Those of you who have a subscription to The Guardian may have noticed that there were, on Saturday and before, quite a few letters from readers about the level of the newspaper’s cryptic crosswords.
As others may not and as I think this is something perhaps of interest to visitors of Fifteensquared, I thought you might want to have a look here: https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/2016/aug/26/cryptic-crosswords-im-sorry-i-havent-a-clue .
Personally, I was really surprised by the mostly negative feelings about The Guardian’s crosswords.
As if it was always easier in the days of (the much missed) Araucaria.
93 comments on “The Guardian (Letters, 26-08-2016) – I Haven’t A Clue”
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Speaking as someone who still fails to complete a fair few, I really don’t think it’s getting any more difficult at all.
The selection of comments has probably been deliberately skewed to back up Jean Jackson’s original letter (just the one dissenting voice at the end), probably to ensure the debate will go on with people writing in defence of the crossword.
I wonder what the complainers made of yesterday’s prize headbanger by Maskarade.
Having blogged the puzzle referred to in the first letter, I thought the criticism of it was particularly unfair. When a puzzle has special instructions which tell you that 11 solutions are “of a kind”, it seems pretty obvious that there is a theme. Well, it did to me, anyway.
Interesting to read those letters.
Clearly a newspaper cannot publish a puzzle that all its readers will be able to finish yet find a challenge to do so. I think it boils down to a mindset on the part of the solver…
There are those for a complete solve is an aspiration, a goal to work towards; there are those for whom a complete solve is a right, an expectation.
I don’t think there is any way to please everybody. The editor is either damned by one vocal group for making the puzzle too challenging or damned by another vocal group for dumbing it down.
My other observation is that there must be many thousands of solvers who just get on with it without writing letters to anybody. These must be the great majority by far.
I’d not dismiss those views quite as easily as some of the commenters here seem to be doing. Remember those blogging here are generally untypical experienced ‘expert’ solvers. Encouraging to see the correspondence as it indicates interest in the puzzles.
I was interested in the letters too and I agree that that,while Araucaria was an excellent compiler,I wouldn’t have said his puzzles were especially easy. Indeed I doubt he’d be as well thought of if they had been. Personally I think that the Guardian gets it about right. I like Rufus and Enigmatist but I wouldn’t want either of them every day so the Guardian puzzles suit me. I doubt that I’m typical but I don’t suppose any of the letter writers are either!
Now, back to Maskarade!
I wonder how these solvers used to get on with Bunthorne’s brilliant puzzles.
One of the letters makes an interesting point, which is that simply printing the solution to the puzzle in the following day’s paper doesn’t really cut the mustard for the confused solver. What s/he really needs is the workings, provided so helpfully by this site. Perhaps 225 and Hugh could find a more explicit way of co-operation?
@Tramp
Yes; I thought of Bunthorne, too. Every now and again, I dip into his archive and still really struggle to finish his puzzles, despite being a better solver than I was 20 years ago
@Sil
Very well done for attaching this item; I hadn’t seen the letters page.
warmest regards,
Rob
I agree with nmsindy @4 that most people who comment here are probably strong or even expert solvers. I don’t comment often, but with over 50 years experience of the Guardian – and Everyman in the Observer, till I gave it up because it was too easy – I’d rate myself a ‘fairly strong’ solver, rather than ‘very strong’.
Yes, Tramp @6, Bunthorne was tough, but several others were pretty easy – Crispa, Gemini, Janus, Mercury and Orlando (before he upped his game) spring to mind. Also, my memory says Guardian puzzles used to be more Ximenean, with the only ‘rule breaker’ of note being Araucaria.
These days, more setters are non-Ximenean (at least occasionally) and the range of acceptable clueing devices has increased. Hence the skill set required of Guardian solvers has become more demanding.
Given my solving skills, it’s only occasionally that I find a Guardian puzzle ridiculously hard. However, I often think the published puzzles must be intimidating to new or relatively inexperienced solvers. Of the current setters, I’d only rate Rufus and Chifonie as easy. The risk is that Guardian cryptics become less popular. I’d like to see the editor exert more control over the level of difficulty and have a policy of two ‘easy’, two ‘medium’ and two ‘hard’ puzzles each week. Yes, I know ‘difficulty’ is to some extent subjective, but surely he could do better than the current random mix (apart from ‘easy’ Rufus on Mondays).
nmsindy @4 – bloggers and commenters may be experienced now, but they did not start out that way. They started out as complete beginners just like everybody else.
Way back I spent year after year failing to complete the Guardian crossword. Pre-internet there was no place to go if one did not understand a solution. One just had to keep trying and hope that one would eventually catch on. Crosswords are both harder and easier to solve these days. The knowledge requirement may have increased, but the access to that knowledge is now only a mouse-click away.
I was interested in the letters. Half of the letters page dedicated to crosswords. I wondered if anyone around here had a letter published?
I felt sorry for the writer of the first letter.
It’s a really interesting and vital question.
Don Manley says that learning Crossword English is like learning a foreign language and I do think that there are some bits of it which are unguessable until you’ve been initiated.
Setters and editors should, I feel, separate Crosswordese into two camps:’Guessable’ and ‘Unguessable-unless-you’ve-met-it-already’.
For example ENT for part of hospital is fair and guessable to all, because everybody’s heard of an ENT department whereas SAN is an archaic colloquialism and surely unguessable to initiates – its being part of standard ‘Crossword English’ won’t help them! Yet I encounter both with about the same frequency.
Save the latter category for barred puzzles only please.
Another way of looking at this:
Instead of asking “Are crosswords getting harder?” perhaps one should ask “Why would crossword stay the same?”.
For example, Olympic records are continually being broken. Is sport getting harder? No, not really, it took as much commitment to be the best then as it does now. It is the environment in which sport happens that has changed. Technology has revolutionised so may aspects of sport.
The same applies to crosswords. Modern crosswords reflect modern times. The You can’t just go on “business as usual” and expect to keep up. The Guardian is not a museum, the crosswords move with the times the same way the articles on music, theatre, politics or any other part of the paper do.
Thanks for posting this, Sil.
I agree with median @8. There used to be far more setters producing easy puzzles than there are now; in addition to the five he mentions there was Plodge, Rover, Logodaedalus and previously Custos. That meant you’d get on average two or three (sometimes more) gentle puzzles a week. These days the only setters whose puzzles are invariably easy are Rufus and Chifonie; all the others I would class as medium going on hard. I’m thinking of easy and hard as objectively as I can, rather than from the view of someone who’s been solving puzzles since the mid 80s.
I can see where the letter writers are coming from, though some of their criticisms are unfair, especially the one Bridgesong refers to @2. Personally I’m happy with things as they are, but I suspect that the Bank Holiday puzzle will provide the naysayers with more ammunition!
Sil
Thank you so much for spotting this opportunity and creating this page. I did see one of the letters on the Letters page of the print Guardian (the one from Margaret Hopkins) but none of the others until now.
I’m a regular on fifteensquared, I love the challenge of solving cryptic crosswords, and I happen to rate very highly the general quality, flavour and range of difficulty levels of the Guardian’s crosswords over all other British dailies.
I sympathise with those who wish the crosswords were ‘easier’ and more compliant with a set of rules that they have in mind and would like to see followed by the Crossword Editor and his pool of compilers.
However, I believe there is an army of enthusiasts like me who don’t necessarily read the Guardian (I do, as it happens) but who enjoy, and heartily approve of, the Guardian cryptic crosswords as they are now and as they have developed over 5, 10, 20 or more years.
