Phew! Rather a busy week comes to a close, with an interesting weekend about to start.
Today saw me polish off (subject to edits) this year’s Sunday Times Christmas Jumbo after three days of mostly solid work. This news hasn’t revealed any great secret, by the way – the ST cryptic team is the trio of Tim Moorey, Jeff Pearce and myself, working in rotation, and it so happens that the Christmas puzzle falls on my watch this time around.
Talking of the Sunday Times, I’m eagerly anticipating my debut puzzle this weekend. Although I’d rarely admit it openly, I still get a little bit star-struck when a puzzle appears, and the novelty of ‘proper name’ in print as opposed to a pseudonym is an attractive draw, so I’ll be unable to resist buying a copy of the newspaper.
For those who wrestled fruitlessly with last weekend’s prize Anax puzzle in the Independent, all will be revealed some time tomorrow when it’ll be blogged on FifteenSquared (link below/left).
As for the remainder of today – well, after completing the Christmas puzzle I need to let the brain cool down, so the evening might just be spent playing Everybody’s Golf on the PS3. Yes, at heart I’m just a big kid who plays games (isn’t that what I do with crosswords anyway?). I appreciate I’m probably in the minority in that regard, but if you do happen to be a PS3 user with EGWT you can always look out for anaximperator and join me for a thrash.
Anaxcrosswords 
Nice, I’ll probably pick up a ST this weekend – I like to try different Sunday things if it isn’t my week to blog Beelzebub 🙂
On a side note, can anyone tell me which – if any – pseudonyms Jeff Pearce sets under? Maybe I didn’t google hard enough, but my usual sources have come up blank.
Very enjoyable Dean, can’t see the first o in 10a. Are you getting milder or me better at seeing what you’re up to. 21ac was outstanding to me. Thank you. So why does the Times not credit at all and the Sunday give your real name?
Hi Phil. No need to try and identify the second O as the wordplay is simply a 2-word homophone.
Before Barbara Hall retired she was – I think – the sole setter for the Sunday puzzle (and the concise) and neither was credited. I suspect the use of names on the cryptic is merely to acknowledge that there are now three setters working in rotation; but names have never been used for the daily puzzle, and it’s a good thing really. Without pseudonyms to fall back on (i.e. to identify an individual style) setters are creating puzzles according to a house style, so there has to be a consistency in the way clues are written. It isn’t a matter of right or wrong – it’s merely the flavour of the Times crossword. A couple of years ago there was much discussion about the possibility of introducing pseudonyms but the setters decided they preferred to not use them as they would spoil the nature of the series.