Azed No. 2,776 – the end of an era

This is the first Azed puzzle to appear since the announcement last week of his retirement from the monthly clue-writing competition.

The full story can be read here (but may be behind a paywall). In brief, Jonathan Crowther, aka Azed, has been compiling the cryptic puzzle in The Observer under that name since 1972. Every month he has judged a clue-writing competition where solvers must first fill the grid correctly and then devise a clue to replace a definition given by him. At its peak, there were well in excess of 500 entries a month, but this gradually declined as newspaper circulations fell. Every month, Azed would publish a report on the previous month’s competition, giving the names of the three winners and their clues as well as those deemed by him as Very Highly Commended and also the names of those whose clues were merely Highly Commended. There would follow a short essay discussing the puzzle and issues of clue-writing style. These reports were known as slips, being printed on one long sheet of paper, sent out to subscribers. There is an archive of the slips from their inception until May 2022 at the splendid & lit website, since when the slips have been published on Derek Harrison’s Crossword Centre website.

Among the names of the winners of the competitions to be found in the slips in the early years are some well-known in the world of crosswords, such as Don Manley, but also Colin Dexter, who named his detective after another regular winner, Sir Jeremy Morse.

In addition to this unique dialogue between a setter and his solvers, there were regular dinners or lunches, usually at an Oxford college or hotel, where solvers could meet one another and also, of course, meet Jonathan. These events usually coincided with a milestone number in the puzzle sequence, starting, I think, with No 250 in 1977. In more recent years, these lunches (the last two have been at Wolfson College) have been followed by tea in the Crowther garden, which is situated quite close to the college. This exceptionally generous gesture has been much appreciated by those who have attended, amongst whom I count myself fortunate to have been included.

Last week’s Observer published the results of the last two competitions and Azed published his last, valedictory, slip. Today’s puzzle is therefore the first monthly puzzle by Azed which does not include a clue-writing competition, although there will be the usual random draw for prizes from those submitting correct entries (which can now be done online). In due course, we are told, Gemelo will take over the clue-writing competition. Speaking personally, it has taken me the best part of forty years to win a prize in an Azed competition (it was fully five years before I even got a Highly Commended!) so I hope that the transition will not be too long delayed.

Turning then to this week’s puzzle, I was delighted to encounter the archaic term SIR-REVERENCE amid a fair sprinkling of terms from Latin, Greek and even Hungarian, all of which can be found in Chambers Dictionary. The puzzle had more than the usual number of four-letter words, which can often be more difficult to solve than longer ones, but with three checked letters, there was only one letter in each which might prove ambiguous. Solvers may be interested to know that I solved this puzzle more quickly than the previous day’s Guardian Prize puzzle, since although Azed uses a lot of unfamiliar words, the wordplay, and the generous checking, make it relatively easy to solve, provided you have Chambers available.

My continuing thanks and congratulations go to Azed.