If the successful Guardian solvers of the past who now bemoan the direction the crosswords have taken since were to try and solve any of its daily puzzles today, and make use of a good solvers’ forum while or after doing so (I can recommend one!), I think most of them would learn very quickly the ‘new tricks’ that setters avail themselves of nowadays, and they can then go back to their winning ways.
One example of what I mean by new tricks is abbreviations: there are many now that are recognised in all dictionaries that were not used by crossword compilers in the past (and may or may not have been in dictionaries then). It is possible, and not difficult, to learn new abbreviations.
Some devices (‘tricks’) that are used now but not in the past (or not nearly so much in the past) do take some getting used to. In this category I would place (1) the use of ‘in’, ‘that’ and a few other words as ‘fillers’ in the clue in order to smooth the surface and (2) the deployment of familiar words like ‘over’ in new and sometimes questionable ways in order to smooth the surface or confuse the solver or both. These examples and others have inveigled their way into the armoury of setters and solvers over time.
I and I think thousands like me happily accept these developments, but I can understand it if not everybody does. It may be that solvers like those who wrote some of the letters in that obviously selective list may prefer to try crosswords published elsewhere. Then you get into discussions about what is available online and at what price, or what paper you have to enjoy or suffer in order to get at the crossword!
I agree Alan @ 14. It’s neither tricks nor abbreviations (within reason) that I object to, and it’s definitely great that things evolve. I suppose that anything that could theoretically be deduced by an imaginary solver who is both a)super-clever and b)a novice is fair game.
However, elements of wordplay which are familiar to experienced solvers but involve specialist archaic/ regional vocabulary that would be unknown to ‘The man or woman on the Clapham Omnibus’ are much harder to justify.
Drawing the line would be tricky though – Personally I like both Dis and Che, but don’t like either Ide or Lam… Who’d be an editor!
Thanks, Sil, for raising this.
First I must confess that I’m something of a lurker on this site: I very much enjoy reading the comments but rarely have much to add. But I have been slightly irritated by these letters, and wondering whether to write myself (a number of my previously-published letters have concerned crosswords). I’ve been doing the Guardian crossword for the last 50 years. While I haven’t kept a record, I reckon I complete around 95 per cent, and I don’t think that rate has changed.
Over this period, crosswords have evolved in various ways. This means, as Alan Browne @14 says, that solvers have to learn new tricks. That’s part of the fun, as far as I’m concerned. In recent times, Fifteensquared’s admirable bloggers and commenters have done much to help the learning process. But the cliche has some truth: the older the dog, the harder those tricks become. My 95-year-old cousin now rarely completes his crossword – something he used to manage during a short tube journey – but since he doesn’t use the internet this way of keeping up to date isn’t for him. He accepts this completely, and wouldn’t dream of writing a letter of complaint. Perhaps, though, the letter-writers should be encouraged to make what use they can of resources such as this. As for me, I welcome the daily challenge (though I fear that so far there remains one solution still outstanding in Maskarade’s splendid Bank Holiday Special).
Interesting. Some years ago the Telegraph editor instituted an extra Toughie to compete with the harder puzzles in The Times (interestingly some of the Toughies are more Guardian-like than Times-like now because there were some Guardian recruits). Then The Times, allegedly getting harder for some, introduced the Quick Cryptic as an easier alternative. I suspect The Guardian is also getting harder for some, and I agree that a few harder newer setters have displaced some easier ones, some of whom stuck to more conventional clueing. Since it seems that no paper can please everyone all the time with one puzzle, it may be time for the paper version of The Guardian to follow the path adopted by the Times, as it already does in the online-only Quiptic, but it would be for others to make the suggestion.
Well it doesn’t surprise me that much that comments on the letters page will have a different consensus to what we see here (and what we see on the Guardian’s own comments page). I can only speak from my own experience, which was that until I started trying to solve the crossword every day there were always plenty of setters who seemed impenetrable, not just Bunthorne. What has changed is more the range of cultural references than the difficulty of the clueing.
Your point, BH, about cultural references is well made and indeed one I made myself in the most recent edition of my Manual. We now live in a multicultural society. Traditional cultural references (e.g classical stories) will be lost on some solvers as much as more popular modern references (e.g.computing jargon) will be lost on others. Even so, the complexity of some modern clue constructions and the tendency to use some of the less helpful grids are also factors affecting difficulty. I think that with fair wordplay and a fairly helpful diagram we should all be able to deduce answers that are new to us and take delight in them. Which of us has not be educated by solving cryptic crosswords?
I have been solving – well, attempting – the Guardian crossword for going on 45 years now, and personally I don’t think they are really becoming more difficult. I still have occasional nightmares about Bunthorne ! The knowledge base now required may be greater than it once was, but in the days of the internet I think that is inevitable.
There are certain things I dislike, the chief ones being sloppy clueing (Maskarade) and puzzles where the answers consist chiefly of words drawn from the more obscure regions of the OED (can’t remember the guilty party here !) I also admit that nowadays I rarely attempt the daily puzzles, simply because so many of the grids used in the Guardian “hide” the first letter of most of the answers – a cheap trick, in my opinion. I do invariably enjoy the bank holiday puzzles though, sloppy clues or no.
I’m pleased to see the “themed” puzzles nowadays (and references in puzzles generally) moving away from the presumption that all solvers enjoyed a 1930s classical education and are therefore familiar with all the works of 18th-century composers,Victorian authors,Greek poets etc.etc. I don’t want a puzzle all about the songs of Michael Jackson (God forbid !!) but it is nice to sometimes encounter themes based around things which happened in my lifetime/my parents lifetime. Having spent my working life in IT, I don’t mind the odd bit of computing jargon either. A bit of modernity is fine with me.
What has changed most over the years ? Good question. I don’t remember encountering words like “arse” in 1970s clues, but that’s the only thing which springs immediately to mind !
It is so kind of JHBMK to dismiss my work as sloppy without backing up his argument and also to single me out alone. It is really quite soul-destroying. He might like to know that this latest Bank Holiday puzzle of mine was solved and vetted by two leading Guardian compilers before submission. By implication therefore he is condemning their work too.
Maskarade
Fear not, Tom/Maskarade. I will leap to your defence. I didn’t think your latest suffered from sloppy clueing at all. I do wonder, however, how many people will have solved 3 down without resort to the internet! Does that matter? I don’t think so.
Be not soul-destroyed – be encouraged.
Thanks for posting this, Sil – very interesting.
This site does get a mention in subsequent letters
I wonder if setters feel that producing new clues and themes gets any more difficult as time passes and the corpus grows – are there only so many ways to clue the best-known words using the best-known devices, before you feel you have to push the boundaries for the sake of novelty [and as discussed above, modern relevance]? I’m writing this just having blogged today’s Rufus, and the consistency of his setting often reminds me that a puzzle is no less an achievement for being “easy”.
Tom @21 – don’t let one or two dissenting voices get you down. Your holiday special is ingenious and brilliant, with some straightforward starters, but very difficult to finish, so just what a holiday prize puzzle should be. I will say more next week (and I might even have finished it by then)…
Take heart, Tom. I am – at best – a medium solver, and am thoroughly enjoying the Bank Holiday special.
I was pleased to see the crossword correspondence on the Guardian letters page as I thought it might tempt some people to start looking at the puzzles to see what the fuss was about and that a few of these might become regular solvers. The correspondence here has made interesting reading and the two points I would like to echo are, firstly, Pasquale’s suggestion that the Guardian might start pursuing a “two puzzles a day” strategy with both a Quiptic/ Telegraph-like straightforward puzzle and a clearly designated toughie. I was disappointed when the new puzzles page didn’t adopt this approach and would humbly suggest that there might not be many objections if the “simpler” puzzle replaced the new alphabet replacement one that has been introduced. Secondly Baerchen’s suggestion that the Guardian produce a brief explanation of the previous day’s crossword solution (something along the lines of an AZED solution) seems to be something that could easily be incorporated in the paper.
