The Online Crosswords Championship

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Announcement
Well, we are nearly there.   For the first time, those who can’t make it to London will be able to try their skills against the best solvers in the world, even if they have to get up in the middle of the night to do it.   Of course, it won’t be the same without the beer and the prizes, but we’ll have to make the best of it.

David Parfitt, the Times Crosswords Editor, has posted full information about the contest in the Crossword Club Forum.   In response to my question, he has stated that the three puzzles will be re-used in December as regular Wednesday puzzles in the print publication and the online newspaper site.   As we have done in the past, we will blog the puzzles when they appear in the paper.

This thread is for discussion of the Championship.   Those who have competed are free to discuss the puzzles and the clues once the contest has closed at 12 PM GMT, which means that if you did not participate, and you don’t want to see spoilers, you should not read the comments after the competition is closed.

I am going to give it a go, but I don’t expect to finish unless the puzzles are exceptionally easy.   Mr Parfitt did not give any hints about this, but it is possible that with such a large number of people competing, they may present us with only moderately difficult puzzles.

The timing of the contest in various parts of the world might be challenging to some, but it’s hard to see what else they could have done.   Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore will have it fairly easy, and will the UK, Europe, and Africa.    It is a little late in New Zealand, and very early indeed here on the East coast of the USA.    Caffeine and adrenalin will have to make up the difference.

Good luck to all!

148 comments on “The Online Crosswords Championship”

  1. Does anyone know if these will be printable tomorrow? Doing a puzzle online sees me wasting half my time correcting typing, scrolling the wrong way, and resizing the screen after I’ve pressed the wrong button, but I wouldn’t mind doing them tomorrow on paper in one sitting, for my own satisfaction, if nothing else.

    Edited at 2020-11-20 06:52 pm (UTC)

    1. Think of it as charitable work – giving us mere mortals a glimmer of a fighting chance
  3. My link to the crossword page won’t load up! Never been an issue before. Today of all days. Anyone else having the same problem
    4. Hmm. Hundreds of puzzlers trying to access the site at the same time. Who could possibly have foreseen trouble?
      2. I guess that’s the problem. A pretty poor, frustrating state of affairs if so. Has anyone managed to gain access this morning(GMT)?
  4. If anyone misses The George for discussing the puzzles afterwards, I host a regular Zoom session from 1.30 on Saturday and I’m sure we’ll be discussing the championship puzzles today. Email me on [email protected] if you want Zoom details.
  5. Paul in London predicted this, based of the site’s flaky IT record over the years.

    Anyone got a fax machine?

  6. They’ve obviously got the crossword site on a separate server, as the normal Times is loading fine. For next year (God forbid it’s still online) they should put the crossword site on the same server as the main paper perhaps? Wondering whether to give up or not …
  11. Correction. This page isn’t working. A statement of the blindingly obvious.
    I’ve tries accessing via the crossword club page, that is correct isn’t it?
  12. Well assuming they don’t flip some kind of miracle switch in the IT dept in the next few minutes… I guess this is going to be a spectacular disaster 😀
  17. No luck here either. Coffee and biscuits all to hand – just need three puzzles at which to fail miserably.
    3. That’s what has caused it then – people taking more than their fair share of tabs. I bet it was you that bought all the bog roll too.
  20. I’ve tweeted the editor in hopes that he might want to announce any concrete news, or perhaps a delay in the start (unhelpful though I know this will be for some solvers in particular time zones…)
  22. Just like the old dial up days. What does one do? Keep on refreshing like a chimp after the banana?
    1. I do feel sorry them though. Must be tearing their hair out. We’ve all been there . . .
  28. Here’s a clue in compensation to describe the situation.
    Found on the bottom of a bird cage ending in it (4).
    The answer is not grit!
  32. Main site is showing normal puzzles, crossword club still has http 503.

    Any news about what’s going on (other than server overload)?

  33. Unfortunately out here in Cyprus the system’s currently telling me the Times site can’t handle my access request, so I’ve been unable to access the puzzles at the competition time. I haven’t therefore been able to log on as a competitor this year. I did log on earlier this morning & complete today’s puzzle, but that’s not the same thing. No doubt Xmas will now be cancelled, as if that could make things any worse!

    I’m Anne Lambirth, not “Anonymous”, but it was much simpler to post the comment this way.

