Crossword News May 2025

The April Prize Puzzle was Tan Goes so Stripey by Vismut. This tiger-themed puzzle proved to be tricky. The titles are LIFE OF PI, THE JUNGLE BOOK and WINNIE THE POOH, the brand is FROSTIES all off which feature tigers. RICHARD PARKER, SHERE KHAN, TIGGER and TONY. The title is another tiger and brand TANGO ESSO. The message from the down clues is GRID ORANGE FOUR NAMES BLACK and the first letters of these down clues read TIGERS CAN ROAR BUT CAN’T PURR.

Here are some of the comments from solvers.

Many thanks, Vismut. An amusing puzzle where the level of difficulty was boosted by the use of some of the less frequently visited corners of Chambers, and the merging of titles from the across clues. I did feel the title was a jumble of something but couldn't figure out what. The new submission method was taken advantage of with the requirement to highlight the full grid.

A brilliant puzzle, resulting in a beautiful tiger (especially when coloured by Excel!). Two cluing devices, with redundant words and emerging extra letters deviously concealed by excellent clues maintained a high level of challenge from start to finish. The theme was beautifully exploited. The link of the tiger might have emerged earlier for me if I'd tried picking out the message from the across clues before I'd identified all the redundant words.

When I first read the preamble, I wasn't sure how the titles were going to be merged, and assumed that 'how and which cells to fill' meant filling with letters rather than colour, but after I had filled most of the top half of the grid I could see how FROSTIES and LIFE OF PI were merged from the early extra words, and also GRID ORANGE was presumably something to do with colouring in. After this I tried to guess the extra words from the Across clues I hadn't solved, saw the other two titles, and realised that each of them contained a tiger. It took me a little while to notice I had TIGGER and the start of RICHARD PARKER in the grid, and it helped me a little to guess where SHERE KHAN and TONY could appear. I can see the word 'Stripey' in the title could be related to the stripes depicted in the grid, but apart from that I have no idea what it is supposed to mean. I can see how 'administered drug' could be a definition for DOCTORED in 3d, but I don't like it with the words the other way around. As for 41a, the only meaning of DARKLE I can find is 'to become dark' or maybe 'to be dark' so I don't see how to get a definition out of 'as light lowers'.

There were 49 entries, of which 7 were marked incorrect. The lucky winner is Ian Hickman who will be receiving a prize of a copy of the Chambers Crossword Dictionary which was donated by Chambers.

The new entry method worked well, although, perhaps we should have started with a puzzle that did not demand so much shading. Although there were some negative comments, most of the solvers were happy with the entry method.

There is a solution at https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2025/05/solution-to-tan-goes-so-stripey-by.html

You still have time to solve the May crossword, Gig Economy by Wan. https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2025/04/crossword-centre-prize-puzzle-may-2025.html

The June Prize Puzzle will be Current Affairs by Hedge-sparrow.
We always welcome submissions for later months.
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The lunch to celebrate Azed’s 2750th publication was held at Wolfson College, Oxford, on Saturday. I was not there but watched the speeches via Zoom. One of the best reports with photos is on the Clue Clinic. https://www.clueclinic.com/index.php/2025/05/06/azed-2750-lunch/

Many more photos are on the FaceBook Crossword Centre page.

At the end of the speeches, Don Manley was able to receive the Azed Cup for his winning clue to DRAUGHT-HOUSE (a privy) in the April competition.

 Urine had to gush out – in this?
 (comp. anag. & lit.)

All of the clues submitted are available in the latest Azed Slip.
http://www.crossword.org.uk/Azedslip.html
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The Observer has been taken over by Tortoise Media. For the moment the Azed and Everyman crosswords continue to be available for free. The possibility of a future paywall has not been ruled out. I have changed the link on the Crossword Centre https://observer.co.uk/crossword
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The Latin O Tempora! crossword in The Times has recently recorded its 500th puzzle. An incredible achievement. Congratulations!
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A shorter newsletter this month, but Lois and I are off for a holiday in Kos next week and I wanted to post it before we go.

Best wishes
Derek