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 19/06/2023 can be found here.

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

99 comments on “General Discussion”

  1. Rob T @109 from previous page. I am not totally against themes, I just get fed up in the Guardian when we have them day after day, we once had eight in a row. Azed sometimes has some sort of theme , I do test solve for a few Listener setters and that always has some sort of theme/puzzle aspect.

  2. Roz @1 aha, if you’ve done Listener puzzles, this is in that kind of thematic / puzzle ballpark – so if possible I might try to get you a copy while it’s in the test solve phase (somehow). Thanks!

  3. So…this is too good not to share. In a friend’s Facebook post, there appeared the following sentence:

    Greetings from central Ohio!

    Has anyone else run across any instances of found clues (that is, bits of text out there that happen to actually work as clues)? This one is taboo in an actual puzzle, of course, because except in really strange circumstances, two-letter words are forbidden.

  4. Roz @1 – I’ve worked out how to get you a preview copy of my puzzle if you’re interested. I can post a printable PDF online and put the link here. Once you’ve downloaded it I can take the file offline. My contact details would be in the PDF.

    Would this be of interest?

  5. mrpenney @3, you could make it a four-letter solution by extending it to ‘Greetings from central Ohio, Yankee America’ (I don’t think Ohio was a Confederate state), but obviously that’s making it more contrived!

    I thought of “Good morning, School!” for GAM – but do any headmasters/mistresses still say that in Assembly these days?

  6. Re my previous comments @93/94, I like to print out the Prize and Everyman puzzles after completing online. The printout doesn’t work, so I have to use ‘PrtScr’ and put into a Word document to print. If anyone else is similarly frustrated, perhaps you could email the editor because I have done this but nothing has changed.

  8. RobT I’m happy to have a go at a test solve. I did the Listener for a while this year until the paywall kicked in and I do the Crossword Centre (usually barred thematics) every month. Coot has my email if you are in contact with him as he is a test solver for me (he did the test solve for the recent S&B puzzle of mine). If not I can post it here if it’s not against the rules.

  9. Tim C@8

    It’s not against the rules as such but it’s I’ll-advised as it then potentially opens you up to spam.

    If both parties agree, I can pass on your email addresses to each other.

  11. Rob@4 you lost me at PDF and download , way beyond my skills , I can’t even print anything at the moment. I am at war with the IT Office over something called MFA and I am digging my heels in. Blah will do a great job and now I see TimC as well and maybe you will get others, good luck.
    The person I know at work who sets for the Listener is only an “amateur” setter, he just sends them puzzles occasionally and has been published a few times, you should try it.

  12. Tony@4 I hope you are not mocking my IT skills , it is not my fault that the Internet is too primitive to follow my simple instructions.

  15. Admin @9 (and Tim C @10) — I’m very happy for you to pass on my email address to Tim and/or vice versa. Many thanks.

  16. I recently retired at the impressionable age of 72. I discovered the quiptic as the way into crosswords some 3 years ago. Went through all the quiptics. I think Anto gets a bad press. He was in my ‘public enemy list’ and too hard basket for nearly 2 years but I got better at it. I started cryptics about a year ago, found Rufus and then a few more and I’m at 25407. Anto has been replaced by Araucaria on my enemy number one list. But I’ll get past him as well (hopefully before I reach the pearly gates I suspect)

    I’d like thank all of you bloggers and commentators. Without you I would not have stayed the course.

    Please keep doing what you do while I catch up .. right now I have a headache struggling with ‘you know who’ on my enemies list but I’ll get there.

    A great many thanks
    Allanr

  17. Allan@16 good to see you are enjoying it so much and well done for persevering with Anto , the best attribute for a solver is being stubborn. Anto is setting more of the weekly cryptics now and one of my favourites.
    When I was learning my public enemy number 1 was Bunthorne , a fearsome setter, but he ended up as my favourite. I wisn the Guardian had such setters these days.
    I do not know how far back you are going but I found some setters very useful when I was learning, Custos, Janus , Quantum .