    1. Morning Anne! Same here, though as this morning’s took me exactly an hour I think the current situation might turn out to be kinder for me 🙂
  34. Gotta larf that this site is working and the great Times is down! Perhaps the fine organisers of this web site should run things next year!
    1. To be fair, my guess would be that LiveJournal has been on the web serving a giant audience for longer than the Times has had any serious interactive web presence. LJ launched in 1999!
  36. Well I’m a bit miffed as I couldn’t even get into the Crossword Club (repeatedly attempted to log in from in about 10.15GMT only to be met with the message that the server took too long to respond).

    I expect I am not the only one.

    Those of you that did manage to login – good luck to you all!!

    1. You are definitely not alone. The competition has changed slightly this year. The winner is anyone who can open all 3 crosswords. Wait! That is hoping for too much. Just fill in any one clue and if you manage to submit… you are the big winner!
    2. Those are both wrong, anyway. I believe 573 is the correct HTTP error code for “unexpected end of crossword”.
  38. What a shambles! Clearly any results will be null and void given the large numbers who can’t take part at the allotted, much trumpeted time.

    Will there be an resignations? Or will the Editor express great faith in the competence of the staff concerned? I think we should be told.

  39. Hi all,

    I’m so sorry about the technical issues that are preventing access to the Club site. It looks very much like the sheer volume of users has crashed the site. I have some in our IT department looking at it, and I’ve pushed back the release time of the puzzles. But I’m afraid it’s not looking good at present.

    Many many apologies to all those who have been looking forward to this, and especially to those who have stayed up around the globe to join in.

    David Parfitt
    Puzzles Editor

    3. Given we are all in lockdown anyway, is there an argument for delaying a week (apologies to the would-be competitor who rushed back from the flu jab)?
      1. I was only entering on a bit of a whim anyway; my average time for a puzzle is significantly more than a half hour. Maybe it’s interlopers like me who are causing the problem by pitching up to the champs when they clearly don’t stand a chance 🙂

        Edited at 2020-11-21 10:52 am (UTC)

    4. thanks for the update,

      Could you please send out an email via the Times Puzzles link when and if everything restarts?

      Best wishes

      Chris Roberts

    5. At a certain point it would be good to know if those of us west of you should just go back to bed? Especially if there’s going to have to be a redo at a later date (or even a much later time).
  41. Actually this is not entirely surprising, considering how long the site takes to respond to puzzle submissions in normal times (and I solve in the evening, long after most users will have done the day’s puzzle).

    So back to plan A, which was to solve the puzzles on the Wednesdays they will be “repeated” as the daily cryptic.

      1. Have you tried this excellent emulator? I dragged up enough Sinclair Basic knowledge from memory to draw a circle on it the other day. It took about half an hour to write the code and about as long for it to run 😀
  43. MER at “unexpected volume of users crashing the site”… as the Club is a logged-in-users-only section surely the amount of traffic is fairly easily predictable!
    2. Actually, I do wonder how the daily traffic compares to the total number of Club subscribers.
    3. Calling this a “technical problem” or an “IT issue” rather ducks the fact that it wasn’t a computer who decided to estimate how many people would attempt to access the site and get it wrong by, presumably, an order of magnitude. See also: it being all Excel’s fault that the UK’s track and trace system failed.
  44. I remember the same thing many moons ago for the online release of the 1901 UK census. The website custodians had vastly underestimated how popular it was going to be, and I believe several days passed before full access was possible.

    Hopefully all things IT have moved on somewhat since….

  45. Repeat – I’m in the club site!!!

    Crosswords don’t seem to be live yet but I’m in at least

  46. If some folk have in fact got in, sc Penfold above, presumably different crosswords will have to be used for a relaunch?
    2. I only got to a page where the puzzles were available to select. Didn’t get as far as an actual puzzle Jerry.
  47. Rudi Giuliani will be holding a press conference shortly to explain why I am the winner because the Times hasn’t counted my entry.
  48. So glad to get some info about the problems. I was looking forward to having a go for the only time in my life and am sitting with two coffees and numbered rough paper! I just get a blank screen with no error message.
  49. Tried to open one of the puzzles.
    Forgot to go for a new tab
    Now the club site is lost to me again

Comments are closed.