http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0166p06

This covers the whole programme. My slot starts at about 1hr 20min.

With it being a prize puzzle I can say nothing about it, but I can say it’s a huge thrill to have my first one in print. I’m tremendously grateful to editor John Henderson for allowing me to interrupt the flow of the big boys who regularly contribute to this prestigious series. I just hope that solvers will enjoy my humble efforts.

It’ll be a few weeks before it gets blogged on FifteenSquared but, as it’s my debut, I would really like feedback. If you get a chance to solve it then, primarily, THANK YOU, but if you’d like to let me know what you thought I’d be even more grateful.

PLEASE DON’T LEAVE COMMENTS HERE! In line with other crossword sites I would like to uphold the policy of not mentioning prize puzzles of this type online before their closing dates. However, if you enjoy it (or not) do please send me a text:

Have fun!

PS: In Monte-Carlo my daughter and I tried a new form of motorsport which has got to be taken up here – Karting on Ice! Seriously – electrically powered (but pretty fast) karts on a temporary ice rink set up in the main part of the harbour (where the pits are during the F1 race). Huge fun.

It usually is. For other answers, even if I haven’t fully formulated their clues I’ve had a rough idea about the approach – that first stage has been the open sesame for placing the answer in the grid.

Put it this way; generally, the clues that take the longest to write are for answers that locked themselves in without choice. So it’s fantastic when the opposite happens.

Because the puzzle in question will be a live prize crossword in a few weeks I can’t give details, but there was only one common word answer that would fit a particular slot. To be fair it didn’t worry me too much as it offered a very straightforward wordplay breakdown – it’s just that I didn’t have the luxury, on placing it in the grid, of already having an idea of how the components would be expressed.

I should just pause a moment here to say that elsewhere I had two or three “Oh yes, that’ll do nicely” clues which I hoped would carry the puzzle on the back of less spectacular stuff.

And now I was faced with this (not far from final) clue, which looked like comprising definition and two wordplay components. The result – after almost no time at all – was fits of giggles when a 3-word clue covered everything but presented a phrase that had proper stand-alone quality. Not a dictionary phrase, but… well, a name.

That’s the joy of setting – the discovery of obvious yet jaw-dropping things, all thanks to this wonderful English language and its globally imported synonyms, slang and odd etymologies.

You may have seen mention on a few blogs of awards ranging from clue of the month to setter of the year. In principle this is a great publicity idea, but I have some reservations about what will happen in practice. Now don’t get me wrong. Setter John Halpern is a good friend and colleague and his enthusiasm for dragging cryptic crosswords out of arcaneness/elitism/nerdiness (all wrongly applied) into the mainstream is really, really brilliant. Like everyone involved in crosswords, I’m keen to see his efforts succeed.

But awards for clues, crosswords and setters have the potential to stray into divisive ground. So I have to say, right now, that my reservations may prove to be completely unfounded, simply because I don’t have full details about how these awards will be voted for, who will oversee them, who will vote or indeed how setters themselves will be involved. With that in mind, here are my concerns, and I’ll start with a small digression.

This band I’m in does cover versions only, and we’re constantly expanding our range of material. It was easy to select the first 20 or so songs we’d cover because it was easy to think of 20 or so real funk, disco and soul classics and, in fairness, the guitarist and I had selected most of these before we put the band together. With a full band, though, choosing more songs involved a voting process, and we went about it by finding a database of the top 100 song requests received by club/party DJs.

I say ‘we’. I wasn’t interested in this database at all. For me it had a basic flaw, and to explain it I’ll digress yet again(!)…

There’s an old mind-reading trick in which the performer selects an audience volunteer and proceeds to give them a sequence of simple arithmetical and general knowledge questions to be answered as quickly as possible. With a warning that the volunteer has only 2 or 3 seconds remaining comes the final question – give me the name of a colour. Almost without fail, the volunteer responds with “orange” and, hey presto, the ‘mind-reader’ unfolds a piece of paper with ORANGE written on it.

The brain’s synaptic processes are such that, under certain circumstances, we have almost automatic memory responses, and we forget other, equally viable answers. This is the problem with the DJ requests. People have already listened to quite a few songs and, unknown to them, these have triggered certain memories and have restricted the number of other songs whose titles/performers they can remember. And so they go for the most obvious.

For the Croscars it’s possible that something similar could happen, although for slightly different reasons. It’s fantastic that we live in an Internet age in which the communication between solvers and setters is as it never could have been only ten years ago. The oldest of the crossword blogs has only been around for about eight years, so that gives you some idea of how far we’ve come. Some setters have embraced this, with their own web presence and/or frequent contribution to blogs. Some are regular attendees at Sloggers & Betters gatherings. Some – while not necessarily frequently visible online – keep up regular email contact with their solving fans. Some do all of this. These are the ‘public’ setters.

Then you have the private ones. Some may be too busy to spend their time online. For many, they just don’t want to be that public. Their crosswording activities, whether full-time or occasional, are what they are devoted to, and they just want to produce the best work they can without fuss. Whatever job you do, the majority of satisfaction comes from your superiors telling you you’re doing a great job and – let’s be honest – a pay packet at the end of the month. And for many setters ‘superior’ simply means the editor being happy with your work and sending it off for publication. We can’t demand that private setters throw off their cloaks and enter the world of online banter and publicity – to do that would be wrong to the point of evil.

