Times for the Times 10th Anniversary!

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Announcement
Pete Biddlecombe (founder of this site and currently Sunday Times Crossword editor) reminded me this week that we have an important anniversary coming up. On 2nd December this year it will be the 10th Anniversary of Times for the Times!

For most of the first year Pete ran it single-handed (with myself and Mark Goodliffe covering the odd few weeks when he was on holiday), then it was reborn as a community effort on October 31st 2006, so we’ll be able to have another birthday in 2016 too. Put both dates in your diary! Speaking of anniversaries, I’ll have had five years as blogger-in-chief (to coin a phrase) on 1st Jan 2016.

This calls for a party. 2nd December falls on a Wednesday, which is no good for most people. So how about Saturday the 5th for a big 10th anniversary celebration. Everyone’s invited – bloggers, solvers, setters, lurkers, even neutrinos! There’ll be a venue (to be decided), bespoke crosswords celebrating the event (to be set, but I know a few people to ask) and fireworks (to be expected!).

34 comments on “Times for the Times 10th Anniversary!”

  1. I’m a bit surprised to be the first responder – and I won’t be able to come because I’ll be the wrong side of the pond as usual. I would however very much like to hear all about the festivities. In particular I hope that any bespoke crosswords will be posted so that those not attending can see them. Fireworks – hmmm, metaphorical I assume but I enjoy both kinds. OK, where are the rest of you? P.S. come November I will be available once more for emergency blogging duty if needed.
  2. Definitely a cause for celebration. Assuming the venue is in London, I’ll be there (unless the gods decide otherwise).
  5. Is there an argument for celebrating a little early (i.e. 17 October) when a number of us will already be gathered in one place?
    1. That’s another excuse. Mainly for drowning one’s sorrows unless one’s name is Mark Goodliffe!
  6. Count me in! I’m returning home from The Colonies in October, and really looking forward to meeting as many of this delightful community in person as possible!
  7. Isn’t 20 years since the Times started putting the crossword online. Not sure of the date
    1. That seems too early to me, there wasn’t much of an Internet 20 years ago. I’ve asked Pete Biddlecombe to check, will hopefully have a definitive answer tomorrow.
      1. There was quite a lot of the Internet 20 years ago, but admittedly the World Wide Web has come a long way since then.

        The first of the daily Times Cryptic series I can find on the Times Crossword Club website is No. 21,554 from 23 October 2000, so perhaps we’re on course for celebrating 15 years.

        1. I know what you’re saying (Internet and WWW aren’t the same thing, but most people wouldn’t know the difference). I meant comparatively anyway. When I was at the BBC in 2010 the head of iPlayer gave a talk and presented figures showing that the iPlayer website alone that year generated more traffic than the whole of the World Wide Web did in 2000. Internet traffic as a whole has probably multiplied more than tenfold since then.

          All beside the point, but I was thinking 2000 seemed more likely for the Times Crossword to go online.

        1. I can – in 1996 I was a postdoc in Canada and the Times Crossword was available online. We had a regular lunch group that gathered around to solve it from a printout. I think the pay service launched before I moved from that job, which was June 1997.
          1. In that case humble apologies to alanjc, maybe there is a 20th anniversary coming up too. Strange that those puzzles haven’t been made available, when they can pull ones out of the archive from a lot further back when they want to.
            1. Gratified to hear this; i thought my memory was beginning to even more tricks than usual when i found that the Times went online in March 1999. Seems odd that the xword should be available long before. The thinking behind this will probably never be revealed.
  8. I shan’t come – we don’t live in the UK and I should feel out of my depth. But I should be grateful if someone would kindly propose a vote of thanks to Peter. He was the first editor to step out of the shadows and put a name to his many and helpful comments and explanations on the Forum, and to point puzzled solvers towards Times for the Times, which wasn’t very widely known at the period
    1. May I second the vote of thanks.
      I would love to be at the party but I, too, live far away.
      Thank you so much to Peter and the team of bloggers for this wonderful site enjoyed by so many.
      Long may you explain, encourage and follow threads to wherever they may lead.
  9. Thanks for this post, Andy. As my moniker indicates, I live far from London and won’t be able to participate in celebrations, in person that is. In spirit, yes. I echo the salute to the estimable Peter B., and add my own for the current blogger-in-chief for supplying and organizing all this. Regards.
  10. Being thick here but ”no use’ seems to me to be superfluous in this clue. Can somebody explain?
      1. Right. well that IS good. it adds a whole other level to the clue, a sort of clue within a clue. What did Churchill say? Something about a riddle in a mystery in an enigma? Or shades of Hamlet or MND!
  12. Please count me in. Anyone know if ‘Noel’ is attending? I promised to stand a pint in recognition of the double pan/lipogram plus Nina.
  13. Like Olivia, Kevin, and I’m thinking Vinyl, I’m based in New York for a while. Perhaps we should organise a satellite celebration here.
    1. That’s an idea at that Paul. I’d be happy to host this at our place on E 68th St. on the 5th December if that would suit. No fireworks or bespoke crosswords but I can produce some eats if others would come up with some bevys. May I leave it to you to invite Vinyl (who lives a few blocks South of here I believe) and Kevin, who could if interested take the train down from Poughkeepsie?
      1. olivia, can you open me in your blocked messages? I have some long thoughts not appropriate for this post.
        2. Paul – I sent you a message with my email address through this system. If you don’t get it for some reason I know Andy has my email address and he certainly has my permission to give it to you.
  14. Sorry to remind Andy and then take ages to say anything. I should be at whatever pub is chosen for post-championship celebrations after emerging from the scoring room (presumably the George Inn), and 5 December is currently free.
    1. My plan is to make the arrangements for December, i.e. deciding on venue etc at those very same post-Championship celebrations, when a lot of people who’ll probably be going will be there.
  15. I have just installed IOS 9 and have found that the larger sized ‘keyboard’ obscures the boxes in which one fills in the letters for the answer…..is anyone else having the same problem, and will The Times be fixing this soon?
    1. I trust you got your answer from Richard Rogan on the Times Crossword Club forum? If that wasn’t you, or for anyone else interested…

      This is for IOS 9 on iPad:

      Go to: Settings > General > Keyboards – and then turn off Shortcuts.

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