  18. Many thanks I’ve come across Janus and I meet Quantum regularly both of whom on a given day I get by like the curates egg .. (good in parts) .. Thanks and I must say you have an excellent community of bloggers and commentators who make it worth our while to stay on in the trenches.
    Allan

  19. Me@6; I’ve just found out what was causing my printing problems – somehow the print size had changed from A4 to ‘letter’, doh, my embarrassment! ?

  21. Can someone tell me where I can access the Inquisitor crossword? I subscribed to the Independant under the impression it was published in the Saturday edition but it isn’t there.

  22. Jane@21: the Inquisitor is published in the i Newspaper each Saturday, and has been since The Independent went digital only, a few years back.

  23. Hi

    Does anyone know of a way to access current and ideally archived Inquisitor puzzles? Perfectly happy to pay something but I couldn’t see it on the Independent newspaper website. I used to be on a mailing list ran by Geoff who sent the puzzle every week. I am aware sadly why this stopped, but is there another source?

    Regards
    Robert

  24. Hi all,
    I’m a newbie when it comes to cryptic crosswords, but I’ve run into trouble a couple of times, forgetting that when I see the word ‘good’ in a clue, it often just means the letter G. My question is, why?
    I can’t remember ever seeing the letter G and expanding it to the word ‘good’ in any context besides crosswords*. It also doesn’t appear under the letter G’s definition in the online version of Chambers.
    I hope someone can clear this up as its baffling me unpleasantly.
    Thanks, George
    *the one exception is in online gaming, where the very common acronym GG stands for “good game”, but something tells me this crossword-ese predates the computer.

  25. George @24

    The online dictionary you refer to is, I think, The Chambers 21st Century Dictionary: https://chambers.co.uk/search/

    Crossword setters use The Chambers Dictionary, which is not available online but is available as an app on smartphones and tablets.

  26. Further to Admin , The Chambers Dictionary 1993 first edition has g=good , also g=gourde a coin from Haiti, I would love setters to use that.
    George@24 it is just one of those things , setters like the first letter abbreviations to help the clues flow. Some are in common use , some hard to think of a use. I often write VG on my students work.
    I think if it is in Chambers the setter has enough cover.

  27. Robert @23.

    If Ken can supply you with my email address, I have images of all Inquisitors back to no 1644 in high quality, and most of them back from there in much lower quality to about no 1435. It would probably be unethical to supply the current one, though. I wouldn’t charge for supplying the odd one or two.

  28. John @27

    That sounds grand thanks. I believe I have Kens email from the original list but if not I am lumbob14 then the usual Google bit. I am happy to set a standing order or make a donation to the operation of this site, or a charity. I quite simply just do not want the rest of the newspaper!

    Cheers
    Robert

  31. @30

    That’s a good point. I’ll look into changing the font – but don’t hold your breath.

    In the meantime, if anyone wants to suggest a good alternative, I’m all ears.

  32. George Nixon et al, if you look on;one at any Met Office weather forecast, under ‘Visibility’ conditions, G = good, VG = very good, E = excellent, etc. A bit like school essays, TimC,

  36. My comment on yesterday’s Pangakupu blog seems to have inadvertently breached this site’s decency standards. Someone had mentioned the nina TARAIWI, being Maori for drive could equally be TARA IWI, meaning $9. I pointed out that while TARA with a long first A is indeed Maori for dollar, in the absence of a macron TARA is instead a certain part of the female anatomy. (My Maori language teacher often responded to this mispronunciation with something like: “Are you sure you should be paying with that?”) My mistake yesterday was naming that part. I presume this site employs some kind of bot to detect and delete comments containing what is deemed inappropriate language. Has anyone else encountered similar?

  37. Hi all, yesterday my FT puzzle included a clue where I used ‘abandoned’ as an instruction to remove the inner letters of a word. This led to a long discussion over the validity of using this device. Many suggested that ‘deserted’ would have been a better option. As opinions were divided, I thought I would share my thoughts here and hopefully get some feedback from others.
    Both adjectives are formed from the past participles of verbs – ‘desert’ and ‘abandon’, both of which have a meaning of  ‘to leave a place’. Deserted, as in a deserted street, means all the people have left. and  abandoned, as in an abandoned village, means the people who once lived there have left. Neither, truly mean ’empty’, a deserted street and an abandoned village both still have things in them, it is just the people who are missing. So by this rationale neither should be acceptable as an indicator to remove the inner letters. However, cryptic convention seems to support ‘deserted’, but not ‘abandoned’. This makes no sense to me, either they are both unacceptable or both acceptable.
    Your thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. Seasons greetings to all!