Tom@21 I’m another who was awe-struck by the Bank Holiday prize -it gave me hours of beguilingly agonising pleasure. Thank you.
I’m another who found the Maskarade prize a stunning achievement, and eventually finished it after recourse to every aid I could lay me hands on. Someone will probably tell me that there’s a website that lists words with sequential letters in word-length order, but I didn’t look for it.
Echoing MiE @ 26, didn’t the graun once provide what it called an annotated solution? I guess it must have gone missing when the website was ‘upgraded’.
Sil,
Thanks for this. But for your bringing to our notice the interesting correspondence in The Guardian, I, living here in Madras that is Chennai, would have missed it.
@Simon S at 27
I was about to mention what is called ‘annotated solution.’ Some syndicated crosswords from the UK published in Indian newspapers do carry that. Use of asterisks for anagrams, hyphens for components of charades, another symbol for telescopic, arrows for reversals or palindromes, etc, helps puzzled and inquiring solvers. And it also doesn’t spoon-feed as certain blogs nowadays do but encourage solvers to work out the answers.
In days of hotmetal press, this would have been well-neigh impossible. (Yet Pan Books used to have some minimal annotations in solutions.) But in these days of computer technology, it is possible and achievable.
But we see mistakes even in simple formatting of crosswords for interactive versions because of carelessness on the part of staff.
Just a quick update to say that I finished the prize at the third sitting this morning, having spent about seven hours on it in total, and it really is a work of art. Looking forward to Christmas already – keep them coming Tom!
I do understand the frustrations of occasional solvers, but as long as Rufus and Chifonie are around there should be something for everybody, and if the first Pan is typical he/she could be another for the learners.
Perhaps hedge-hoggy has written in to The Guardian to express his views?
I am an old solver indeed, and regularly tackled with delight the likes of Araucaria and Bunthorne, both of whom had a dexterity that these new fellows seem to lack, so I’ll side with those who wrote in, in general.
I agree with Pasquale (certainly not indicated in any of this, I’ll make very clear) that there has been created an annoying and unsatisfactory ‘new complexity’, which has polluted the cryptic environment at The Guardian, and that this is a great shame. I speak of the ‘In-deed’ Brigade who strive to find ever more confused and arcane ways of getting their letters out of clues, thinking that they are somehow clever, or worse, somehow continuing a tradition set by Araucaria. But where Araucaria and Bunthorne succeeded, these foolish young compilers fail, seeming only clumsy or arrogant or both as they try vainly to match the wit and wisdom of their mentors. Their clues are rubbish a lot of the time.
It is my view that those two greats will never be matched, and that it is futile for anyone to try. The Guardian has one or two compilers who are on the way, such as the too-tricksy Enigmatist and the too-smutty Paul – plus some stalwarts of good character like Shed and Orlando – but they will arrive at greatness through their own devices. The New Complicators will disappear up themselves, I think – and sincerely hope.
As to editorial interventions I fear we are defeated entirely. The incumbent has no idea about cryptic crosswording as his book clearly shows, and so the rot creeping around in the clues at The Guardian continues to spread unchecked, as we solvers might say. let there be a New Age soon. As long as it is a bit like the Old Age which we miss.
Yours sincerely
Denis Minter.
Most of the writers of these letters and comments have been solving cryptic crosswords for many years. I only started trying to solve these crosswords two years ago after having looked at them hopelessly for 50 years in the Guardian Weekly. Fifteensquared got me going. I am over 70 years old, rather a slow person with a poor memory and have not lived in an English speaking country for over 40 years, yet I find the range of the cryptics in the Guardian ideal. So long as there is an easy one at some point in the week I am happy, and I really enjoy the challenge of the Saturday Prize since there is no temptation from of the check button.
I, too, am looking forward to the Christmas puzzle, hopefully from Maskarade. Today I am taking a rest from the Bank Holiday Special, so far have managed to completely solve 12 of the the clues and 8 partially.
Well said Cookie.
I am struck by how many “things are not what they used to be” comments there are related to this topic. People looking back to a supposed golden age when they were younger, crossword setters were wonderful and all was well with the world.
I fear no amount of editorial intervention will be able to fix that problem.
PS Maskarade – please don’t take one person’s rudeness to be representative of an entire audience. You certainly have my support.
I echo PeeDee’s plea whole-heartedly, Maskarade, and Beery’s `Roll on Christmas`.
The Prize was a truly awe-inspiring, admirable `labour of love` to me, and I’m very grateful.
PS You have mail.
I found the Maskerade Prize puzzle by turns infuriating, delightful, ingenious, frustrating and apparently impossible. In short, pretty much how a prize cryptic is supposed to make you feel, particularly on the big grid and with the extra rules that the BH special denotes. It was tremendously inventive and I didn’t find the clues to be sloppily constructed. I have my frustrations but I can’t criticise the setter on that score and I think given the scale of the creation such comment is rather unfair, and less than kind.
I completed it in the end but only after recourse to some internet searching and also a bit of online help. I have to admit I would never have got their left to myself. Does that make it a bad puzzle, or an overly difficult one? I don’t think so but it is always nice to feel that a lone solver is not disadvantaged by virtue of their being lone, and I think a communal approach was the only possible way to get it done for me and many others.
I’m sure creating these things is a lot harder than the setters make it appear and whilst we all have our preferences and passions and it is always fun to blow off steam (I tend to do this rather too freely, as a rule), Tom’s appearance on the thread is a timely reminder that behind the screen is a real person who, if we are insufficiently mindful of that fact, could hardly be blamed for wondering why the hell they bother.
At least a part of the answer to that, I hope, is that we ARE excited and gripped by the setters’ wonderful creations, and I hope Tom and the other distinguished setters are able to see that as a great compliment rather than taking criticism as being personally motivated or, even, true. They are just opinions, and most of us dash them off with a lot less thought than we ought to sometimes.
What exactly does ‘non-Ximenean’ mean to most people here, I wonder?
“tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis”, as we’d all once airily have said. But as Hugh Stephenson pointed out in a column from 2014 https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2014/mar/04/1 in which he is unapologetic about consigning the once cruciverbally ubiquitous Beerbohm Tree (d.1917) to the history books, most people these days would feel happier with the English “times change and we change with them”. How many of us now read the INGOLDSBY LEGENDS, know that “Lamb devotees” were ELIANS, or are familiar with 14th century archbishop LANGHAM? These examples are taken at random from older Guardian puzzles. On the other hand, for example, Bunthorne had a reference to Mark Knopfler in a clue for DIRE STRAITS, and Araucaria once clued the word TWEENAGER.
Such is the jaw-dropping virtuosity of Maskarade’s Bank Holiday puzzle that, as one of its test solvers, I had carpet burns on my chin for days. Tom deserves nothing but thanks for his brilliance and hard work and for all the hours of entertainment his crossword has provided, is providing and, for some, will continue to provide for days to come.
Holland Tringham/Denis Minter
You say that you “agree with Pasquale …that there has been created an annoying and unsatisfactory ‘new complexity’, which has polluted the cryptic environment at The Guardian, and that this is a great shame”. He certainly doesn’t need me to defend him but what Pasquale actually said was “the complexity of some modern clue constructions and the tendency to use some of the less helpful grids are also factors affecting difficulty. I think that with fair wordplay and a fairly helpful diagram we should all be able to deduce answers that are new to us and take delight in them”. Slightly different I think.
