Flushed with success after winning a prize in the Saturday Independent crossword competition (even if it is yet another dictionary) and flying high at No. 6 in the Azed Annual Honours List I thought I’d have another go at setting a puzzle for my readers. There were some complaints that my last crossword was too difficult, so here is a slightly simpler one for you:
Across Down
1 Current symbol for ego? 1 One visual organ, we hear
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I was delighted to see, when I turned to the Azed Crossword in last week’s Observer, my name among the list of those awarded a VHC (“Very Highly Commended”) for Azed No. 2049. A VHC is a sort of consolation prize for clues judged by Azed to be not quite good enough to win one of the three main prizes. Although I enjoy solving the puzzles I know I’m not very good at setting my own clues. I therefore find the monthly competition exercises me considerably and am usually more than happy to get a VHC! Also, these score points in the annual league table in which I did pretty well last year, finishing in joint 15th place – my highest every position
However, my delight turned to frustration when I found out that my name and the clue I submitted (for the word PARTY-POOPER) did not appear on the corresponding Azed Slip, a monthly report on the entries for the competition crossword. I’ve therefore not been credited with a VHC in the league table to go with the one I got the previous month in Azed No. 2045. Worse still, I didn’t keep a copy of the clue I submitted and now, over a month later on, I can’t remember what it was. I imagine Azed throws away the original entries so he probably doesn’t have it either.
It may be that my name was put in the Observer list by accident and the Azed slip is actually correct. The other possibility is that Azed forwarded the correct list to the newspaper but inadvertently skipped my name when compiling the slip. I did try emailing about this, but haven’t had a reply so I suppose I’ll have to give up on it. It doesn’t matter very much in the great cosmic scheme of things, so I suppose I shouldn’t be bitter…
Follow @telescoperHaving had a busy weekend reading grant applications and referee reports in advance of next week’s meeting of the Astronomy Grants Panel, I’ve been unusually late completing the weekend’s crosswords. As I mentioned a while ago, I’ve given up buying the Guardian in favour of the Independent, whose crosswords are much better in my opinion. I managed to do the prize crossword in the newspaper without too much difficulty, but the magazine supplement has a much more testing one called Inquisitor. In addition to being quite a challenging cryptic crossword, this usually has a twist in that one has to highlight (or sometimes delete) letters entered into the grid according to some theme. I’m a bit skeptical about these extra tasks, I suppose because I think a good crossword doesn’t need any such embellishments. I have to say, though, that it is a different kind of challenge from the usual cryptic and I might warm to it given time.
About a year ago at the Azed 2000 dinner I had the opportunity to chat with some professional crossword compilers. It seems one gets paid around £150 (give or take) for setting a crossword in a national newspaper which isn’t a lot considering how difficult it is. One of the features of the Azed puzzles in the Observer is the monthly clue-setting competition, which I enjoy entering, but I’ve never tried to compile an entire crossword.
However, after finishing this week’s Azed and Inquisitor puzzles I suddenly hit on a potentially lucrative idea. I’ve decided to start a crossword competition of my own. Here is Telescoper Prize Crossword No. 1, inspired by Azed’s “Carte Blanche” puzzles…
Instructions for solvers. To enter the competition, devise a set of clues and solutions that fill the above grid in the manner of a typical Azed puzzle. Mail completed grids, together with clues to me at: Telescoper Prize Crossword No. 1, PO Box 16 (across), Cardiff. The best entries, as judged by me, will win 27p in (used) postage stamps plus the chance to see their crossword in a national newspaper with my name as setter.
As a business plan, this simply can’t fail. It’s nearly as good as running an academic journal!
Follow @telescoperI was out all day yesterday – of which more, perhaps, anon – but, as I usually do when I get an early train, I bought copy of the Saturday Guardian so that I could do the Prize Crossword during the journey.
When I settled into my seat and opened the paper I found quite a nice Araucaria puzzle which I completed in about 30 minutes. However, I noticed that the usual name and address bit for prize entries was missing and then it dawned on me that the number (25405) didn’t tally. Then the true enormity of the situation dawned on me – The Grauniad had erroneously printed Friday’s puzzle again in the Saturday newspaper. That’s the second time in as many weeks that the Guardian has messed up the crossword. After the last debacle you’d think they would have been a bit more careful.
Curiously the state of the Guardian’s crosswords preyed on my mind all day and developed into a full-blown mid-life crisis worthy of Reggie Perrin. I had a dawning realisation that so many of the things I do every day I do not because I enjoy them particularly but because they have become habits. The Guardian crossword is just one example. I started doing it over 20 years ago, and have won the prize seven or eight times over the years, but actually there have been very few in recent years that I enjoyed very much.
