Among several puzzles handed out at the Birmingham event was a puzzle offering the prize of a bottle of red wine and a book of Guardian crosswords by Rufus, kindly donated by Roger Squires himself. As if that wasn’t enough, Roger also donated a truly wonderful historical artefact – Torquemada’s 112 Best Crossword Puzzles with Portrait & Memoirs, published in 1942.
The tome is in remarkable condition for its age. The first crossword has been completed in pencil, and there are a few tentative starters in the second; I think this adds to the book!
Anyway, because there was so much on offer at the S&B it risked creating a room of silence as people solved instead of talked. Thankfully that didn’t happen and, on the day, only 4 entries were handed in. It was agreed that the best and fairest way would be to make the puzzle available for solving after the event, so here it is. Firstly, the interactive version:
http://crossword.info/anaxcrosswords/SB_Brum
And a PDF version if you want to print and solve:
I haven’t really thought about the best form for submitting entries although email is patently ideal. The ‘Submit’ function of Crossword Compiler is something I’ve never got my head round, so for now the only suggestion I can make is a screengrab of the completed interactive grid or a scan of the completed PDF. These can be emailed to me using anaxcrosswords@yahoo.co.uk
The other thing I haven’t thought about is how to pick a winner, but that’s a minor thing at the moment. The four entries I received on the day are already in, so those four entrants don’t need to re-complete the puzzle. Otherwise, please let me have your entries by Friday 15th July.
Anaxcrosswords 
You have mail – the interesting thing about the screen grab is that it has the friendly message “Congratulations, you have completed the puzzle’ blocking some of the solution – a mere bagatelle to someone of my Paint Shop Pro skills! (copy/paste/copy/paste etc!).
Very nice puzzle thank you and glad you all had a great time.
Hmm – don’t have mail yet; attachments (and useless Yahoo) can sometimes hold things up though.
The completion message does – or should – disappear after a few seconds; usually happens if you click outside it. Hope so anyway. On the Indie website it can take quite a few seconds; if you access the Indie puzzle using Crossword Solvers the message box can be clicked away almost immediately.
Ah, update. Email has arrived now!
Hi Anax
Thanks again for the hugely enjoyable puzzle but, as I’ve said before, the entry labelled ‘ Eileen’ really must be disqualified, since it was a joint effort, submitted by Kathryn’s Dad, Mike C, Bridgesong, Orlando and myself. There was a bit of discussion about whether we were there to solve crosswords or to talk but I thnk we proved that, by co-operating, we had the best of both worlds. I think we all found the joint effort really rewarding – it was great fun solving with others and it was fascinating to see how different minds worked and I do believe that we contributed on a fairly equal basis! We were really happy to have completed it within a respectable time, we thought.
Sorry for that disclaimer, colleagues, but, if we were to win, how to distribute the spoils? I’m not talking about the bottle of wine – that’s easily settled at the next S&B [hasta la vista!] but Roger’s wonderful donation? I think that potential sharing out, page by page, is on a par with the judgment of Solomon! 🙂
Many thanks again for a really great time! 🙂
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