You are of course entitled to your opinion that “foolish young compilers fail, seeming only clumsy or arrogant or both as they try vainly to match the wit and wisdom of their mentors” and that “their clues are rubbish a lot of the time.” but it is slinging a very large bucket of mud at a number of unnamed individuals, which doesn’t seem very fair to me.
For what it’s worth I am regularly both amazed and delighted by the ingenuity and sense of fun displayed by the setters old and new in the Guardian.
WEll said Mick.
And thanks too to Arachne for dropping in. Carpet burns on the chin is an image that will endure.
Paul B @38, as the person who introduced the term ‘non-Ximenan’ into this discussion (@8 above), I’ll respond. Here’s a definition of ‘Ximenean’ from https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ximenean
“Of or pertaining to the cryptic crossword style used and defined by “Ximenes” (Derrick Somerset Macnutt), whereby an acceptable cryptic clue must have a precise definition, a fair and strictly grammatical subsidiary indication, and no redundant elements beyond these.”
It used to be rare for a Guardian crossword to stray from this prescription, but the reins have been loosened over the years. Not necessarily a bad thing, methinks, within reason.
Okay Median, whoever you are, thanks. For that definition there.
It’s a tough one to locate in a decent dictionary isn’t it, but I’d say wiki is going to appear to be pretty close here for some 225ers, especially those who identify or tout the existence of certain rules – rules that I just can’t find! But hey, let’s have some of that strict grammar, which I’ve always taken to be ‘basic English grammar’ (slight no-brainer for some of us).
The Guardian’s reins have been loosened on that there grammar over the years, it would seem, and this is not necessarily a good thing. I’ll bet you a pint that I could edit all the mistakes out of any suitable Grauniad offering without so much as ruffling a hair on the head of any of its grand ideas, or super-funky new techniques, and get it to work in line with ‘strict grammatical rules’.
I’d say that would improve the solvability, i.e. what writers-in have been moaning about, by at least a tad, and we could still have what is purported to be the ‘ongoing development of new crosswording styles’, or whatever it is. Yes in-deed.
(Which leads of course to ‘deyesed’. Or ‘dyeseed’ or ‘deeyesd’, for anyone new.)
In my opinion, we should not comment on last Saturday’s Maskarade puzzle anymore here.
I don’t think it is what this discussion is all about.
‘We’ should ask ourselves two essential questions about Guardian crosswords in recent years:
(1) Have they become harder, or even too hard?
(2) Has there been a significant change in style?
And if so, why is that.
My crossword age is less than 10 years and therefore I do not have an opinion on the days when Bunthorne, Araucaria, Janus et al ruled the world.
Looking back, I tend to say that, at the time I started, around 2008 , only the wonderful Araucaria, the nifty Pasquale and the most fiendish of all, Enigmatist, were the ones to beat.
Since then, we got Arachne (well, she was already around but not as prominently), Crucible, Tramp, Picaroon, Nutmeg, Imogen and others.
Setters who may be seen by the average solver as hard but also setters that are quite Ximenean.
Menawhile, I am not the same solver anymore as five years ago and so for me it is very difficult to give an honest assessment of whether crosswords have become harder or not.
What I do think, however, is that Guardian crosswords have changed in style.
Orlando, Rufus, Shed, Puck, Paul, Brendan – all very fine but setters acting nowhere near the borders of Crosswordland.
I think, when Boatman appeared (and a later point Araucaria adept Philistine) something really changed. They came up with new devices that were at first often seen as ‘dubious’ (also by me) but became well-accepted parts of an ever changing crossword world full of Guardianisms. That is, if one is willing to accept them.
Crosswords have become my major hobby (perhaps even more than that) and while I am not always at a point to say ‘I would do that myself’ I do understand and appreciate novel types of clues and clue writing.
However, when Boatman thinks that its is interchangeable with it’s because we ignore punctuation at all times, then, I’m afraid, I’ll go out for a walk (which reflects my other major hobby).
When Tringham Holland/Denis Minter @31 calls them the In-deed Brigade then I must also make clear that the first setter I met using in/deed was the Great man himself. But yes, what many call lift-and-separate has taken a huge flight. I never lived my life in the past, the world is changing every single day, so why can’t the world of crosswords have its novelties?
Before I started doing Indy crosswords (much later) I had never heard of a nina nor did I hardly see a themed crossword like they have there. The Guardian doesn’t do ninas but they clearly increased the proportion of themes.
Now there are themes and themes.
We already had ‘nine clues are of a kind and not further defined’ or ‘P has the same meaning throughout’ but Tramp became an innovator with crosswords in which the surfaces were referring to a theme and in which you didn’t have to know anything about the matter to successfully solve the puzzle. And there is Qaos whose puzzles nearly always have a ghost theme – something not seen before at this place.
So, yes, I do think that the overall feel of a Guardian crossword has changed.
It has become more ‘sex, drugs and rock & roll’ which I think is as such not a bad thing at all.
Unfortunately, on occasions, it also leads to ‘anything goes’, meaning a lack of precision compared to what’s written in my book of crosswords.
Conclusion?
Harder? Really don’t know.
Different? Absolutely.
I can imagine that for solvers who just want to solve a doable crossword on a daily basis, ‘different’ may have become synonymous to ‘harder’ or even ‘unacceptably hard’.
Perhaps, if that is a real problem, The Guardian should investigate the option of producing two puzzles a day as does The Times (very successfully!).
It might also be a good idea if The Guardian explicitly refers to Fifteensquared for those looking for explanations.
“…that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”
Ecclesiastes 1:9 in case you were wondering – King James version – natch.
The new, modern etc cluing constructions and grammars (oh look – it takes a plural) are not new at all. Sadly setters have for a long time been scared off from using them for fear of running a gauntlet of flak from ximwarriors on the blogs – a nasty sport which is a byproduct of online blogging but which some sad individuals find to be more fun than solving puzzles.
Holland Tringhams/Denis Minter’s comment is bizarre. The “in-deed” device(which he deprecates) was extensively used by Araucaria (whom he lauds). The Telegraph’s all-time leading setter Douglas Barnard (in Anatomy of the Crossword – 1963) made it clear that he regarded it as allowable, even though he didn’t use it much in his own puzzles. He also accepted that capitalisation, punctuation and spacing should be “seen through”. He didn’t put it this way but I would justify that by the fact that a clue is a pseudo phrase (or sentance) which can be decoded (normally, but not always, in two ways) to lead to an upper-case string of letters which goes into the light as the answer – with punctuation, diacritics (accents etc) etc stripped away.
Anyway – that’s conventional cluing – ximeneanism is not.
BTW Ximenes once gave VHC to a competition clue in which INCREASES was given for CREASY (ie in creases) and I can find no example of his taking any other view in the searchable online Ximenes archive – where you can also find that his 1966 book (or at least the few pages of it that aren’t padding) is mainly a copy-paste of his earlier “slip” comments. Crossword insiders would have been well familiar with these (and mainly have rejected them) many years earlier – so where these anti-lift-and-separate warriors are getting their ideas from who knows?
Starting out as a Guardian (mainly – and Telegraph) solver in the mid to late 60s the first piece of advice I was given was to ignore all punctuation, spacing, capitalisation etc – it may be there to deceive – and of course it often was.
That was what conventional cluing was – and still is in my book. Then we had the ximenean terror. If it started out as a fightback by those who knew they would never match the wit, originality, logic and elegance of such as Araucaria and Bunthorne – and let’s not forget Gordius, who really was libertarian occasionally, that overworked term being only used as a gibe against those other two.