  38. Steerpike@37. Interesting query. I don’t think I’ve seen “abandoned” used like that, but no doubt someone with a better memory will be along to correct me. It does seem close enough in meaning to deserted and vacated (or “on vacation” as we often see it these days), so why all the fuss? You could also use evacuated or emptied, but I guess they’re a bit too obvious.

    I think you should stick to your guns. If abandon=to leave a place is in Chambers, I think your critics are on a bit of a sticky wicket, aren’t they?

    Once you’ve used abandoned a few times, there’ll be solvers saying that it’s getting to be a tired device, can’t you change the record?

  39. …and after writing the above I then went and looked at the clue and the discussion. The clue reads “Priestess caught a ship and abandoned Russia”. * I don’t think anyone in the discussion (I skim-read it) caught onto the fact that the word ‘ship’ is fairly close to the contentious bit; it’s a bit of a clue in itself. Has no one ever heard the phrase “abandon ship”? That gives a context that makes the clue even more justified than my initial thought. When the captain gives the order to abandon ship, it means to get all the people off it (if possible). Subsequently the ship (=Russia) can be described as having been abandoned, leaving the letters R and A floating, empty in the water. I really don’t see the problem, unless it’s that the rest of the clue was very simple and this bit was just a little out of the collective comfort zone. 🙂

    *[C+A+SS+AND+R(ussi)A]

  40. Steerpike@37 I don’t think there’s much I can add to what I said yesterday, except to suggest that you raise this point with the very helpful person who runs the Clue Clinic website. I am sure he would provide a carefully-reasoned answer. That site is very much geared towards AZED, but many setters who adopt the Ximenean principles of fair clueing use it, and you will see that, for example, there has been some recent correspondence there with Monk, who is always very scrupulous in this regard. Although both “abandoned” and “deserted” feature in the current list of deletion indicators on that site, neither is regarded there as being appropriate for “innards” deletion. My own view is that there is perhaps a case for “deserted”, but not “abandoned” to act as such in view of the Chambers definition I quoted, given that a meaning of “deserted” is “empty”. But I have my doubts, because the sense we seem to need is “emptied” rather then “empty”. I note what SM says at 39 above but, with all due respect to him, the reference to a ship in the clue is of no relevance to this discussion. The grammatical structure of the clue requires “abandoned” to be applied to “Russia” and the question to be addressed is whether that can justifiably have effect to give RA.

  41. I don’t see a material difference between abandoned and deserted given that Chambers has abandoned as “completely deserted” and deserted as “empty or abandoned”. Maybe the only difference in terms of the synonym is one of permanence. A deserted house may not be empty tomorrow but an abandoned house is likely to be.
    Both Chambers Crossword Dictionary and the Clue Clinic website have neither abandoned nor deserted as middle letter deletion indicators. Maybe the reason for that is that there’s possibly a lack of indication of amount. In an abandoned/deserted house (word), how many letters (people) have left, but I don’t think that’s a strong argument given that deserted = empty and empty is in CCD as a middle deletion indicator.
    The acid test is always “is it fair?” Does it stop solving the clue even if there’s a bit of a question mark against the indicator?

  42. For those who have looked at the Maskarade Xmas Prize puzzle today I got two answers that had three contiguous groupings of three letters yet the instructions say there’s only one. Anyone else?

  44. Rob@42. If you mean a contiguous grouping of three letters within a solution, rather than “three contiguous groupings of three letters”, then I agree there were two rather than one. (Three contiguous groupings of three letters all in alphabetical order would be spectacular!) But we shouldn’t be discussing a prize puzzle before the closing date for the puzzle.