Part of the reason for this is that I started doing the excellent Azed puzzle in the Observer set by Jonathan Crowther. The Azed clues are not only extremely clever but also unfailingly sound in both grammar and syntax. The chance to submit your own clues to the monthly competition makes you realise how difficult it is to be both artful and rigorous. It’s a bit like how playing snooker on a full size table – which is impossibly difficult – leads you to appreciate even more the immense skill of the professional player. The other side of this is, of course, that it tends to raise your awareness of defects in other puzzles.
The Guardian’s puzzles have never been as strict as Azed, or others who follow in the steps of the great Ximenes, which is fair enough because they simply offer a different challenge. Araucaria, for example, remains popular because of his wonderful sense of humour – he’s one of the few setters who can make me laugh out loud – but the liberties he takes in some of his clues are enough to make me cringe. Unfortunately, the latest generation of setters include many who offer poorly constructed clues without the entertainment value to compensate. Frankly, I find most of them tedious. What I’m saying is that I’ve become a crossword snob.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, after realising the Guardian’s error yesterday I decided to experiment by (for the first time in my life) buying the Independent. Lo and behold, not just a very nice crossword indeed by Nestor but also a slightly trickier one in the supplement called Inquisitor.
So I’ve decided it’s time to stop buying the Saturday Guardian and switch to the Independent. The actual Guardian newspaper is a mess on Saturday’s anyway, lots of tedious supplements I never read, and there’s a big overlap in content with the Sunday Observer, not surprisingly given that they’re produced by the same people. The Independent is a neat tabloid format and I found the content refreshingly different from the Guardian. It’s quite a lot cheaper too. I may still have a go at the Guardian crossword occasionally – they’re all available free on the web – but I’m not going to buy the paper any more.
“Out with the old, in with the new” is the idea. There are a few other things I could apply that to, come to think of it…
Follow @telescoperAs politicians, journalists and academics struggle to explain the recent outbreaks of violent disorder in English cities, I think it’s time for me to provide the definitive analysis. I believe that the sense of alienation, disenchantment and despair that seems to be sweeping the country can be traced back to a single appalling event, the occurrence of which was surely enough to drive even the most law-abiding citizen into acts of wanton destruction. The enormity of the offence perpetrated against the cultural fabric of our society cannot be overestimated, as it casts doubt on the very survival of western civilisation.
So what is this thing of which I speak? I’ll tell you, although I can hardly bring myself to talk about it. There was an error in last week’s Guardian Prize Crossword.
The shocking evidence for this breakdown of all that is right and good can be seen in stark graphic terms below:
The offending item, which can be found in the bottom left hand corner, is 22 down, the clue to which reads
9’s heart lifted, I gathered, over 7’s opener (6)
The answer to 9 across is BEETHOVEN, which serves to suggest a definition of a piece by said composer. “Heart lifted” is CORE written upside down, “I gathered” means that you stick an “I” in that, and “7’s opener” is A (from ALBION). The answer is then clearly EROICA…
Except – oh the shame of it! – the Guardian setter, Paul, clearly can’t spell and thus it appears in the completed grid above as ERIOCA. I can think of no clearer evidence for the descent of our country into anarchy and chaos.
I rest my case. There’s no doubt in my mind that this outrage was the real reason for the recent outbreak of riots. Or, as Paul would no doubt say, “roits”.
Follow @telescoperI was thinking on the way home on Friday that I haven’t posted anything about crosswords recently, and I know some crossword solvers occasionally visit this blog, so resolved to do something this weekend. By sheer coincidence, something arrived in yesterday’s post that makes that any easy task:
It seems that, after a decade of trying, I’ve finally managed to win a prize in the monthly Azed competition. As I’ve mentioned before, this involves not only solving the Azed crossword but also supplying a cryptic clue for a word or phrase given only as a definition in the crossword. This competition is tough, partly because Azed is a stickler for syntactical soundness in submitted clues, and partly because many of the competitors are professional crossword setters. Quite a few of my clues have received a “VHC” (Very Highly Commended) but I’ve never been among the winners, until Azed No. 2036! I only got 3rd place, but since I’ve never been among the winners before I’m still thrilled to bits with my coveted Azed bookplate, and £25 in book tokens.