So what we have now is nothing new – it’s slowly rowing back to the glory days of crosswords – and they really were glory days. Dig into the Guardian archive (if only it went back further) and enjoy (as I have been doing recently) Araucaria prize puzzles from the past – they really do represent the apogee of this game. (Typical Guardian – numerations are garbled – preambles are omitted – but rather that than not have them).
There’s a lot of ximenean spin in this thread already. They really are an obsessive crew. If it’s so good why can’t they play in their own sandpit while the rest of us look on jealously – and leave us to play in ours.
It’s gained traction for a while but in the long run it will probably peter out. F R Leavis had a lot of influence in the field of English literature back in the day – he’s now better remembered for the cattiness of his attacks on C P Snow than for any of his ideas.
Sorry Sil – I have to comment on the disgraceful (and non-specific) attack on Maskerade’s Bank Holiday puzzle; they were big shoes to fill when he took Araucaria’s place in providing those puzzles – easy to say he fell a little short maybe in the early attempts – maybe he did – maybe he didn’t – we were probably all making comparisons which we shouldn’t have made. This recent one I thought was stupendous – superbly good – a real slow burner. Araucaria-like or not it was perfect for the slot.
Maskerade needs to get a thicker skin. He’s in good company copping that sort of flak on these blogs. Araucaria copped it all the time (mainly from the ximwarriors) to the extent that (we are told) he stopped reading them altogether. Boatman gets it too.
Boatman puzzles are on the hard side *and* he demonstrates a wide variety of cluing strategies – not *because* he does.
Enough from me. Yes the Guardian is sitting on its hands – it should be running two levels of online cryptics every weekday – as does he Times and the DT – why not on Mondays?
I would also like to see something really tough on Sundays – ie a really tough blocked puzzle – not just a barred-grid one and an easy one.
If you want something *really* tough try this:
They don’t write’em like that any more. BTW kudos to the setter who is the very versatile Nuala Considine.
I meant the sentence which starts:
If it started out as a fightback by those who knew they would never match the wit, originality, logic and elegance of such as Araucaria and Bunthorne…
to continue:
… it hasn’t worked as there are newer setters who manage to cram a good degree of the wit and ingenuity of those early greats already mentioned while still limiting themselves to those coding possibilities allowed under the ximenean approach. Imagine what they could do with those shackles removed.
Sil @44 – I would add a third question to the two you pose at the beginning of your comment:
3) Is it now easier to learn how to solve cryptic crosswords?
I think the answer to this question is a resounding yes. Once upon a time there was really nowhere to go if you did not understand a clue. Even the brief annotated solutions were often of no help unless you already understood how the device worked. References were limited to the paper books you happened to have in your house at the time. It took years to become a competent solver.
Now one can find a detailed explanation of every daily puzzle within hours of its publication. One can ask for help on numerous blogs and help sites. Information is everywhere, it takes only seconds to look up even obscure references. A beginner can reach competence in a fraction of the time it used to take.
Difficulty is not a fixed quantity, what constitutes difficulty changes with the environment in which the puzzle is solved.
PaulB @43 – in The Guardian as a whole takes a relatively relaxed attitude to content, grammar and use of language. Why would the crossword be any different?
This “trendiness” may irritate people for sure, but that is why there are multiple publications for sale. Get the one that reflects your own sensibilities, not try and make them all the same.
Chapeau, Sil, for instigating this discussion and to fifteensquared, as ever, for providing a good-natured forum that respects all sides of an argument.
Sil correctly identifies two different themes @44, and I suspect that a lot of the people who contributed to those printed letters will have conflated them. We should have some sympathy – the variety among the setters in the Guardian stable is one of its strengths, but it’s unsettling for solvers who are used to one style or a clearly delimited range of trickery. I like very much the idea of printing explanations alongside the solutions – those who haven’t tried submitting work to the Guardian may not realise that Hugh receives all puzzles in a format that includes annotations for each clue (all new setters should do this for their own benefit, too!) so it should be technically straightforward to lift this section of the file for typesetting.
By the way, Sil, you have given me another excellent quote for future reference, and I’m flattered.
Jolly – I also very much like your separation of difficulty and novelty in the devices that I use … If I want the solver to interpret “hasten round” to mean “contained by the letters IO” it’s definitely not because I want to irritate the solvers, but because I see that sort of thing all the time, it makes me smile and I want to share it … well, mostly that’s the reason.
I look forward to entertaining you all on Saturday, when I’ll be putting the fish into fiendish …
Boatman – re your suggestions on annotation of solutions:
I get to see the setters’ annotations occasionally (don’t ask me how!) and in their current brief form they are helpful to an editor who already understands how cryptics work but I think they would be less help to a beginner. For example if you have no idea why I END should be included in FISH then seeing “I END in FISH” as an annotation is of no help at all.
I also often see out-of-date annotations that refer to an earlier edit of the clue.
Writing really useful annotations takes time and, more importantly, takes up a lot of space on the printed page (what do you remove to make space for the annotations?). For anyone anyone who is prepared to go on line to find explanations they are already available in abundance.
Alas few crossword editors can do a proper market survey. They are left with:
1 Those who find puzzles increasingly harderand compalin, either because crosswords have changed and/or they have changed. Their criticisms may or may not be justified. (Those who like the puzzles rrely bother to communicate to the editor!)
2 The enthusiasts on websites who tend to be the more able solvers and include (probably) a relatively high proportion of those who favour less traditional cluing, wanting to shift the boundaries even if others get left behind or disapprove.
These two sets are the noisy ones and their views are (to say the least) not wholly compatible. Somewhere out there are hundreds or thousands of solvers who just get on with it or who give up (for various reasons). The silent majority are rarely heard, so I fear that there is always a danger of editors receiving more heat than light.
But talk away!
Pasquale – my sentiments @3
PS I always distrust anyone claiming to speak on behalf of the “silent majority”, whatever the subject
Sorry — yes, we’ve gone full circle. I agree that one cannot speak for the silent majority, because they will have a variety of views of course!
Enough from me, anyway
Interesting information, PD … I shall think of you next time I submit my annotations. You’re right, of course, especially about updating the annotations to reflect edits to the wordplay – I’ve just finished re-editing my first 50 puzzles as an annotated collection (get your orders in for Christmas) and weeding out all the superseded references has been driving me crazy … well, crazier, anyway.
What a fascinating discussion this has been. I’ve nothing more to contribute but wanted to acknowledge the considerable and articulate wisdom passed to and fro, and to observe that this site has much to commend it on its most average days, but at moments like this it becomes an even more valuable resource.
Many thanks to the team who maintain it so it’s here when it matters.
Boatman – I calculate I must have annotated somewhere in the region of 12,000 clues while writing posts for fifteensquared. If you would like any help proof reading or just someone to read over the annotations in your book then I would be happy to be of assistance. You can email me at paul at drurys dot org.
I don’t agree with the contention that they’re any harder. But I emphatically agree with the writer who makes the point about the new position of the crossword, right up against the centrefold of the page. I wonder if there’s anything we can do to persuade them to revert to the original. I can’t see a design reason for it
Just a thought: many of the comments on Arachne’s lovely puzzle today refer to it being easy. Other puzzles (especially prize puzzles) have attracted similar comments in the past. Is it possible that setters have read these comments, concluded that they’re not offering enough of a challenge, and upped their game accordingly? Many of the regulars here are excellent solvers who would appreciate a hike in difficulty – or perhaps wouldn’t even notice it – but the majority of solvers Pasquale refers to above may get left behind.
I’m not saying that’s the case, just making a suggestion.
.
Re 45 what we had was ‘The Ximenean Construct’ I rather think, brought to this site by one Swagman. And of course, it’s a wilful misreading to justify certain opinions of his.