  46. Steerpike @37 I read the discussion on your puzzle and was surprised at some of the distinctions that were drawn.
    On whether deserted/abandoned work to delete contents, one might question it for the reasons you have given, but it’s not silly or incomprehensible. I note that ‘detailed’ is also mentioned, which can’t be defended with a dictionary.
    I can’t see any justification for asserting that one is OK and one not, except that deserted is possibly more obvious.
    The suggestion that the word that the indicator is applied to matters (i.e. building OK, rabbit not) seems clearly wrong. If abandoned can mean empty, then cryptically an abandoned rabbit for RT is identical to an abandoned warehouse for WE.
    The various meanings of abandoned don’t matter, so long as there’s one meaning that does the trick.
    Taking ships, ‘on board’ is used without query as a container, and not just with S__S. ‘One on board empty ship’ would be fine for SIP. ‘American on board empty rabbit’ would be fine, cryptically at least, for RAT. If an abandoned ship is one that everyone has left, isn’t using abandoned to remove the contents of ship just the counterpart of adding contents using ‘on board’?

  47. Steerpike@37 et seq

    In crosswordland, of course, very little apart from the grid is black and white. I’ve seen it said about questionable cryptic indicators that ‘if the crossword editor allows it, then it must be sound’, but in my view the key role of the crossword editor is not to determine what is objectively sound (if such a thing is even possible), rather what will be acceptable to solvers of a puzzle in that particular series.

    The expectations of, say, Guardian and Listener solvers are very different, so ultimately the yardsticks of any clue’s merit are surely (i) whether the ‘regulars’ can solve it to their satisfaction, and (ii) having solved it, whether it leaves them with a good feeling or a bitter taste. A puzzle consisting entirely of super-sound clues is not necessarily an enjoyable puzzle, or vice versa.

    For clues in barred cryptics, greater emphasis is typically placed on accuracy (in its various forms). In the lists that I maintain on my site, I include only indicators which I feel are consistent with this level of accuracy.

    The problem with many definitions in Chambers is that they lack context. Take, for instance, a very unlikely potential anagram indicator, ‘steady’. One of its meanings in Chambers is ‘fixed’, which in turn can mean ‘put to rights’, strongly suggesting some sort of manipulation. But in the dictionary such transitive relationships do not necessarily exist.

    Whenever I come across a candidate indicator for which the justification is not obvious, I refer to the OED and seek out examples of usage where the ‘headline’ meaning matches that given by Chambers. On that basis, I rejected both ‘abandoned’ and ‘deserted’ as first/last letter selection indicators. Although Chambers gives ‘deserted’ as ’empty or abandoned’, I can’t find any evidence that it means ’empty’ in an absolute sense, rather than describing something or someone that has been forsaken; the two definitions which Chambers gives for ‘forsake’ are ‘to desert’ and ‘to abandon’. Incidentally, I think Rudolf’s point @40 about empty/emptied is a good one..

    But (as EL James tells us) there are many shades of grey, and the most important test, if ‘deserted village’ is being used in an FT puzzle to deliver VE, is, I believe, whether FT solvers are able to take it comfortably in their stride. The same test would be applicable to whimsical indicators such as ‘detailed’. If a joke that everyone laughs at can be shown objectively to make no sense, should we care? Context, and knowing your audience, are everything. Therefore, don’t try either of those indicators in an Azed competition clue.

    (As Filbert observes, though, context is not relevant when it comes to the application of a cryptic indicator – the target is simply a string of letters, so if SHIP can be empty, so can RABBIT, and even AND and EVEN.)

  49. Doctor Clue@47. I completely agree with you about the context of definitions for words in Chambers. But in the case of abandoned, Chambers defines it as “completely deserted”. There is no need to resort to transitive relationships to get an equivalence in this case.

    Having myself mentioned ships in the context of abandoned, I would like to whimsically imagine the scene when the Mary Celeste was found floating and empty, with lifeboat missing. One of the sailors says, “look, an empty ship”. Another says, “seems to have been abandoned”, while the third, possibly a crossword editor on his watch below, says, “deserted, maybe, but I don’t think you can justify abandoned.” The first two just look at each other and roll their eyes.

