When I read the preamble to One-Taker by Harpy in Magpie 76 (‘famous film scene’, ‘15-letter film title’, etc) I immediately thought of the Union Station shootout scene from The Untouchables. This was probably partly because it’s one of the few films I actually own and partly because of the classic Commodore 64 version from some years ago (more…)
I first became acquainted with the graphic art of Maurits Cornelis Escher in the mid-1960s, and quickly became a fan. So much so that in 1969 I wrote to him, and was delighted when he replied - his letter is a treasured possession (more…)
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…)
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…)
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…)
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”. (more…)
One thing I’ve learned in my short time as a setter is that it’s impossible to judge how a puzzle is going to be received by solvers. (more…)
