Time Pressure by Mr Magoo
A period off work led me to resuscitate a long-considered idea to apply to appear on Countdown. An emailed entry form soon led to an invitation to attend a local ‘audition’ for the show, and when that came round I found myself in a room with five other hopefuls, tackling six word rounds, two numbers rounds and three conundra.
I was annoyed to find I had missed a maximum on the first round EEPICETRS (more…)
February 1st 1930 saw the publication of the first Times Crossword, and this event is commemorated at least twice in the media this year. Firstly the Times is publishing three historical puzzles to intrigue its readers, from 1940, 1960 and 1980, and then The One Show, a daily BBC documentary magazine, is looking at the mystery of the cryptic crossword. (more…)
Starting from the idea of the same clues and same grid producing different solutions in different bases, the initial question was - how (more…)
This puzzle was developed by the two of us – Charybdis (C) and Ploy (P) – entirely by email. In fact, over 50 emails were exchanged between conception and submission!
It started when P chanced upon the ABRAXAS entry in Chambers. (more…)
Providing an almost respectable excuse to seek out and digest arcane information is a seldom recognised benefit of solving and setting thematic crosswords. A crucial step for the setter is assessing interesting titbits as possible themes, and while with sufficient guile any subject can be worked up thematically, some topics seem to cry out for such treatment. The ogham (or ogam) theme sits in the latter category (more…)
The editors created a puzzle for the annual Magpie party. If you want to have a go at it, download the puzzle with no name here.
The solution is also available.
Greenland: where better to escape from everyday life? Or so I thought in early August, as I looked forward to a group walking holiday in the Tasiilaq area (more…)
Thanks to the clairvoyant genius of Mark and Simon in publishing the Quadratum series of puzzles I have the dubious honour of introducing Magpie solvers to the delights of Sudoku before it was popularised in The Times. (more…)
This puzzle came about because I was lucky enough to be in Washington DC on business earlier this year. Whilst there I spent a free afternoon at the Smithsonian (more…)
This narrative is pretty close to the thought processes involved during the final of The Times Crossword Championship 2008. (more…)