  50. sheffield hatter@49

    I’m not questioning the equivalence between ‘abandoned’ and ‘deserted’, but I can’t accept that either of them has the meaning ‘deprived of all contents’, and you won’t see them being used as first/last letter selection indicators in successful Azed competition entries. As their various etymologies might suggest, ‘abandoned’, ‘deserted’ and ‘forsaken’ all carry a sense of having been cast off or released from possession, not of having been cleared out. One might in some situations infer emptiness from these terms, but one could say exactly the same of other adjectives, such as ‘free’ or ‘untenanted’.

  52. Doctor Clue@50. I understand what you’re saying and I’m certainly not arguing that you should change your rules, but I think that crosswords are more challenging and amusing when the setter is allowed more liberty. The sense of “having been cast off or released from possession” may be how ‘abandoned’ and ‘deserted’ have been used, but they have also been used in other senses that include emptying the contents. If we (i.e. users of the English language, which includes crossword solvers) can infer emptiness, why is the clue setter not allowed to use ‘abandoned’ in a sense that makes use of that inference?

    In particular, the use of abandon that I have highlighted is so far from what you posit as the supposed original or etymological use as to be almost a new word, or at least a new meaning altogether. When the captain orders his crew to abandon ship he means “everyone get off!” It would be a strange nautical leader who asked his crew to forsake their ship…

    And you have yourself stretched the boundaries (even if only in the sense of not allowing them to be broken) when mentioning that ‘untenanted’ could imply that a house or block of flats was now empty. Another potentially useful indicator for first and last letters, even though, from your point of view, it’s only in the denial of its use. I hope to see some Guardian setters use it in the near future. 🙂

  53. sheffield hatter@52

    I’m not suggesting that setters shouldn’t be allowed to use ‘abandoned’ for first/last letter selection, any more than (say) that they should be prohibited from using ‘central London’ to indicate ND, or ‘defined’ to signal the removal of F; I had hoped that the penultimate paragraph in my first post would make that clear. There are some puzzle series whose audiences welcome and enjoy that kind of innovation, and others whose audiences do not. I try to list indicators which I believe should be acceptable ‘across the board’.

    I think that a captain giving the order to abandon ship would be mildly disappointed if the crew spent time clearing it of all its contents before departing. The Mary Celeste was far from empty when found. That’s all I’ll say on that particular topic!

  54. muffin@48. [muffin@50. Thanks for the article on rhoticity. Interested to read research on vowels as well and whether the one/gone vs won/done distinction is also dying out? 🙂 ]

  55. Sorry me @54 was in reply to muffin @48 here. I decided that this was the more appropriate place to respond as I was advised about another contribution of mine the other day, hence the cut and paste. Spoiled the joke though, but muffin will get it.

    Have very much enjoyed the discussion about empty/abandoned/deserted. I’m not a visual person, but for me with empty/ied, vacated I can see the outer letters and the empty space within. I seem to need those fences, and can’t picture that with abandoned or deserted.

    Interestingly, I just learnt about people who can’t visualise at all. Aphantasia is the word for it. I wonder how that might affect crytptic solving.

  56. Muffin@48
    You’ve probably seen that The Guardian has picked up the same research (today, page 9). I was surprised that they could be so certain about different groups within a total sample of 28 but I’m no statistician.

  57. I read it as well Pino, quite right the sample size makes it meaningless . People here say you can check if someone is from Blackburn, aks them to say Rovers.

  58. I read it as well Pino, quite right the sample size makes it meaningless . People here say you can check if someone is from Blackburn, aks them to say Rovers .

  59. [ Sorry for repeat , it was saying I had already posted the comment when I hadn’t. I moved the full stop and it then showed both. ]

  60. Hello all. Will Fifteen Squared be blogging Maskarade’s bumper offering in last weekend’s Guardian (29,261) – or does its larger-than-fifteen-squared size rule it out?

  61. (Me again) I appreciate the solution won’t be available in the paper until Jan 8th, but your site’s blogs are vastly superior…..

  63. I don’t like spoilers either! I was just wondering if that crossword “fitted the bill”.
    Delighted to hear it does…
    Thanks – and Happy New Year!

