Category: Announcement

I’ve been contacted by Dr. Kathryn Friedlander from the University of Buckingham, who’s doing research into solvers of cryptic crosswords. She’s looking for volunteers willing to solve a few puzzles and be interviewed. Her email … Read more “An invitation”

Times setter Don Manley (a.k.a. Quixote, Duck, Bradman, Giovanni, have I missed any? – in various other publications) is holding a one-day course in solving cryptic crosswords on Saturday 26th March. Details below.

We have an extra Monday puzzle this week, courtesy of regular commenter john_from_lancs. He found a couple of old copies of The Times in his loft, and has given us the crossword from the first … Read more “Bonus treat – Times 9,572”

My first administrative task with the blog is going to be to find somebody (or bodies) to take over Peter’s blogging duties! Current vacancies therefore are as follows: The Times every Wednesday – update: mctext … Read more “Help found”

New year, and a new blogger-in-chief. As everyone knows by now, Pete Biddlecombe has become the editor of the Sunday Times Crossword, and has had to step down from the blog. Pete’s said in a … Read more “My new job”

Regular readers will have known for a few weeks that I’ve just started a new job. Some of you have already combined this with the news of Barbara Hall’s retirement as Sunday Times puzzles editor … Read more “My new job”

Today’s seems to be labelled as a Saturday puzzle, so I suspect that this is the prize crossword printed today because no newspaper will be published on Christmas Day itself. I think that means that … Read more “No crossword today?”

Under Club News > Editorial Articles is an item saying that Barbara Hall retires from her post as Crossword Editor for The Sunday Times at the end of December. It includes a copy of the … Read more “News from Crossword Club website”

Five years ago today, this announcement with brief comments on the day’s puzzle started off the cottage industry of blogging broadsheet cryptic crosswords. (Rather like cryptic crosswords themselves, I’d seen something similar done in the … Read more “Now we are five …”

This is a quick comparison of the UK’s two pay sites for broadsheet cryptic crosswords, following recent changes at the Times Crossword Club site, and a change of name for the Telegraph one – now … Read more “Telegraph v. Times – a crossword website comparison”