The fact that I got a prize in this one is quite funny, actually. The crossword appeared in the Observer on Sunday 5th June, the day after my birthday and the day before I flew to Copenhagen for a mini workshop. I managed to solve the crossword on the Sunday but didn’t have time to think of a clue. I therefore put the completed grid in an envelope and took it with me to Denmark. One evening in the hotel, I concocted my clue but, lacking access to a printer, I had to write it out by hand – normally I send in a typewritten version. To save time I used one of the sticky self-address labels I carry in my diary to put my address on the clue which was scribbled on hotel notepaper. That’s why my name appears as “Dr P. Coles” in the list; they are old labels! I also carry stamps around so put one of those on so it was all ready to go when I got home. When I arrived back in London on Friday 10th June, my flight had been a little delayed, so I just had time to race out of Paddington station, find a postbox, and pop the clue inin time for the last collection, before running back into the station to catch the train back to Cardiff. I’ve never been so close to the deadline before – entries must be postmarked no later than the Saturday following the publication of the crossword – and almost missed my train to get it posted. It turns out it was worth it!
Anyway, you can find the crossword itself here and the answers to the clues here.
The competition required a clue for AL CONTO, an Italian phrase meaning the same as the French À LA CARTE. My clue was
Training via this could be vocational, with courses priced separately.
The definition is supplied by the phrase “with courses priced separately”, and the cryptic allusion is of the type Azed describes as “Comp. Anag.”, i.e. a composite anagram, which is rarely seen in daily crossword puzzles but not uncommon among his own. “Training” is the anagram indicator and VIA+AL+CONTO is an anagram of VOCATIONAL. I was pleased with the way the clue lays a false trail towards something educational.
There are only a couple of puzzles left in this year’s competition, so it looks like I’ll finish in my highest ever position. Now I’ll set my sights on getting a 1st place!
It’s been a while since I posted anything about crosswords, so the fact that I saw my name in today’s Observer gives me an excuse to do so now.
First, I was delighted to get another point for a Very Highly Commended (VHC) clue in the ongoing Azed clue-setting competition. The latest competition puzzle was Azed No. 2019. This was an interesting one, incorporating a variation on the “Plain” Azed puzzle in that the 12 by 12 square grid was actually divided vertically into two rectangular puzzles side-by-side. Clues for each half of the resulting “Right & Left” puzzle were run together, usually without punctuation, and with either side coming first. Solvers had to determine the location of the join between the clues, solve each part, and then figure out which side of the puzzle the answers had to go. I think it was a very enjoyable puzzle, with Azed’s skill strongly in evidence not only in constructing the clues but also in disguising the splices.
The two words for which clues were invited for the competition were OVERAWE and HENOTIC; the latter is a fairly unfamiliar term, defined in the puzzle as “tending to unify”. The clue that won me a VHC was
Cow or ewe cooked with odd bits of veal serving to make one nice hot stew?
Here I’m using “cow” as a definition of “OVERAWE”, with subsidiary anagram of OR+EWE+VA (odd bits of VEAL), with “cooked” as an anagram indicator; “serving to make one” defines HENOTIC, clued with another anagram NICE+HOT, with anagram indicator “stew”. I think it’s an easy clue, but I was quite pleased at the way the two halves run into each other to produce a reasonable surface reading. Above all, I think it’s fair – no superfluous words and no dodgy syntax.
Anyway, I’ve now got 3 VHC mentions this year, which is as many as I’ve ever won in the annual competition, so if I can just get one more it will be a personal best. There are 5 puzzles remaining this year, so maybe I’ll manage it!
A few weeks ago I won a prize in the Everyman crossword competition – also in the Observer. This is a much more straightforward puzzle than Azed and I usually do it more as a warm-up exercise than anything else but still post the completed grid off every week. One day last week I came home from work to find a note from DHL saying that they’d left a package with my next-door neighbour. It turned out to be a package of Penguin books: a Concise English Dictionary; a Concise Thesaurus; a Dictionary of Proverbs; a Dictionary of English Idioms; and the Penguin Book of Facts (a kind of encyclopedia). Anyone who’s been to my house knows that I have no shortage of dictionaries already, but I’m pleased with the others.
I finished this week’s Everyman just before starting to write this post. For the second week running there’s a clue formed by an indirect anagram. In this instance it is:
End of game inventor reviewed (2-4)
The answer is NO-SIDE (the signal indicating the end of a rugby match). The subsidiary indication is an anagram of EDISON (“inventor”). This is called an indirect anagram because the letters to be formed into the anagram do not actually appear in the clue. Most British setters frown upon this type of clue, not because they are hard – the one above certainly isn’t difficult to solve – but because they aren’t Ximenean and are therefore unfair. Azed would certainly never countenance such a clue, though an increasing number of setters – especially those for the Grauniad – seem to adopt a much more libertarian approach.