  64. Scroll down the main landing page for Guardian crosswords and you will see that the last annotated solution for the Genius puzzle and notification of the winner refers to puzzle No. 242. We are currently on puzzle No. 247. This I don’t understand.

    Today’s puzzle was superb, but the online entry makes it impossible to prove that the solver has completed it in accordance with the instructions (which involves some manipulation and highlighting of the grid in accordance with the preamble).

    That said, my thanks to Qaos for today’s puzzle which I enjoyed very much, it was great start to the New Year!

  65. I’m just adding this here, in case anyone is interested. it relates to the ‘Egyptian’ clues in two recent crosswords. I only looked at the blog at almost midnight.

    Another Egyptian clue! You wait for years and years, and then two come in close proximity.
    Yes, Gervase @ 47 is right about Amun. The vowels are unknown in Egyptian, and it is a matter of convention to transliterate them in a cerrtain way, which helps the pronunciation for modern (western!) )speakers.
    Amun is normally transliterated as imn (the i should have a ‘soft breathing’ on it) and would have the god determinator at the end. The Gardiner numbers are: M17-Y5-N35-A40.
    If anyone is interested, I can email you my notes with the relevant hieroglyphs, and also the info relating to pharaoh and big house.

    wpt rnpt nfrt !

  66. Anna, it would be helpful if you indicated which puzzles the Egyptian clues appeared in.

    AMUN comprises three consonants, I believe, the one before the A being a glottal stop. This is certainly the case with the (probably related?) Arabic word for security, whose triliteral is ‘mn. Short vowels are not shown in Arabic script either.

    Don’t know what Gervase said, as you don’t say which puzzle it’s comment 47 on, but AMUN is often also transcribed as AMEN.

  69. Came across the following clue (asked by one character to another) in a novel (Early Riser by Jasper Fforde) and it’s driving me crazy. Any ideas?

    ‘slow to pen a plumber’s handbook’. Sadly no enumeration mentioned!

    I don’t even know for sure that it’s a real clue but Jasper Fforde uses a lot of wordplay in his writing so would be surprised if it wasn’t. Help!

  70. Thanks, Ken.

    Of course, the ancient Egyptian years started (as I learnt at the same source) not in winter, but in mid-summer at the time of the annual Nile flood.

  71. Tony @ 66
    Yes, the first sound of Amun, written with the flowering reed glyph, is indeed a glottal stop (and a consonant).
    Egyptian was not a semitic language, so I wouldn’t be sure that the Arabic word for security is ‘related’ (whatever that means).
    Someone else has explained the New Year greeting. I put it on my christmas cards sometimes.
    I have tried to copy it onto here, but it won’t show, sorry.

  72. Anna@71, good point about the different sources of Ancient Egyptian (afro-asiatic) and Arabic (semitic). No reason to think words with the same sound in the two languages have similar meanings. Do you know if the name Amun has an everyday meaning in Egyptian?

    Still no word about which two puzzles had ‘Egyptian’ clues?

  77. Rudolph@73, yes, thanks. Do keep up. 😉

    TimC@74&75, thanks. Neither of those has a comment 23 from Gervase and I doubt FAROES is one of them, as I don’t think it’s an Egyptian word. AMEN RA is sort of transitional name for the’top god’. Amen (or Amun) was chief god until a new Pharaoh deemed that Ra, the sun god was. Can’t remember the details but that was somewhat under the influence of his wife, who hailed from Libya, where Ra was the main object of worship. Perhaps Anna will give full details (including explaining what she was talking about in the first place)

  78. Tony Collman @77, the first link has a comment by Gervase @47 which is what Anna refers to in her post @65. No idea where you get comment 23 from.
    In the second link, I know FAROES isn’t an Egyptian word. The clue for it relied on aural wordplay with PHARAOHS [‘These islands are Danish‘, kings proclaimed (6)] which is which is why I believe Anna referred to it as an ‘Egyptian clue’. She comments @52 about kings/pharaohs in that second link.

