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…)

Whilst sitting one evening looking through lists of Listener, Tough Crosswords and Magpie mathematical puzzles wondering where my next puzzle for The Magpie would come from and listening to the greatest keyboard player in rock and roll Keith Emerson molesting his Hammond by sticking knives in it I was struck that WORD SUMS had not been used for some considerable time. (more…)

Inspiration for puzzles comes from many sources - whether it be a sidelong glance in a reference book, or a more determined review of thematic material - mine simply came from a Christmas shopping trip. Any solver who has ever visited Winchester (my home city) may have turned off the high street at the Butter Cross, walked between the two pasty shops (or into them, in my case), and (more…)