I’ve found that ideas for crossword themes often arise from a chance meeting with a word in Chambers, and that was the case for “Their Imperial Highnesses”. I liked the idea that something as mundane as a roofing slate could be called a “duchess”, and a bit of research brought to light twelve named slate sizes from which a choice could be made. My early decision that the grid should actually look like a slated roof ruled out three sizes (imperial, lady, and rag), as Chambers didn’t associate them with roofs. So that left countess, duchess, marchioness, peggy, princess, queen, small, small lady, and viscountess.

Picking slates with the names of titled ladies looked promising, though I’d use either countess or viscountess, but not both. Also, I planned to exploit the slate dimensions to confirm that the correct solution had been reached, but had no idea how this would work out. It was then time to investigate possible grid layouts, and any further thematic features. I found I could arrange five names stepwise down the grid with QUEEN (logically) at the top, the multiple “–ess” endings proving slightly problematic. At the same time, I was looking for ways in which the word “slate” could be incorporated. The phrase “a slate loose” soon suggested itself, allowing adjacent letters in the grid to be swopped thematically. And with Chambers recognising eleven (!) anagrams of SLATE, I hoped to hint at this phrase via a number of down entries.

Here, I must come clean over a piece of amazing serendipity. With five slate sizes chosen, I started to explore ways of using the dimensions in a final step for the puzzle, and was astonished to find that the total area, in square inches, was 1952, very neatly tying in with QUEEN in the grid. These happy coincidences present themselves from time to time, and I’m sure most setters welcome them with open arms – I certainly do!

It was now time to use Ross Beresford’s “Sympathy” software to help me fill the grid. As most of the across entries were non-words, this required a bit of preparation beforehand, and I created a special-purpose dictionary containing over 500,000 words with letter swops in them. Even so, it was not easy to find a suitable fill, given the number of constraints in the grid, but I got there in the end. My “swopped-letter dictionary” could well prove useful when setting future puzzles.

No gimmicks in the clues, so that went smoothly, and I was pleased to arrive at a title for the puzzle whose relevance would, I hoped, only be evident towards the end of solving. It was now time for a trial run of the puzzle, a critical part of the process. My regular test-solver has invariably helped me to improve my puzzles, as was certainly the case here. His perceptive observations led to some clue improvements, and a rejig of the south-east corner. The puzzle was then sent off to The Magpie where, fortunately, it got the thumbs-up.

Part of the Magpie service is that solvers’ comments are relayed, with the names removed, to a puzzle’s setter. This is very useful as it helps to gauge how well different types of puzzle are received, and it can highlight any shortcomings in a particular puzzle. There’s always something to learn. I was delighted to find the puzzle went down well with all who commented.

There were two main aspects remarked upon. One was the (1,5,5) phrase, which some thought to be “a clean slate”, and which others didn’t work out at all – it wasn’t needed for the solution. The other was the fact that Chambers gives the size of the queen slate in feet rather than inches – how was this to be handled when doing the sum? If feet were used for it, the sum was 1094, which didn’t appear to relate to QUEEN in the grid. An earlier version of the preamble included “operating consistently”, but this disappeared during the editing process. Sorry, I should have kept it in.

In setting this puzzle, I wondered whether a puzzle based on slate sizes was a bit anorakish, but nobody mentioned this. And I did get away earlier in the year with an Inquisitor puzzle which was themed around named locomotive wheel arrangements!

Thanks to all at The Magpie for their care in seeing the puzzle through to publication, to all solvers who sent feedback, and to my test-solver.

Posted on Sunday, October 19th, 2008 at 5:59 pm under Setting the scene.
Leave a response