Azed's Speech at Wadham College
Ladies and gentlemen, friends.
It was as a nervous 28-year-old that in the
late summer
of 1971 I was shown into the presence of the Observer
grandees in their then offices near London’s Blackfriars
Bridge, to be vetted for the job of successor to Ximenes, who had
recently died
rather unexpectedly. Almost exactly forty years later (I was 68
yesterday) I now
nervously face you, the undisputed grandees of the crossword world, on
this
wonderful occasion. What a time it has been! A lot of hard work,
certainly, but
for me a labour of love. I have been able to spend countless hours
doing what I
enjoy most – messing about with words. Just ask my long-suffering
wife Alison,
who has had to put up with my pedantic deviousness (even correcting the
misspellings in her shopping lists) for nearly 35 years. And she still
can’t
spell broccoli or mozzarella.
For me, the most pleasing thing about the
Azed
series is that I feel many solvers have over time become friends as
well as
sparring partners, thanks to the special nature of the competitions and
these
regular gatherings. Several of you here today have, I feel sure,
attended all
eight dinners and lunches, including, I may say, my parents, both now
in their
nineties and with us again today, along with my sister and
brother-in-law Deb
and John, and my sons Tom and Ned. John Tozer, creator and maintainer
of the
brilliant andlit website, has kindly provided me with some interesting
statistics on the 500 Azed competitions up to and including August
2010: 1,498
prizes have been awarded; 10,667 VHCs have been awarded, and 27,966
HCs. The
total number of entries is an estimated 174,846, and the total number
of
competitors to have received an HC or above is an estimated 3,009. John
has yet
to come up with an estimate of the total number of man-hours devoted to
solving
or attempting to solve all 1,999 Azed puzzles to date. No doubt he will
devise
an algorithm to calculate this. As for my own man-hours at work, well
let’s not
go into that.
Inevitably, over the years, we have lost a
fair
number of regulars. Since the last lunch, to mark No. 1,750, these have
included, from the ranks of those featuring regularly in the slips,
Tony
Beaulah, Eric Burge and Dorothy Taylor. There are doubtless others and
I
apologize for any inadvertent omissions. I am always extremely touched
when, as
quite often, I receive letters from surviving relatives of Azed solvers
who
have died, telling me how much my crossword meant to them. Still very
much with
us, I’m delighted to say, are two near-octogenarians here
present, both high
scorers in the Azed competitions: George Willett (who I think won a
Ximenes
prize as an Oxford undergraduate in the 1950s for a Misprints clue to
PENNYWISE)
was 80 five days ago, and Colin Dexter (one of the most successful
Ximenes and Azed
competitors over the years) will be 80 in a few days.
At the other end of the age spectrum, I have occasionally
expressed the wish that more younger solvers might join our ranks. As
the
father of two sons who have shown little or no interest in crosswords,
I can’t
really make too much of this, but if anyone has any ideas on how to
entice
young people away from electronic games and other such fly-by-night
pastimes
I’m open to all suggestions.
The world as it affects crosswords has
changed
greatly since Azed No. 1 was published in March 1972, largely through
the
headlong development of electronic technology, much of which is beyond
me. The
latest gizmo, I gather, enables those signing up to it to inform all
their
friends precisely where they are at all times of day or night, 24/7 as
they
say. Sorry, include me out of that one. Whatever happened to privacy?
Some doom
merchants are predicting, I hope wrongly, the end of books in print
form, and
it is certainly true that printed dictionaries have suffered a decline
in sales
in recent years. It was worrying when we heard that the Chambers
publishing
house was to be wound up and many if not most of its books put out of
print.
More reassuringly, we have since learnt that the dictionary
(ours) will continue, though in what form and format
and how updated we have yet to be told. Another recent development,
about which
some solvers have expressed unease, is the dialogue on networking
websites
about clues to be submitted in Azed (and doubtless other) competitions.
I
haven’t visited these sites and wouldn’t want to, though I
do wonder whether
such collaboration in advance of competitions doesn’t rather go
against the
spirit of the thing. Post-mortem dissection of successful clues is
another
matter. I spend many hours doing it myself, after all. I know my own
clues are
subjected to detailed analysis on the internet, and this seems fair
game, even
though I rarely have time to give my clues the degree of fine tuning
that
competitors can devote to their own offerings.
I have many people to thank for today’s
wonderful
event. First Don Manley, ably assisted by his wife Sue and his former
OUP
colleague Liz Bowler, who yet again has nobly shouldered the main
burden of
organizing the lunch and all the peripheral activities that have gone
with it. It
is entirely fitting that he currently heads the honours list for the
entire
Azed series to date, up to but not including the August competition and
that
for No. 2,000, with 55 prizes, 278 VHCs and 144 HCs. What a record!
Next I
must thank Wadham College, our hosts and providers of the fine lunch we
have
all enjoyed, and The Observer,
represented here today by Vanessa Thorpe, who have donated the wines to
accompany the meal. And I salute my darling wife Ali, who apart from
putting up
with my crossword activities for so many years has also arranged all
the
flowers in their teapots today. And my special thanks go to our guest
speaker
Richard Stilgoe. Some of you will perhaps know that Richard has a
number of
aliases. In his book The Richard Stilgoe
Letters he reveals a number of his alternative personae, including
the
egregious Dr Gloria Ethics, Col. Tiger Rashid, Giles T. Haircord and,
most
memorably, Giscard O’Hitler. What you, and possibly even he, will
not know, is
that he also lurks behind the notable figures of Harris Clogdiet,
Sigrid
Clothear, Algie Cordshirt, Sir Gareth Dolci, and that giant of the West
Country
apple industry Goliath R. Ciders. To name but a few.
I must not finish without thanking you all,
including all those who couldn’t come today but who have sent
kind messages and
good wishes for the occasion, not only for joining in this celebration
but also
for contributing to the extraordinarily generous amount of money Don
has
presented me with. I haven’t yet decided what to spend this on,
but you may
like to know that the fruit trees I bought with the money you gave me
last time
are now maturing well and have given us a heavy crop this year. Thank
you all
so much. And I hope you enjoy tomorrow’s puzzle.
25 September 2010