As some of you will know, the Telegraph’s crossword pay site recently changed its image and facilities. Instead of the tweedy-sounding “Telegraph Crossword Society” it’s now “CluedUp”, and you can now complete timed online versions of the quick and cryptic crosswords every day (including the new “Toughie” on the days when it’s published – it now seems to match its title more closely), plus General Knowledge puzzles, Codewords, Sudoku and others – not all online yet, some just to print. Your points are tallied up in various ways, though the way of giving credit for fast solving is currently very crude – all solutions to the daily cryptic in less than 45 minutes get the same bonus.
The Telegraph’s site is not perfect, but the recent changes look like more work than has been done on the Times site in ages. I hope that the spur of competition will mean that that Times site now starts implementing some of the changes requested by various members.
I remember this was at the turn of the year when the site was inaccessible for weeks via the “front door”, but I haven’t been able to track it down.
I signed up in the first few days of the Club, but not because I wanted to be a member of a club. I just wanted to get the crossword when I was overseas. That’s all I’ll ever want from it.
I think there’s a core of the population, from all over the world, that is drawn to the Times puzzle precisely because of its old world flavour. When I started solving, I was spending my evenings with Greek anarchists. A few years later, I was still solving while plotting the revolution with English communists. Since then I’ve been through a few isms, and am now the sort of middle-aged reactionary I would once have nominated for ‘first up against the wall’. But I’ve always stuck with the Times puzzle.
And what draws me back to it, always, is its timelessness. I really, really, really don’t want it to be surrounded by Web 2.0 bollocks.
If we want to talk about it, we can come here to this site. If we want to construct games around it, we have countless ways to do that now.
I fear that if we push for the online Times crossword to become a rival to what the Telegraph is doing, we’ll end up with the Times crossword editor becoming a multi-media co-ordinator, and the puzzle being subducted into the molten mediocrity of something ultimately disappointing.
The point about the Times crossword has always been the stark, gladiatorial challenge of setter versus solver, in no arena better or more starkly presented than in the cold black and white of the crossword grid.
I would say leave it be, Peter. There will always be those who seek the challenge. When you and I started solving, we weren’t drawn to it by bells or whistles. Just by that stark, daunting challenge of those 225 black and white squares. Let’s leave it be.
The web inspires novelty, but novelty, by its own nature, dooms itself. The Times crossword has survived a long time by sticking to its guns. I’d encourage its editors to carry on.
I’m getting quite tired of novelty.
If you look back at the list of improvements mentioned by jackkt above, you’ll see that most of them are concerned with doing what the current site does, but doing it better. Only one of those points was about making things more interactive – “give people the chance to race on the cryptic puzzle in the same way as they can for the Times 2”.
The DT site lets you just print the puzzle to solve over a coffee if that’s what you want, and does it better than the Times one in a couple of ways: you don’t get printed blue buttons like ‘Print this page’ which serve no purpose except to waste ink, and clue numbers appear in a separate column, as in the newspaper, not just as the beginning of a paragraph whose second line starts immediately under the number, making the numbers harder to find. I haven’t printed enough of the DT ones to see whether they avoid the slip-ups like yesterdays “G rouse” that sometimes mar the online version of the printed Times puzzle.
I met William Hague last night.
There, I knew you’d be impressed.
Without repeating sotira’s comments, all I want to be able to do is print out the crossword every day and do it with a pencil over a cup of coffee.
I don’t want to compete online or do sudoku or other puzzles.
I really wonder how long the crosword could retain its integrity as part of an online puzzle corner.
(And I have had responses to e-mails to the CluedUp staff.)
puzzles from the daily Times as does the Toronto Star on Saturdays. No prizes
offered by the Post; $10 Canadian by the Star (whoopee!). In both cases they are two to three weeks or more behind and, although fun, aren’t in the loop of discussions like these as they are not numbered and not current.
My friend and I do upwards of 15 a week and only as a last resort consult on the ones we’re stuck on. Only two puzzles, by setters Fraser Simpson and Cox & Rathvon, have a “Canadian” angle.
But back to the mother of them all…The Times. That, as others have noted, is all we want. And yes, we do them in black ink photocopied from the newsprint or printed off the web. The Saturday and Sunday Times puzzles
are available for printing off the web. Neatly done in black ink they are an art form…very satisfying to look at from several perspectives when done. (The London Underground installations are an example.) Not into speed here necessarily. Liquid paper is an asset.
Expecting a club membership as a Christmas gift. Hope for everyone’s sake this is all sorted out.
best
Bob in Toronto
I used a word there the other night that I should not have done. This blog doesn’t need that.
If it matters to any of you, you can be sure that I’m beating myself up over that. I’m an idiot. My apologies to you.
Ah, well….