Well, I think we had a very successful week, considering the short notice and influx of new bloggers. In fact that “considering” seems inappropriate – it was just a very good week of blogs, with twice as many as usual. Huge thanks to new volunteers ianb21, macavity123, nick_the_novice and william_j_s for taking the plunge, and special thanks to jackkt for tackling No. 1 for us. It’s a shame that the Times have not seen fit to include the new puzzle in the Crossword Club, although I can see why as it only has a few months to live anyway. They probably got rid of all the guys who’d know how to reconfigure the legacy software.
So the schedule for Week 2 looks like this now:
Monday: mohn2
Tuesday: chrisw91
Wednesday: allan_sidcup
Thursday: OliviaRhinebeck
Friday: pipkirby
Can I ask a favour of all bloggers of the Quick Cryptic – to make searching easier in the future, I’d like to suggest a title format for blog entries (similar to that used at fifteensquared for puzzles with named setters):
Quick Cryptic N by Pseudonym [- some optional comment]
I imagine after a few weeks/months certain Quick setters will get their own followings, or somebody’ll want to track down puzzles by certain setters, and this will just make that easier. Thanks to Niall MacSweeney (former blogger here, now a regular setter at the Independent and FT) for the suggestion.
Now might be a good time to review some of the supporting pages for TfTT. The bloggers biogs need expanding to include the new ones, and maybe should be separated out onto a page of their own, with their own link at the top of the page, and perhaps on the rhs as well ..
Edited at 2014-03-17 08:48 am (UTC)
I’m sure there are many more deserving targets for your scepticism. There are lots of activities that the masses enjoy but I consider a complete waste of time so I simply choose to avoid or ignore them.
I can do this week but not March 28th.
Welcome to the team.
Edited at 2014-03-22 08:36 am (UTC)
I am a relative newcomer (just been hanging around here for a couple of months) and very much at the bottom end of the solving capability spectrum – hence my handle! – but enjoying it enormously and benefiting from the insights and encouragement of the senior pros.
Like any leisure activity, it is ultimately about enjoyment and the feeling of satisfaction when you solve a tricky clue. I’ve also recently taken up golf, and there are some close parallels. I know I will never become a single digit handicap player, but when I play a couple of holes to par I’m dead chuffed. My aspiration is to get to a handicap of 18 (which in crossword land might equate to getting the main cryptic out every other day – and on the days where you don’t, getting maybe half of it done). That, for me, would be a great achievement.
By the same token, there are some folk here who are the crossword solving equivalent of Tiger Woods. But the great thing is we all belong to the same club, chat together, and respect and encourage each other. Wonderful thing.