I don’t mind, or even care, about the so-called Guardianisms that crop up here and there, but grammar is grammar and there’s no way around it. It’s exactly the same in the cryptic readings of crossword clues as it is in everyday usage, there’s no difference whatsoever. Furthermore, compilers who cock it up do two things: first they make their crosswords harder to solve because the information in the clues is more difficult to shake out. Second, they show their ignorance. It’s hard to avoid mistakes sometimes, as the surface is that which must be served at the expense of all else, but that’s what a decent compiler is – someone who can avoid the grammatical pitfalls.
I think Bunthorne and Araucaria just about managed to do that.
It looks like most of what had to be said’s been said now.
Crossword solvers can perhaps be divided into four categories: absolute beginners, good solvers who just want a daily doable crossword, more experienced solvers who like an extra bit of sharpness, the ultimate solvers who can do (or challenge themselves to do) any crossword within ten minutes or so.
The first category would really benefit from annotated solutions and in that sense I think it would be good if The Guardian finds a way to guide them (or sends them to 225, for example).
I presume that group no 2 represents by far the biggest part of all solvers.
Some of them may be conservative in their views on crosswords (in which case The Guardian is not the right place to be), some are more progressive (open to new ideas, also enjoying more contemporary surfaces).
It is the silent majority, and a group the editor should care for (I am not saying that he doesn’t).
Group 4 will not do a Rufus anyway because solving a crossword in five minutes, well, that’s ludicrous and unsatisfying.
It’s the third group that’s more problematic.
In fact, it’s about most of ‘us’ here at Fifteensquared.
I am sure that ‘we’ (including me!) generally like The Guardian’s puzzles and especially appreciate the variety.
Where things go wrong is when commenters start using a phrase like ‘disappointingly easy’.
Crosswords are there to enjoy, not just for category 3 but also and perhaps even more for category 2.
If you know you will be let down by another Rufus, don’t tackle his puzzles and find an alternative (The Indy, for example?).
There is no good reason to patronise solvers who are in a ‘lower category’ (quotation marks, not unimportant!).
Enough of me now.
The only thing I still want to say is that PeeDee has a clear point in comment 47.
Perhaps, even more relevant than the two I mentioned @44.
I, for one, would never have been where I am now in such a short space of time without, in my case, Fifteensquared.
In the first couple of years I frequently ‘read’ crossword blogs (without solving), just trying to understand what was happening.
I am convinced that this is the ideal way to get into it for absolute beginners.
I have to disagree with one point there, Sil. I’m not sure I’m in Group 4 or not – never heard back after the interview but then I never wanted to work in security anyway – but I do rather enjoy doing the likes of Rufus. Yes, it usually takes five minutes or so but it’s far from unsatisfying. It’s a pleasant reminder that I can still actually do normal crosswords after having struggled for several hours to finish the likes of Nimrod’s “Life After Death” IQ puzzle!
Otherwise wise words, especially “Where things go wrong is when commenters start using a phrase like ‘disappointingly easy’” which was the point of my previous post.
OK, cruciverbophile, point taken.
cruciverbophile & Sil – I remember Nimrod’s “Life After Death” only to well, I didn’t manage more than half a dozen entries in a whole week of trying! I still get shivers thinking about it.
There is something about human psychology that makes it unacceptable to profess finding a puzzle very easy. I doubt if anyone got offended by the above where I stressed how hard I found a puzzle. I think this causes many problems. Some people genuinely believe that “I found this disappointingly easy” to be a simple factual statement of their own experience. Others read this as arrogant provocation. Who is to say which is wrong? Simple good manners required? Of course, but whose manners? “Ours” or “theirs”?
63 comments and no mention of what’s in it for the Guardian? The crossword is part of a strategy to get more people to buy the newspaper or to generate more web traffic to impress advertisers. Which would be more remunerative – providing newspaper readers with an approachable crossword to complement their overall experience or sucking in aficionados to the website from across the world with a crossword worthy of furrowing their brow?
With the growing importance of web traffic, there is a fairly obvious pressure for the crossword to get more difficult so that the various demands are as balanced as they can be in maximising the Guardian’s income from sales and advertising.
Although I am not convinced there is much of a long-term prognosis if the constituency we are dealing with is one in which Michael Jackson is seen as dangerously modern (@20).
Good point PeeDee. Such are the subtleties of our fine language that a word or two out of place can transform “I found this easier than usual” into “I’m far too good for this insult to my intelligence”. And of course we’ve had some comments which deliberately intend the latter. Setters like Rufus have been around long enough that they know to ignore comments like “this was barely cryptic” but newer setters may feel “well, if THAT’S the way you want it…!”
One thing I’m very grateful for is that solving times are rarely, if ever, posted here. How would Sil’s Group 1 and 2 solvers feel if, after struggling all afternoon with a puzzle, they come online to find that the experts knocked it off in seven minutes? Long may this continue.
A very interesting discussion all round. I’ve seen suggestions in the past about putting Magpie-style grades in place (A to E). But that just pushes the problem back a level and assumes most solvers would agree with them! Having a setter’s name below the puzzle does give a good indication in difficulty from past puzzles, but even that varies. The best solution is probably the one in place, namely to give the job to a benign dictator, who has a better overall view than most of us and is trusted to make good decisions (particularly for the silent majority).
Without wanting to stir the “grammar pot” too much, I personally don’t believe English grammar applies to crossword clues (I might burn in crossword hell for that comment …). I see crossword clues as using their own formal grammar, just as programming languages do, e.g. DEFN = SYNONYM(word1) + [ABBREV(word2) IN ANAG(word3)]. Chomsky was already categorizing these grammars way back in the 50s. When solving clues, your brain is really deciphering cryptic formal grammar – hence the comment above solving crosswords akin to having to learn a new language. You’re effectively learning a new language that has its own formal grammar. Maybe it’s the reason there are more setters with IT backgrounds these days and another reason for the overall change in “difficulty”?
Well, you DID stir it (the pot).
A formal language is one designed for use in situations in which natural language is unsuitable, as for example in mathematics, logic, or computer programming. Yet English is perfectly suited to the ‘situation’ of crossword clue-writing. Wriggle all you like, Chomskyan, but if you can’t separate out the grammar required for the set of cryptic instructions, you’re no setter.
(I’m not suggesting that applies to you of course, John.)
Are The Guardian cryptics getting harder?
Yes, I think so. Three years ago I seldom failed to complete and completely parse each one, now I fail one or both measures at least once a week.
Are my solving capabilities waning?
No I don’t think so, 5 years ago I was lucky to get 1 Azed answer, now I can finish if not parse it completely.
Should anything be done?
No, I don’t think so. Yes there is a pang of disappointment if I fail on either of my counts but I wouldn’t change things. It is, as they say, ‘the taking part’.
Is it easier to learn how to do them? Definitely and blogs like 225 and the Guardian thread are the reason why. They have vastly improved my solving abilities. Yes, manuals existed before but I see on-line discussions as a lively ‘seminar groups’.
Sil
This is all of great interest to me and evidently to many others, some of whom I recognise as regulars on the Guardian pages. Congratulations! What started as a single topic has grown into discussions of several sub-topics, and I’m impressed by the many stimulating views and ideas from solvers and setters alike.
More than 3 days ago (!) I commented (@14) on the original topic, and I would now like to comment on something that caught my eye in a more recent comment about posting solving times (or not).
Posting solving times is not a good idea (I’m with cruciverbophile @65 on this), for the simple and sufficient reason that it doesn’t tell you anything except that fact. When I had a break from the Guardian for a few weeks this year, I regularly read (and occasionally contributed to) a blogging site where commenters are expected to post their solving times. That information, sometimes supplemented by some fatuous comment like ‘it would have been 50 seconds quicker but for that infernal 8 down’, never really informed or entertained anybody, as far as I know.