  79. Ryaaaaan@69, your post has sparked a very intriguing discussion which has involved me contacting the author, Jasper, directly. More to be found here

  80. TimC, ah, yes, sorry. Don’t know where I got 23 from either, but should probably have checked before writing that. I didn’t mean that FAROES was an Egyptian word, just used that to refer to the clue. However, I was wrong anyway, as I now see, having read Anna’s comment about it. Apologies for my slovenliness and many thanks for your patience.

  81. Jay@79, your link goes to a ‘Pedants United 2024’ page on crosswordsolver.org How do we find the actual discussion you refer to?

  82. @Tony, that is precisely where the discussion is occurring and where I posted the response from the author that I refer to…

  84. Ryaaaaan @69, I’ve racked my brains, but I’m no nearer I’m afraid.
    Jay @79, thanks for that. It’s interesting that the clue from another book Jasper mentions in the reply “I spy an Equus” (the answer to which is seahorses – that’s on his website) is not a conventional cryptic clue as there’s no definition, just wordplay (sounds like “see horses”). Even with that knowledge, I can’t think of anything suitable.
    Tony @81, the relevant discussion starts on page 4 of that thread (page numbers at the bottom of that link page).

  85. @Ryaaaaan,Tony and Tim, I’ve had another email from Jasper, here is what he said…

    “I remembered the answer. It’s ‘Writer’s Block’ which is a far too oblique, but reflects the difficulties I had writing the book. I think it might have been a personal in-joke, so I may have made the clue purposefully obscure.”

    Thanks Jasper, we may not have got there, but now we know!

  86. @Jay oh nice…knew you guys wouldn’t let me down. Feels slightly unsatisfying but I’m glad to have it confirmed that there at least was an answer, and I’m delighted that I can finally stop thinking about it.

  87. Ryaaaan, you’re most welcome, it was an interesting bit of detective work.

    Tim@84, I was sure that the answer to the “equus” clue was APPALOOSA.
    Interpreted as “I is ‘pie’ (piebald) and a horse”.
    We are told it is nine letters and starts and ends in A. The line is spoken so quite how the clue appears in the puzzle is unknown.

  88. Jay @87, I came up with ANDROMEDA as the constellation next to it is Pegasus, and I parsed it as an-dromeda, very much a stretch. I was incorrect above with seahorses and you were correct Jay with APPALOOSA. The link to the November 2010 competition is where all is explained for that one.

  89. Jay@82, I’d take issue with the word “precisely”. Might have been worth pointing out that the discussion starts with Jono’s comment @ 7th January 2024, 13:27, as I found by searching for a few minutes. But perhaps I’m being pedantic?

  91. Tony Collman@89. Fair point and apologies for any confusion. I should have also explained that I am “Jono” on that forum so you would know which posts were mine!

  92. Has something gone wrong with the Guardian blog on Jack’s crossword today? Comments are closed on the one by PeterO and a new one has appeared by loonapick which doesn’t allow comments. A glitch/misunderstanding?

  95. Anyone @ 65ff

    Sorry I rather abandoned the thread. I have not been at all well recently, lots of problems with vision, headaches, nausea (etc etc) and was advised not to spend so long in front of the computer.
    Anyway, you seem to have sorted it all out perfectly well without me. Better, probably:)

  96. Anna@95, very sorry to hear you haven’t been well. Thanks to TimC”s firm grip on the matters, (and no thanks to my indolence) pretty much everything got sorted out, anyway.

  97. Anyone else having trouble accessing the Independent Jumbo General Knowledge crossword? I didn’t try it yesterday, but it won’t load today on my phone.

  98. I asked this on today’s Guardian blog (the Paul) as one of the other participants has been asking for help. I wondered what help with crosswords would look like.

    For me it was solving with others: I started puzzling over the Telegraph clues my mother couldn’t answer as a teenager (wasn’t allowed near it with writing implements first). As a student I started solving the Times, until it went on strike, then Guardian and Independent crosswords. Bunthorne would often see a group of us sitting along the Union Bar. A long pause when I wasn’t commuting by public transport or was looking after children and I’m back solving now, usually the Guardian on the day and FT when I’m travelling with my daughter.

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