Crossword games

I am so pleased I found Times for the Times
This nice, unfussy site just gives the solutions & explains how (or why) the clue is a clue. At first these clarifications were just as likely to make my lip curl as not, but then the magic word was mentioned.

Pangram.  Someone likes playing (undeclared) games with us.

I would never have noticed. Never expected them, and my habit of not filling in the unchecked lights would have done nothing to alert me.

I don’t really like these games-for-the-sake-of-games, like writing novels without the letter e – you admire the effort & ingenuity, but the result is not especially satisfying to the reader. With crosswords it can lead to obscure words & tortured clues.

But I noticed the first pangram for myself the other day, & it certainly helped to realise that the remaining clues must contain within them somewhere the letters j, x and v. Job done

But if they are going to do this then the editor ought, as a matter of routine, to include a line of alphabet above or below the grid to save the solver the chore of writing it out for themselves – after all they do something of the sort for codeword solvers.

And the whole business has sparked an idea for the sort of investigation that might while away a wet Sunday afternoon in winter: compare & contrast the frequency distribution of letters in the cryptic crossword solutions with that in ordinary English

Link
Times for The Times
Center for Book Arts
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