However, when it comes to voting for clue of the month, crossword of the month, setter of the year etc etc, those memory synapses will kick in, and voters will unwittingly restrict their thoughts to those setters whose names they see most often online, or to those with whom they have personal contact either via email of Sloggers & Betters meetings. Sadly, the private setters, who may be regularly producing top class puzzles, could well be (or, more damagingly, feel) sidelined, simply because awards voters don’t automatically think of them.

And in any case… clue of the month? This, too, is dangerous territory. For me, ‘best clue’ must always be restricted to the puzzle in which it appears, because that is the only place in which its full relevance and worth can be seen. A cryptic crossword is a set of around 30 clues which the setter hopes will be gradually solved to complete the puzzle. In this regard, it’s essentially a set of 30 interacting pieces of a jigsaw, and the relevance of each clue is not restricted to how clever, tough, or innovative it may be. One must take into account how fair it is in the context of the whole puzzle. A clue may be brilliant on its own, but if its answer interlocks with two or three other tough clues and thus prevents all but the most experienced solver from breaking into a region of the grid, then it’s not actually that good a clue.

I’m really hoping that all the safeguards are in place to ensure that the voting and awards are thoroughly inclusive and – perhaps importantly – given without too much fanfare. There are lots of things we can celebrate and publicise. Cryptic crosswords in their own right, yes. Individual clues, crosswords and setters? OK, but we have to be very careful about how it’s done.

It is along the lines of “This setter is trying to be clever for the sake of it”.

Such a comment makes a whole swathe of rash assumptions about what we do, how we go about it and why we do it; the worst part is that final assumption about what motivates us.

But let’s start by examining ‘clever for the sake of it’ in terms of the mechanics of clue-writing. The simple truth is that ‘clever for the sake of it’ is not a luxury we have. Every clue starts in the same way – an answer to be defined and broken down into wordplay components, these components also to be defined. We’ll jot down ideas, make lists of usable definitions, and eventually pick those which can somehow be strung together coherently and according to clue-writing rules. Clever doesn’t come into it. We’re not inventing new stuff – we’re just assembling components. Sometimes we get lucky and find a novel way of presenting an overall definition, but that’s not a case of inventing new words. It typically involves rummaging through the dictionary or thesaurus and finding something we either didn’t expect or simply hadn’t previously considered.

The accusation of ‘clever for the sake of it’ often comes as a result of craftily worked indicators which, if presented smoothly enough, can make a clue tough to break down. But the setter will have started with a (possibly very long) list of potential indicators for containers, anagrams, letter deletions etc etc, and the majority of them just won’t hang together with the coherence we seek. What we then do is narrow these lists down to ‘possibles’ and try to find those which best suit whatever image the developing clue has started to present. The important thing to remember, though, is that this ‘toolbox’ of devices and definitions is finite; by picking the right components we are not being ‘clever’ – we’re just being persistent enough to rummage through everything until we find the right bits.

As for motivation, ‘clever for the sake of it’ is just plain wrong and, frankly, a bit insulting. Successful setters are those who have taken the time to understand what works and what doesn’t, and our motivation is to write clues according to the rules – and nothing else. Crosswords don’t pay well, and the last thing a setter wants is for the editor to come back with a big list of problem clues to be re-written because they’re too ‘clever’. Put bluntly, we can’t afford it.

For all that, however, there is one area in which a setter really can display cleverness. The ideal cryptic crossword is one in which the answers gradually reveal themselves in different parts of the grid, so the solver never feels as if there is one sector which simply cannot be cracked. The ‘clever’ setter will latch on to areas which may be a little cut off from the rest, with perhaps only one answer forming a link to other areas, so will write a gentler clue for this single answer. Cleverness comes in writing a gettable clue for an answer where, with all checking letters in place, there would still be a large number of words that would fit. But for ‘clever’ we should read ‘conscientious’ because, ultimately, the clever setter is the one who takes a conscientious approach to filling and clueing the grid.

So here’s what I’m offering; 36 crosswords, effectively a 3-year supply, for just £350. Each is presented with fully artworked puzzle/solution grids in BMP or TIFF format, with clues and reference grids in a single Word document, all supplied by email. Payment can be by PayPal or BACS.

Know anyone involved with a magazine? Any way you could make this offer known to them?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p2wd0

Lots of interesting material including interviews with Ruth Crisp (Crispa), John Graham (Araucaria) and former Telegraph crossword editor Val Gilbert. My own take? Well, it contains plenty of fascinating insights and was certainly an enjoyable listen but, for me, seems to end the story at a point 20-30 years ago. It may be that most Radio 4 listeners stopped remembering stuff around that time, but really… it would have been nice to hear about where the cryptic crossword is at right now. Contemporary – and highly influential – setters such as John Halpern, John Henderson etc don’t get a look in, which is a shame.

2013 is when our celebrations will be in full swing, so let’s hope the new year will see the modern cryptic crossword covered more extensively.