Mark Barley's Speech at Wadham College
MARK BARLEY’S TOAST TO AZED ON BEHALF OF HIS SOLVERS - Wadham
College Oxford 25 Sep 2010
Just as Eliot’s Prufrock is said to have measured out his life in
coffee spoons, so have I, I feel, measured
out my life in Azed puzzles. Azed has been such an ever-present
in my life for so long now that I am both
pleased and honoured to have this opportunity to say a few words on this
epoch-marking occasion. I
would like to share with you a few very personal memories linked to how
Azed and his puzzles have
played a special part in my life, in the hope of both perhaps resonating
with some of your own personal
experiences and of conveying what Azed has meant to me personally.
I cannot claim, as many in the room doubtless can, to have been in at
the start of Azed’s marathon.
Having been introduced to the delights of cruciverbal wordsmithery
almost literally on my grandmother’s
knee (the Telegraph quick crossword) I came across Azed as a teenager at
school. Compared to the
puzzles I’d done before, here was an out-and-out challenge that
seemed to carry with it huge kudos in its
solution as well as delight in the less prosaical aspects of
language. My earliest recollection is of being
introduced to the leprosy treatment "chaulmugra", and the delicious
correlation between "café-chantant"
and its relative "thé-dansant" which Azed cleverly introduced into the
clue . In those days merely solving
a clue gave me a sense of achievement, and even when I was able to solve
whole puzzles, I displayed my
pride in such by pinning up, as wallpaper, completed puzzles on my study
wall where they stayed for
terms!
I was solving (but not yet competing) when Azed "attained the social
elite" of "The Four Hundred". I
revelled in Azed’s misleading definitions and clever charades;
his puzzles were quite unalike any other
puzzles I had attempted, in their principled soundness, but also wit and
ingenuity.
I began to have sufficient confidence to go ahead and start
competing. And it’s the competition puzzles
that have since provided me with my own life-measuring coffee spoons.
"Simmenthaler" is the earliest memory I carry. Not however for my
entry (which I forget), but for Dr E
Young’s winning entry "Style me Hitler’s man: I’d die for the bully of
Europe" whose brilliantly oblique
definition part intrigued me. (Pausing there, Dr Young is of course the
author of one of my own favourite
winning entries, the inspired and self-referential clue to "Rough-and-ready":
"A hard tussle with Dr E
Young plainly winning". I suspect only Morse père et fils have
managed anything similar).
From then on I associate various clue words with particular moments in
my life: "Balustrade" with
Sunday lunch with undergraduate friends in Oxford; "disthene"
with waiting on a railway station platform
outside Guildford, "animus" and "ethereal oils" with
beach-side holidays in Greece.
Indeed, being out of the country has given me particular Azed
milestones. "Voetganger" recalls a month
spent in a French lawyer’s office in Rennes and "transenna"
sharing a skiing trip to Canada with friends
celebrating their recent spousage. That required me faxing my
entry to a friend back in the UK for
onward posting; the oddly suggestive "pierceable/salesgirl" had
me giving instructions back to a friend via
a freezing dark public phone box in the French Alps.
I could carry on; but I simply want to convey how Azed’s
offerings have provided colour to my life over
the years and, for that, I, and doubtless many other solvers who have
similar memories, offer Azed my
heartfelt thanks.
Of course, as well as these particular life-time memories, Azed has
provided me with a certain monthly
cycle of experience, which doubtless mirrors that of many other solvers
as well.
Competition Sundays arrive, and I get up and rush out posthaste
to buy what of course is the queen of
newspaperdom, the Observer. Sometimes the puzzle can have me in a
pickle, the clues being far from
transparent, even elliptic. Other times, perhaps my brain
is more agile and getting to the heart of the
puzzle is more straightforward.
There is then the moment of panic when I confront the clue-word
and have no immediate inspiration.
This is the start of much mulling over the coming days until my entry is
despatched prior to Saturday’s
deadline. Ideas might come whilst I’m on the putting green lining
up a tricky putt, or performing
domestic chores (hoovering the carpet or stocking up at
the supermarket), or most often in the black of
night. It’s in the dark, in bed, that I find ideas best come to the boil
in my head. Inspiration can come
like a thunderclap, leading to a sort of "cacoethes
scribendi"; I must get my idea down on paper even if it
is the middle of the night. Perhaps in the morning my thought gets
consigned to the litterbasket, but
nothing beats the magic moment when I think I’ve come up with a star
entry.
I’ve been lucky enough over the years to have had some modest success in
the competitions. But just
participating with you, my fellow solvers, has been loads of fun. Azed
has run and judged over 500
competitions now and I’m deeply appreciative of his efforts in
meticulous judging and apposite
commentary in the monthly slip. But it would be considerable ingratitude
not to mention others involved
in the slip over the years, notably the late Anthony Ellis and now Brian
Head, and scorers such as Martin
Perkins and Ron Dearden. It’s all been gathered together in John Tozer’s
humongous web archive
"andlit", whose very existence (with the effort that’s clearly been put
into it) is a lasting tribute to the
deep-seated rapport that exists between Azed and his solvers.
But we are here today to celebrate a truly remarkable achievement.
Tomorrow Azed marks his second
one thousand puzzles, a decuple double century if you
will. This is a monster feat of staying power,
displaying over so many years and puzzles such a consistently high-level
of crosswording perfection,
providing us solvers with a pearl of a puzzle Sunday after
Sunday. Top-notch grid-construction and being
the arch phrasemonger in his cluing are hallmarks of Azed’s
incomparable style. He is, to my mind, the
Olympic champion of the crossword, and to have produced so many
gems over so many years is an
incomparable and very special feat.
And this now brings me back to how I started these few words. Whilst I
am honoured to be speaking on
behalf of this august gathering of solvers, I do want to express
my very personal (if perhaps remarkably
convoluted!) appreciation to Azed. Jonathan, you have touched and
enriched my life in a unique and
special way (why else would I be mulling over whether to deploy the word
"craze" in my "fado" clue this
month?!), and for this I want to say my own heartfelt - "thank-you
Jonathan".
Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in a toast to Azed, the greatest
of setters reaching a remarkable
milestone.
- To Azed
25 September 2010