My new job

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Announcement
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 to guess what my new job might be. I can now confirm that your guesses were correct – I’ve been appointed on a trial basis to edit the crosswords in the Sunday Times. I’m obviously very pleased and know that many of you will be very pleased for me. At this stage there are only a few things to say:

  • A big thank you to Barbara Hall for the help she’s given me during a brief handover period, and to those at the Sunday Times who decided to see whether I can fill this role well.
  • Any changes to Sunday Times crosswords will be slow and careful.
  • For obvious reasons, I will no longer be a contributor to crossword blogs, or the organiser of this blog. More thanks are due to the people here and elsewhere who will continue this work. For the time being Andy Wallace (linxit) is now organising this blog.

30 comments on “My new job”

  1. Peter.

    That’s great news for you and the Sunday Times. Congratulations and best wishes.

  2. Many, many congratulations Peter! We’ll miss your erudition on this forum, but look forward to seeing how you get on at the ST.

    Handel.

  3. As one of the previously silent many who have found this blog I am now moved to comment. Normally I just about have enough time to do the xwd and look at this blog. Alas insufficient time to be an active contributor. For years I stared cluelessly but curiously at the cryptic. Without a mentor to show me the way in I remained outside the cryptic world. Then I found this wonderful site set up by Peter. Slowly over the course of two years with the help here I can do it. Life now has an added pleasure and one I never would have found without Peter. Have been meaning to say thank you for a long time so now seems like a good time.
    Must confess Peter I do feel ambivalent however as your contributions will be greatly missed by me and I’m sure many others. Not sure how I will now gauge my progress (if any) as always look for your time first. With your help I now work on a mere 4x your time as my target. My better side however is just happy for you and the ST xwd followers. You leave a civilised, supportive and charming legacy behind in the form of this site. Thomas.
  4. I’m one of the many others Anonymous (Thomas) mentions, who was largely clueless until this site came along. My thanks, and best wishes to you at your new job in the new year, a new year whose Sundays bid fair to be brighter for us all.
  7. My hearty congratulations. A very well-deserved appointment after so many (unpaid!) years of dedication to all things cruciverbal. But now we shall miss your blog contributions here.
    From a very self-interested point of view: does this mean you will take charge of the syndicated “Sunday Times” puzzle in The Weekend Australian? I certainly hope so, as do many in this neck of the woods who are looking forward to better puzzles with a definite local flavour.
    1. I was expecting to take my knowledge of Aussie English further than dim memories of Afferbeck Lauder’s Let Stalk Strine, but it turns out that my responsibilities do not include this puzzle.
  8. Very many congratulations and best wishes to you Peter. Your contributions to crossword blogs will be sorely missed! Thanks for all that you have done for popularising the idea of crossword blogging.
  9. Congratulations, Peter, from a newish contributor, and many thanks for bringing together this group of interesting and supportive cruciverbalists. Best wishes for yor new role. Janie
  10. Well done, Peter, that’s great news. Alas, no more striving to achieve a ‘Peter-beater’ – George’s coinage, I think; not that it happened more than a couple of times in a few hundred attempts!

    Tom B.

  11. Congratulations! But, above all, very many thanks for all that you have done to make ‘Times for the Times’ an essential part of my daily routine. The opportunity to witness a cruciverbalist ‘brain at work’ has been a delight (as well as leading to a remarkable improvement in my completion rates – and times)!
  12. Congratulations Peter, may the position soon become permanent. And best wishes to Andy in taking over the controls. For me, the blog is just as enjoyable as the puzzle itself. It’s a bit like being able to play a round of golf every day with, perhaps not Tiger Woods, but with Phil Mickelson or Ernie Els – or even that well known golfer from Dorset.
  13. The golfer from Dorset can now add public congratulations to private ones already expressed. In this strange new internet world of blogging I feel as if I know you even though we have never met and as if I am losing a friend. Luckily we have different opinions on some things and both enjoy amicable sparring over those opinions. I shall miss that. You can look back with pride over what you have achieved here and look forward to now making a different kind of contribution. I wish you nothing but success.
  14. So you won’t be competing in this (whoops, next) year’s Championship?

    Mr Magoo will be rubbing his hands with glee.

    Congratulations old friend, and happy 2011 to you and Jacqui.

    John H and Jane T

  16. Congratulations and good luck in the new job from an extremely infrequent contributor here. In particular, thank you for what must be just about the most civilised blog on the internet.

    Steve W

  17. I have been strugling with the Times cryptic since my student days in the early 60s – mainly alone. I discovered Peter’s blog about 18 months ago and it added a whole new dimension to the experience. I’ve had more fun with this crossword since coming here than in the previous 45 years! Thank you so much and congratulations on the new job. Maybe I’ll have to start doing the ST crossword again – I used to do it once but found it a bit boring compared with the daily Times.
  19. Many many congratulations Peter! I will certainly miss your contributions to this blog and the help you always provide. I have noticed that whenever someone asks a question, however simple, you unfailingly reply. Good luck!

    Carole H., Fermo, Italy

  20. It has all been said, and we are all sad. And happy for you.

    Many thanks for this blog, I hope you will occasionally still appear here.

  21. Excellent news, many congratulations; at the same time sad for the rest of us. I hope you put in an occasional appearance and many thanks for all you have done with this site and its offshoots.

    I haven’t done the ST crossword for ages but when I did it wasn’t very good: more like The Radio Times than The Times. Now it will I’m sure improve and become worth doing again. I shall look at it with interest, fully expecting that you will have been the cause of a rise in standards.

  23. Congratulations, Peter. The ST cryptic, much criticised by some, has improved over the past year or so (in my opinion), a trend that will now surely be greatly strengthened under your editorship. But you’ll be much missed here for your erudite and encyclopaedic knowledge of all questions relating to cryptic tradition and practice. Who now will act as our ultimate Court of Appeal? I have never come anywhere near posting a “peter-beater” but did once get within 10 mins of your time. Best wishes.

  24. Congratulations Peter. I’m pleased that you’re going to continue solving the Times online where you and Tony Sever are two fixed stars to steer by. His discontinuation is loss enough.
  25. As usual, a very late comment, but I want to chime in on all the thank yous to Peter for organising this blog. I’ve been solving cryptic crosswords off and on since the late 60s, when an Indian graduate student at Princeton taught me how to do the incomprehensible puzzles at the back of the airmail edition of the Times, which was available in the common room. But it was only with the advent of the Times Crossword Club that I had regular access to them, and it’s been only six months since I’ve been trying to do them on a daily basis. Of course I’m addicted and this blog has been a big help with understanding what’s going on.

    I’m very happy for Peter, but a bit sad that we won’t have his solving times to be amazed at — ordinary mortals are so much, well, less astounding!

  26. A very late comment (we’ve been without internet over Christmas) but I’d still like to add my congratulations.
    I haven’t bothered with the ST crossword for a long time but will certainly follow it now.
  27. Have been looking for the solution to the Sunday Times Christmas jumbo crossword,19th Dec, but have been unable to find it. Has is been posted?

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