Crossword News July 2024
I was shocked to hear of the death of Andy
Stewart, better known as the setter Dysart. He produced 18 Listener crosswords
and appeared in the Inquisitor, Enigmatic Variations, the Magpie and the
Crossword Centre. When he retired from teaching in 1990, he moved to Pattaya in
Thailand where he enjoyed his hobby of bird-watching, taking thousands of photos.
He suffered from a lung disease last year and died in hospital from a heart
attack on July 14, aged 79.
I have been emailing him in recent months while
editing a crossword that he submitted. We have decided to publish his puzzle in
August.
***
The June Prize Puzzle was Sage Derby by Vagans. Letters on the leading diagonal
spell the schoolroom rebus YYURYYUBICUR and YY4ME is to be written beneath the
grid to complete it. The rebus decodes to “Too wise you are, too wise you be, I
see you are too wise for me”. CLEOBULUS and PERIANDER were two of the Greek
Seven Sages (as listed under that heading in Chambers), and the extra letters
generated by the across clues spell out WISE MEN FROM THE EAST, geographically
true from a UK point of view. The extra words in across clues were all cheeses
(BLUE, SWISS, COMTE, KILLARNEY AND CREAM but not GOUDA) and those in down clues
were the remining five Sages (PITTACUS, BIAS, SOLON, CHILON and THALES).
Here are some of the comments from solvers.
The cheesy red herrings fooled me for a while
and, though I got to CLEOBULUS and his mate PERIANDER after some effort, it
took me a while to extract the sages from the down clues. The whole puzzles was
a satisfying solve with a theme new to me - thanks to Vagans. I am delighted to hear that there is now a
stock of puzzles for coming months and I look forward to tackling them in due
course. A Crossword Centre puzzle is keenly anticipated each month.
The grid itself was a pleasant solve spread over
a weekend. Then 3 weeks, on and off, trying to find the 12 characters and …
nothing. It couldn’t be individual
cells, it would have said cells, if it was cells, I reasoned. Last night in (not quite) desperation I
started saying the main diagonal, amongst other lines, out loud, in the hope
inspiration would hit. They all sounded like words, so a quick Google, and
bob’s your uncle. It was not something I was familiar with, but now will
probably never forget.
A neat use of the sages and cheeses with an
enjoyable denouement in recognizing the saying, which I don’t think I’ve seen
for about half a century. Thanks to
Vagans for the entertainment – and good to see the bishop making the usual
appearance in the clues.
There were 51 entries, of which 2 were marked
incorrect. The lucky winner picked from the electronic hat was David Beamish,
who will be receiving a prize of Chambers Crossword Dictionary, which was
donated by Chambers.
There
is a full solution at https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2024/07/sage-derby-by-vagans-solution-y-y-4-m-e.html
There
is still time to complete the July Prize Puzzle, White Label by Henri. https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2024/06/july-2024-crossword-centre-prize-puzzle.html
And
do try our July special, Mate in Two by the Badger. https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/2024/06/crossword-centre-july-2024-special.html
The
August challenge will be Harmony by Dysart.
We
would welcome submissions for publication this autumn.
***
The Cracking the Cryptic channel on YouTube, founded by Mark Goodliffe and
Simon Anthony, has continued to flourish and has recently recorded over 600,000
subscribers. It is always a treat to see them dissect and solve puzzles.
https://www.youtube.com/c/CrackingTheCryptic
Although
they mostly do sudokus, Simon has started solving the Friday Times cryptic,
which is usually the toughest of the week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_yKD3k4ou8
***
In the Magpie magazine, Mark Goodliffe announced that, following the sad demise
of Richard Rogan, Shane Shabankareh has taken over the role of interim crossword
editor of The Times. Shane is already editor of the Listener crossword and the
Magpie, as well as setting puzzles as Tiburon.
***
There was a lot of interest in our toughest crossword on the Crossword Centre.
A Chessword Puzzle by Radix only received a handful of entries and only one
correct solution from A J Moore. I am indebted to AJ and Larry Baum for helping
me to construct the solution. It is now available at the link below.
https://crosswordcentre.blogspot.com/p/solution-to-our-toughest-crossword.html
Numbers in bottom left of cells indicate the moves of the pieces( or answers).
***
The Azed Slip for clues to LITTÉRATEUR is now available on the Crossword
Centre. http://www.crossword.org.uk/Azed2711.pdf
M
Barley won first prize with this clue.
Term
for author, French one, turning out title after title possibly?
(anag.
+ r + auteur less U2, & lit.).
Best
wishes
Derek