We reach the end of another year

The end of another year approaches and it’s time for my Address to the Nation (delusions of grandeur or what?)

Firstly, on a personal note, I’m writing this from my hospital bed while recovering from surgery on my broken left ankle. Goodness knows how long i’ll take to start walking but I’m not allowed to put any pressure on it for six weeks. It’s held together with plates and screws.

Next, let’s spare a thought for those we’ve lost this year.

In February, we lost Paul Facey-Hunter (aka Puck): https://www.fifteensquared.net/2025/01/21/rip-puck/.

In May, we lost prolific commenter FrankieG; https://www.fifteensquared.net/2025/05/16/frank-greaney-frankieg-rip/.

Talking of prolific commenters, many people have asked what’s happened to a certain, often caustic, commenter, last seen in June. A controversial comment didn’t sit well with me. Despite asking for an explanation, there was none forthcoming so we agreed that future comments would require approval. I hereby offer an olive branch, let’s see what happens.

In March, I enabled avatars on the site and the fickle audience, whom I described as fickle were, unsurprisingly fickle about the whole thing. I’m glad to see that several people have taken advantage of them and that all unfounded misgivings seem to have been laid to rest. Personally, I find it so much easier to identify a picture rather than text when scrolling through a long list. Read more about it here: https://www.fifteensquared.net/2025/03/15/to-av-or-to-av-not/.

In October we started blogging the weekly Spectator puzzle, which I believe to be successful given the number of people who are reading them. It’s a pity that there are very few comments but I guess that things take a bit of getting used to. I’ve done The Spectator on-and-off over the last few years. It’s undoubtedly on the gentler side compare to Inquisitor, Listener, Enigmatic Variations and Azed/Gemelo but no less fun. Anyone who has access to 1Across magazine, can read the Spectator editor’s highly praiseworthy article.

Also in October, I made a change to comment numbering in an effort to avoid the problem (unique to this site) of comment references to other comments whose numbers had changed due to comments being deleted. I came up with a foolproof idea that went down like a lead balloon. I then came up with the system that’s currently in use, and everyone appears to be happy even though, in my opinion, it’s as flawed as (maybe even more so than) the old one.

November saw a poll on allowing people to add a country flag to their comments. Even though the majority vote was “yes”, due to the nature of some of the comments, I decided not implement the feature. Read more about it here.

And we round off the year by blogging a featured puzzle from MyCrossword. This will, hopefully, become a fortnightly feature. More details here.

Here’s to 2026

A big THANK YOU to all bloggers and let us not forget that it’s all done voluntarily.

Many thanks to those who have contributed, voluntarily, to help fund the site via the Buy Me A Coffee link.

Thanks also to those that take the time to comment and for, largely, keeping the discussions friendly and non-confrontational.

So, now it’s on to 2026 and let’s hope it’s a good one without any tears.