Crossword News 30 May 2008

The Prize Puzzle for June is Jigsaw by Top Cat. Unusually for us this puzzle has been published before and appeared in Top Cat Crosswords by Tristan Clayton. I mentioned this book last year and I am delighted that Tristan has allowed us to put his puzzle on the site. This will be a much easier challenge than in recent months and I am expecting a record entry. The prize for the lucky winner will be a copy of Chambers Book of Azed Crosswords, which has been donated by the publisher. Jigsaw will be available on the 1st June.

You still have until the 8th June to send me your entry for the May Prize Puzzle, Entry by Samuel. So far I have received only 19 correct entries.

I am still without a submission for July so I look forward to hearing from you budding setters!

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There are a lot of books planned for the coming months that will interest crossword enthusiasts. The paperback edition of Don Manley's Crossword Manual came out this month. Don informs us that a mini-version of the manual will be given as a free supplement to the Independent on 8th June.

Chambers have a new book coming out in July that you might be interested in: Chambers Pocket Crossword Dictionary. Their Crossword Dictionary has improved immensely and I often resort to it. I find it easy to use and I shall look forward to judging the pocket version.

A Clue to Our Lives: 85 Years of the "Guardian" by Sandy Balfour is due out in October. This looks as if it will contain a Guardian puzzle for every year of the 85-year history. This is a long-awaited book and it will, I am sure, be even more interesting than similar tomes regarding the Times and the Telegraph.

Collins have brought out a Pocket Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary to update the Gem edition. There is no plan for a new edition of the big BCSD this year but you can look forward to a new edition of Bradford's Lists in the autumn. This will be interesting as I suspect that Chambers may be bringing out a new edition of their Crossword Lists at about the same time.

Also do not forget that there will be a compendium of Listener Crosswords published by Chambers this autumn. You can see a list of the contents on the Listener website - http://www.listenercrossword.com/HTML/TLC_Contents.html I am delighted that Apex will be appearing and hope that he might also turn up in Sandy's collection.

Finally, The Chambers Dictionary 11th Edition is indeed coming out this year - publication date is set for August. This will be, I think, a necessary purchase for us as Azed and the Listener will probably introduce the 2008 edition as their primary reference.

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The Answer Lies at the End of the Line is an Art on the Underground project by Serena Korda. Currently she is giving out crossword puzzles to passengers who can check their solutions at the 'end of the line' - Stanmore tube station. Her project is likely to be mentioned in a BBC4 programme on crosswords which will be screened in July.

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Our message board has been suffering some problems of late and I am indebted to Chris Lear for getting the threads restored. In the meantime, as a substitute discussion forum I have opened a Crossword Centre group with Google. I am convinced that this will be a way of strengthening the group. I suggest that you take a look at the pages - http://groups.google.com/group/crosswordcentre. It is easy to leave a message and you can join, if you wish. Members have the opportunity to upload a photo and there is a facility to upload files and pages.

The boards2go board is incredibly popular and I have received lots of emails complaining about any move to another board and even about changes to the colours! Nevertheless, there is a lot of scope in the Google group and I hope that you will sign in.

I shall be back in June with the solution to Entry.

Best wishes

Derek