message was left for those who would read it in his final grid.

    If anyone has the Penguin books, or some new-fangled archive, try a few Fawleys. You will not be disappointed!

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