I’m preparing myself mentally for the impending return to work next week, trying to get my brain back into gear after the long layoff. One of the few things that has prevented me from descending to a state of complete vegetation has been the steady supply of crosswords over the holiday season. I’ve lost track of the number I’ve done over the last week or so. I enjoyed yesterday’s Araucaria puzzle in the Guardian nearly as much as the bumper double-sized one he set as the Christmas special puzzle. However, the Royal Mail has been so unreliable recently I fear I’ve little chance of winning the prize even though I posted my solution in what should have been good time. I didn’t get any mail at all for about a fortnight leading up to Christmas. In fact a card posted to me from Brighton, correctly addressed with full postcode a first class stamp, and postmarked on 15th December, didn’t arrived in Cardiff until Thursday 30th December.
One item of post that obviously did get through was my entry to the Azed Competition puzzle number 2010. This was a slightly strange one because the word (or in this case, phrase) to which entrants were requested to provide a clue wasn’t actually given a proper definition but implied by a rather cryptic preamble:
Special instructions: This puzzle marks an unrepeatable occasion, hinted at by the unclued entry at 1 Across (not given in Chambers as such). Further help in identifying the theme is provided elsewhere. Competitors should submit a cryptic clue to 1 Across with their entries.
I managed to do the puzzle quite quickly, which gave sufficient checked letters to make it obvious that 1 Across (which ran across the top of the puzzle) had to be “A COMING OF AGE”. It took me ages to find the “further help” alluded to in the preamble, however, until eventually realised that the first letters of each clue read “CROSSWORDNUMBERANDDATEOFYEARCOINCIDE”. In other words the clues themselves provide an acrostic reference to the phrase. The “unrepeatable occasion” is thus that puzzle number 2010 happens to be in 2010, which can’t possibly happen again – 2011 has started with puzzle number 2014.
“A COMING OF AGE” is a tricky one to provide a clue because it doesn’t appear in the standard Chambers dictionary. Although it has a wikipedia page it’s actually rather vague.
My attempt at a clue was
Breaking of German Enigma by one early pair of computers gives something to celebrate
I chose an appropriately unspecific definition “something to celebrate” and the rest is an anagram of OF G (for German)+ENIGMA, indicated by “BREAKING”, by (i.e. next to) A+CO (early pair of computers). The reference to Bletchley Park and the Colossus Mark I and II computers was a deliberate red herring. I thought it was a bit clumsy, but was delighted to find it got me a VHC and has pulled me up to 19th in the annual honours table, with five competitions complete. As always, though, the winning clues were a lot better than mine!
Azed’s competition puzzles usually appear about once a month (there are thirteen in each year). However, there was another competition puzzle (No. 2012) just before Christmas, which I didn’t really enjoy as much because of the number of non-words that needed to be entered in the grid. Today’s Observer has another one, No. 2014, which I shall do this afternoon. I don’t know why there’s such a glut – perhaps Azed is planning a holiday in the New Year?
Just a quick grouchy post about crosswords. The results of Azed No. 2006 “Spoonerisms” have been published. Once again, I drew a blank in the setting competition, although I did at least solve the puzzle correctly. This is one of Azed’s “funnies” in that the clues either contain a spoonerism in the definition part or indicate a spoonerism of the answer to be entered in the grid. You can find a full analysis of the clues and their solutions here.
Azed’s Spoonerism puzzles are apparently very popular with solvers. I found the puzzle mildly diverting, but I didn’t enjoy this one very much, as most of the spoonerisms were either very obvious or a bit dodgy. I don’t think MAO TOAST is a spoonerism of OUTMOST, for example; surely that would have to be something like TAO MOST?
Anyway, that’s not the origin of my gripe. The clue writing competition required a clue for the word “GROAN” incorporating a spoonerism in the definition. The winning clue, as judged by Azed, was the following:
See king crowned, grand on horse, organ playing some allegro anthems
The spoonerism here is “see king crowned” for “creaking sound” (i.e. the groan associated with a ship’s timbers, etc). However, in my opinion, the vowel sounds here simply don’t work: the “ee” in “see king” isn’t the same as the “ea” in “creaking”, and the stress pattern is different too – “see king” has evenly stressed syllables whereas “creaking” has a stress on the first syllable.
On top of the problematic spoonerism, this clue has no less than three cryptic indications – G+ROAN (grand on horse), an anagram of “ORGAN” indicated by “playing”, and a hidden word “some alleGRO AN thems”.