Alan
It’s true that, on that site, solving times are considered important. And why, given the circumstances, would they not be? But the opinions of the solvers almost invariably extend beyond that simple computation, and I for one consider that it would be completely wrong to suggest otherwise.
Qaos @66 – the big difference between formal/computer languages and natural language is that formal languages are prescriptive.
In a formal/computer language the grammar is defined. If you don’t follow the grammar your program is invalid and you can’t run it, nor can you use any of the mathematical theory associated with the language.
In a natural language the grammar is descriptive, it describes what is out there. If the grammar fails to match the actual language then it is the grammar that is incorrect/incomplete.
This debate will never end. As somebody who had a liberal comprehensive education in the 70s and 80s I know that my knowledge of grammar is inadequate, but that never stopped me tackling, say, Araucaria fairly successfully before I had any real knowledge of Ximenean rules. Perhaps this makes it harder for me to apply strict grammatical rules to solving, but do we really think about grammar much when we speak or write informally anyway? If we accept colloquial borrowings (and this is undoubtedly one of the things that makes the Guardian style relatively entertaining) then I think we have to accept that language evolves.
…continued (posted accidentally)… Crosswords are like natural language. In fact they are worse as there is an implicit intention to misdirect the reader. Crosswords are an exercise in how the normal language can be wilfully misinterpreted.
PeeDee @71 – fair point. However, some formal languages can still be “parsed” even if they don’t compile (e.g. HTML).
Paul B @67 – “Chomskyan”, I like that – my next pseudonym! 😀
Again, thanks all for a very interesting discussion. Compared to some of the mud-slinging physics websites I visit, 15^2 is a veritable paradise of good manners. Long may it continue.
Blimey, I started reading the letters and the first sentence in the first letter gives ‘…,I think that too-clever-by-half crossword compilers invent new rules to preserve their self-awarded intellectual power.’. I’m afraid that to me says a lot more about the writer than it does about Guardian crossword setters or their puzzles.
Why do so many threads on Guardian crosswords turn into a Ximenean debate? Personally I prefer the Ximenean way, but I know that the Guardian doesn’t so expect to find libertarian clues. I don’t see why the two can’t coexist.
John Nicholson – I think you answer your own question there. It says something about the mindset of the person writing the comment.
For some there is a clear and correct way to write crosswords; all crosswords should be written that way. The idea of having multiple traditions coexisting is not something that that is ever going to gain traction with them.
Ironically, I think one should respect this position. One can’t claim that multiple viewpoints are valid whilst ostracising those who believe that there is an absolute viewpoint. “There is only one right way” is just another point of view after all.
Fascinating but eventually very sad thread. As one of the letter writers I would simply like to say that I have long regarded the Guardian cryptic as a source of joy, fun, and OK challenge in the sense of not just a write-in. I have no reason to suggest that the Bank Holiday puzzle wasn’t technically brilliant. But I took one look and came to the conclusion I had better things to do over the weekend than tackle a GCHQ training exercise. The thread demonstrates the problem – the crossword fraternity as here exposed is simply a group who have become more and more introverted. There really has to bemore to life for me, not necessarily others I accept, than spendings hours glued to black and white squares and the Internet. The really sensible suggestion here is that the Guardian starts to offer us a quick cryptic a la The Times – I don’t enjoy supporting Rupert for that pleasure alone, let alone the politics. No wish to offend anyone.
Bit rude of you Ken! It is possible to have life that involves (in my case) bringing up a family, doing a job I love, having hobbies as diverse as acting, gardening and mountain climbing, generally being pretty darn happy and yet still find time to enjoy ‘spending hours glued to back and white squares and the Internet’. Mind you, something had to give – I spend a lot less time watching telly than I used to!
I suppose that if you habitually buy a paper copy of the Guardian and you find the crosswords tough then you’re a bit stuffed. However, if you just like doing a good crossword then you can always see what the Indie & the FT have to offer. Both are teeming with free, brilliant, and often highly highly innovative setters, and both probably offer more “easier” puzzles than the Guardian. Many of these puzzle-masters also set in the Guardian, although I sense that in the FT the setters turn the difficulty level down a notch (which perfectly suits my weekday commute). On the rare occasions I buy a newspaper I often buy the Times for the crossword, and for the pleasure it gives, it’s a bargain.
Let’s not get personal, please, and not use a term like ‘rude’.
We spent about 4 to 5 hours on last Saturday’s Maskarade (only one left!) but it is really a lot of time.
You cannot expect the average solver (what or whoever that is) to go that far.
There are indeed other things in life.
Pointing at alternatives (the Indy or the FT) is also not what this is all about.
Many solvers seem to find the Guardian puzzles too hard nowadays and less enjoyable – that’s the point and that is what it should be about.
We had a discussion on difficulty, change in style, cryptic grammar, Ximenes versus Libertarian but the problem is still there.
It’s a pity that no-one from the Guardian offices makes an effort to make clear what their aim is.
At the same time I do understand why they would like to stay clear from it.
I am happy with what The Guardian offers – I always take it as it comes.
The Guardian isn’t The Times – nothing new under the sun.
By the way, yesterday I was at a friend’s place and her neighbour popped in.
At a certain point I mentioned my passion for crosswords.
Then she told me that she always does the Everyman and how much she likes it.
But then I fell into a trap, saying that the Everyman is an easy puzzle (and also very good).
So dim of me to call the Everyman easy – yes, for me, but for her?
It made me once again aware of the fact that there are solvers and solvers.
But both words are spelt the same way!
@JN #75
“I don’t see why the two can’t coexist.”
Firstly (assuming ximenean to be one) there are more than two – there are numerous ways of devising a set of rules for cryptic crosswords; mathematicians may tell us whether that number is finite or infinite, but let’s not go down that path when we are in the company of people who think mathematics is only the stuff they themselves scraped a bare O-level pass with.
A lot of people have been fooled into thinking that ximenean means “according to established rules” and that anything else must be “libertarian”. That’s nonsense. The approach defined by Douglas Barnard in his 1963 book (beating ximenes to the printing press by three years – that will have galled him) could hardly be called libertarian and neither could his own puzzles. The differences are few. Ximenes must have known of and read Barnard’s book when he wrote his – he doesn’t mention it. How rude – but this has become the standard ximenean tactic over the years; to airbrush out the alternatives.
If you read the Chambers Crossword Manual (first published in 1986- author Don Manley – Pasquale above) you will see where the biggest problem of the present day lies. This book is the main one that is widely available. Sadly it’s still in print in yet another edition, equally as misleading as the earlier ones, earlier editions being available second-hand from online booksellers for 99p plus postage.
You might have expected to find in such a “manual” (inter alia) coverage of the great Guardian and Telegraph setters of the day – the ones who made this game what it is today – maybe photographs of them. You won’t – what you get is a history of cryptic crosswords in which it all took place on The Observer and in which Ximenes was the only player who really counted, and photos of *the author* and his ximenean heroes from the past. All the others are airbrushed out or given a trivial passing mention. There is also extensive “explanation” of what’s wrong with any clues that are not ximenean.
Manley’s book is the worst one because it has caused the most harm. Lazy (that’s most of them) journalists treat it as fact. But that’s how spin works. Others are worse and are not above outright lying – eg David Astley (Puzzled: secrets and clues from a life in words) writes:
“Custos helped draft the rules of cryptic crosswords. … Notably both Custos and Ximenes … taught Classics at prestigious colleges”
In actual fact Custos (Alec robins) taught at Chorlton Grammar School for boys and subsequently at Stand Grammar School for girls – both perfectly good state grammar schools – neither of them “prestigious colleges” by any measure. Where do they get this stuff from? Do they just make it up? They’ll say anything to big up their ximenean heroes.
And so the arch-ximeneans and their acolytes (who, thinking they’ve read their way in through “the literature” – in reality this sort of mendaciously written nonsense) develop their creed. That doesn’t explain why they have to attack any other – but they do – endlessly. Rugby and football co-exist – same broad idea – different rules. But those pastimes lack a misleading “literature” in which the one derides the other.
Their favourite words are “grammar” and “fair” – as spin these work well with the simple-minded – obviously grammatical conformity and fairness are only valid concepts *within* a chosen system – but having dismissed all other systems as “libertarian” they mislead as intended.
Overall the differences are small – maybe that’s what makes these people so obsessive. Freud called it “the narcissism of small differences” (actually he pinched the idea from someone else) but if you want to go around with your nose in the air Hyacinth Bucket style (and many do) you’ve got to find something to base it on.
Ken Wales @77
Four points:
1) discovering people on crossword websites talk about crosswords is like visiting a cycling club and find people there talk about cycling, or discovering that people at chess clubs talk about chess
2) if people here seem to talk about nothing else perhaps it means they are staying on-topic, following site rules
3) the emergence of enthusiast sites such as this does mean that people are becoming any more introverted, before sites such as this one simply did not know what people thought (and for the most part we still don’t)
4) it is quite possible to have more than one interest in life
Having joined this discussion rather late in the day, perhaps I need to explain myself. As I say, I have enjoyed the G cryptic for over 50 years. Gradually my solving skill has increased and in the last few years this site, which I visit most days, has helped. But the strange thing is that my solving power in the time available to me has deteriorated. Now that maybe the ageing process but I suspect it is more.
The normal pattern of my day, and everyone is free to make their choice, is a 10 minute skirmish in the morning and then a 30 minute relax in the afternoon. In other words I control the crossword and not it me. After time is up I resort to the site and fill the gaps in a different colour. That colour is becoming more prominent.
Now I take the expressions in the recent G correspondence to indicate I am not alone. More, I know that to be the case amongst an admittedly small group of friends who are solvers. To our sadness we find ourselves tempted to drift away to other papers for our enjoyment – but at heart we are Guardian fans and subscribers and feel the paper is letting us down. Maybe we are nostalgic but we a are also consumers and like to have our views reflected in our purchases.
I am sorry if my post Appeared to be rude. I deliberately said I did not want to be. It is simply that I need to say what I want to say with an edge in order to be heard. As someone with a passing knowledge of sociology it does strike me that there is indeed a crossword fraternity (see earlier post) and that it can act and express itself with all the hallmarks of a sect. For what it is worth this is what I feel is happening with the G crossword. That is fine for those who are of that mindset but as I said earlier I would welcome another alternative offering in the daily papers which I can purchase without compromising other values I hold dear.
I wear criticism from JS as a badge of honour. He goes on about X even more than me whenver he has the opportunity! Converted to the faith he might make an excellent OT/NT-basher, indeed! (will this biskering ever end — we are approaching 100, I see)
PeeDee@82
All fair points.
I think my position would be that not every member of a club joins for the same reason. The discussion really had become, in cycling terms, rather about which alloyed-frame to use over different terrain. Personally, if I were in that club I would be more interested in the date of the pie and pea supper! Each to his/her own.
Ken – I sympathise with the view crosswords are getting harder, Personally I think they are.
However, in just about every other interest I have had in my life the standard has gone up there too. Cyclists ride faster than they used to (just look at the Olympics!), rock climbs I used to do are now regarded as descent routes, kayakers regularly perform tricks not even considered possible when I was young, computer programming is hugely more advanced…
This is the way of things. Unless modern society undergoes get some sort of collapse everything (including crosswords) will continue to advance. The good news is that the same forces that drive this change also provide the means to keep up. For me just standing still and expecting to keep up is not an option. My thinking is: either get sad and frustrated or get involved. My choice is get involved. The result is despite crosswords getting more difficult I am solving more and more of them. Devoting a few hours a month as a blogger on this site to help others get started has helped my own solving enormously.
Of course one can just give up/take a break on a particular hobby. This seems fine to me, but no need to label those who remain involved as sad, introverted, cultists or whatever.
The Guardian certainly has changed, though I’m not sure it is letting down its readers. The Guardian never was a backward-looking upholder of traditional values. Moving with the times is what it always did, and it seems to me that is just what it is doing now. If you want a haven from change the Guardian is probably not the best paper to buy.
PeeDee@86
A lot to think about there. Thank you.
First let me reply by saying if you knew me you would realise my lack of conservatism. That is why I do subscribe to the G and to several other left of centre publications.
I don’t regard myself as culturally conservative either. Come and see my bookshelves and CD
/music collection.
But you have helped me too see an issue in all this and that is the notion of progress. Personally I do accept that philosophically and certainly ttechnically the world is changing (and one of my cultural heroes is Darwin) but I am less sure it is progressing.
Take crosswords- one measure, possibly the one you favour, is complexity and what I would call purposeless logic. Another measure could be humour, topicality, cultural diversity and simply fun and enjoyment. It is the latter group I find wanting.
But thank you for engaging with this in this way.
Hi Ken – I certainly agree with you about progress not always making things better, that is also true in crosswords. Unfortunately progress will happen anyway, good and bad, that is my thought.
I was once told in some project management training at work: You can either be a victim of politics or be involved in politics. You can’t escape it.
That is how I now think about progress/change. No point in hoping it will go away, one has to live in the world as it has become, not as one would have wished it to be.
PS. If you ever did fancy joining fifteensquared and writing one of the blogs drop an email to the site administrator Gaufrid, his email is on the “About Fifteensquared” page. No need to be an expert solver to apply, and you could start off just blogging one puzzle per month. It gave me a fresh take on crosswords certainly.
“Another measure could be humour, topicality, cultural diversity and simply fun and enjoyment”. I hope we can all support that aspiration – for me most of the Guardian’s current setters satisfy all of those requirements. I regard my crossword habit as a diversion rather than a serious time-waster, and there is a reason holiday specials appear when they do – I certainly wouldn’t want to spend several hours on a puzzle more than a few times a year, but half an hour a day on average is fine…
Just to say, I have really enjoyed starting today’s puzzle. Hopefully I will finish it in my afternoon spot. I will let you know! Seems to have many of the qualities I value.
Ken Wales @85
Having found this site perhaps 3 years ago, I recognise your description of “alloyed-frame” discussions, but I also see a lot of people (my impression is that it is the majority) discussing the puzzles in a more down-to-earth way. They mostly talk about which clues they found difficult, whether they think that was due to the clue itself or their own failings and which clues they particularly enjoyed and why, with occasional forays into related personal anecdotes. I don’t know whether you would count that as “pie and pea supper”, but it’s a long way from the pro- and anti-Ximenean discussion.
It’s easy enough to skip a post when I notice someone is rehashing those old and largely futile arguments (as neither side is ever going to convert the other). I certainly don’t find that dominates my experience of the site.
If JS#81 or anyone else is unhappy with Don Manley’s book, they could produce their own book(s) giving a different view if they wished.
Jennyk@91
Yes, that is pea and pie territory and it is very enjoyable! My comment was more about this discussion than the site itself which, as I explained earlier, I read most days with benefit. The G correspondence, which on the whole I sympathies isle with, seemed to have stimulated the more esoteric aficionados, perhaps understandably.