I quote Azed’s own opinion:
A good cryptic clue contains three elements:
1. a precise definition
2. a fair subsidiary indication
3. nothing else
It doesn’t say three subsidiary indications! I’ve noticed that the winning Azed competition clues often have multiple cryptic parts, so obviously Azed is more lenient than I would be. I just don’t like clues that hedge their bets. Three weak cryptic allusions aren’t as good as one clever one.
Just my opinion, of course…
For what it’s worth, my failed attempt at GROAN was
Seeking crowned King’s leg over one
I think “seeking” is better than “see king” for the reasons I described above, but I admit the cryptic part is questionable – King is “GR”, the apostrophe is short for “has”, and “leg over one” is O(A)N with leg referring to the cricketing expression.
Anyway, gripe over. I’ll get my coat.
I was up bright and early yesterday in order to get the train to Oxford where a lunch was held in honour of Jonathan Crowther, who, under the pseudonym Azed, has been setting cryptic crosswords in the Observer for the best part of 40 years. Today (Sunday 26th September 2010) sees the publication of the 2000th Azed puzzle, hence yesterday’s celebration. There’s also a special piece in the Observer today to mark the occasion. One of the authors of that piece, Colin Dexter of Inspector Morse fame (who has won the Azed competition more times than anyone), was at the lunch yesterday; he has a celebration of his own coming up, as he will be 80 years old next week.
I’ve blogged about my enjoyment of Azed‘s puzzles before and was particularly looking forward to the possibility of meeting the man himself and also being able to put faces to the names that often appear (mostly above mine) in the Azed Honours table.
I got quite an early train from Cardiff in order to give myself time to browse a few bookshops in Oxford before the lunch got under way with drinks at noon in Wadham College. There then followed a musical tribute to Azed in various parodies of Gilbert & Sullivan (I am the very model of a modern cruciverbalist, etc…) and others (Azed, Azed, give me your answer do….). Mingling with the other guests I got the chance to chat to some proper professional crossword setters. I’ve never actually tried to set an entire cryptic crossword puzzle but I think I’ll probably give it a go one day, just for fun. Based on what I heard, setting crosswords, even for the national broadsheets, is not something that one can easily make a living doing. Aside from the professional setters – who seem to dominate the Azed prize list, not surprisingly – there were lots of ordinary folk who just enjoy doing the puzzles.
The lunch was quite splendid (scallops to start, followed by duck) and lashings of nice wine. Afterwards there were various speeches and presentations, and the results of the last competition (No. 1997) were handed out. I got an “HC” for my clue to the word FADO:
It’s a transitory thing, love, for Portuguese folk (4)
(FAD+O); but once again the winning clues were much better than mine! Officially, HC stands for Highly Commended, but I always interpret it as Hard Cheese.
The guest speaker was Richard Stilgoe (remember him?) who gave a very droll and at the same time very interesting speech that included several things I hadn’t realised before. One is that TWELVE+ONE is an anagram of “ELEVEN+TWO”, perhaps the only example of an anagram that works with characters as well as numbers, i.e. 12+1=11+2. The other, more important, thing he mentioned that struck me was about Apple computers. As you all probably know I’m not a particular fan of Macs and the like, which together with my more general Luddite inclinations, probably explains why I didn’t know the origin of the Apple logo (an apple with a bite taken out from it) .
For those of you who don’t know, the reason why the Apple has a bite taken from it is a reference to Alan Turing, the British mathematician who did more than anyone else to pave the way towards the age of electronic computers through his work on cracking German wartime codes. Turing was gay, but lived in a time when male homosexual behaviour was a criminal offence. When his sexuality led to a criminal conviction, the courts, instead of sending him to prison, decided to subject him to a barbaric medical “treatment” tantamount to chemical castration. The effect of unbalancing his hormones was to make him so depressed that he decided to take his own life. He knew that cyanide was a quick and effective way of doing this, but also knew that it tasted foul. He therefore made a solution of cyanide and injected it into an apple which he then ate. The bite out of the Apple logo is there as a mark of respect for Alan Turing.
That story is probably old hat to most of you, but I have to admit that hearing it for the first time has rather changed my view of Steve Jobs!
Anyway, after lunch we had the chance to mingle in the pleasant grounds of Wadham College, but I couldn’t stay too long as I had a train to catch. Although I was more than a little tipsy, I managed to get the train I had planned and made it back to Cardiff in time to cater for Columbo‘s insulin needs. On the way back I had a go at the tricky Araucaria puzzle in Saturday’s Guardian, which was of the alphabetical type I enjoy best. I’m glad to say I got it finished in order to clear the decks for today’s Azed 2000 puzzle. I haven’t started it yet, but at first glance it looks like a corker!
In the Dark 