Life is a bit chaotic at the moment, so this week's posting (and maybe next weeks, and ...) is on hold.

Just to let you know, in case you thought I'd suddenly kicked the bucket. (My father's side of the family have a terrible history of heart disease, but I'm keeping taking the tablets :-)

Current Location: Ealing
Current Mood: chaotic

I'm going to have to admit defeat as far as representing umlauts in German words is concerned, with RR and i_am_magoo both taking the opposite view (see this entry of a fortnight ago). The latter made the valid point that ignoring accents, including umlauts, in answers to clues makes for a simple rule, but I still find that it grates. So 1ac in last Monday's puzzle (No. 25,156) - "Force in a number of Germans is nothing to joke about (4,3,2)" (answer MAKE FUN OF) - got me off to a bad start since it relied on transliterating fünf (German for "five") as FUNF. "Funf" should be familiar to Brits of my age (and older) as the name of the German spy in ITMA, whose catch-phrase I've used as the title of this blog entry, so I'd have been happy to accept "Force in a German spy is nothing to joke about", but that would no doubt have baffled younger solvers.

If you're going to choose a name for a comic German spy, then Funf is at least as good as Fünf - probably better, given that the former is easier for native English speakers to pronounce and actually sounds funnier, to my ears at any rate. And in any case Funf dates from the war years, around the time Churchill wrote his famous St George's Day memo:

I do not consider that names that have been familiar for generations in England should be altered to study the whims of foreigners living in those parts.
...
Constantinople should never be abandoned, though for stupid people Istanbul may be written in brackets after it. As for Angora, long familiar with us through the Angora cats, I will resist to the utmost of my power its degradation to Ankara.
...
If we do not make a stand we shall in a few weeks be asked to call Leghorn Livorno, and the BBC will be pronouncing Paris "Paree". Foreign names were made for Englishmen, not Englishmen for foreign names.

With the exception of the BBC's pronunciation of Paris, every one of those battles has been lost. I expect we Brits will stick with that pronunciation for a good while yet, but I wonder whether Cologne and Munich (for example) will last another 50 years. And, if they don't, whether by that time KOELN and MUENCHEN (or even KÖLN and MÜNCHEN) will be the norm in the Times crossword.

Two interesting cases: Hansel and Gretel, and George Frideric Handel. Presumably "Hänsel" became "Hansel" when Grimms' Fairy Tales were first translated into English in the early 19th century. I have to confess that I only realised that Germans spell him with an umlaut when I came to look more closely at Humperdinck's opera. The composer whom Germans know as Georg Friedrich Händel seems to have been quite happy to change his name to George Frideric Handel when he moved to England, and is still usually known to us by this name (or George Frederick Handel). Perhaps the pronunciation of "Handel" in those days was not too unlike the German pronunciation of "Händel". (Think of pronouncing "Handel" using the RP of just 50 years ago. I also find it interesting that his DNB entry states that "in Italy he mainly used the form G. F. Hendel".) For that reason, I imagine we'll stick with HANDEL. However, Richard Browne remembers talking to a German music lecturer settled in England, who said that whenever he saw a concert bill with the name HANDEL on it, he was tempted to take out his magic marker and add in the two little dots; "and sometimes, I do!"

Current Location: Ealing
Current Mood: resigned

The clue "Indian guy went up and stripped oaks (6)" appeared as 39dn in Listener Crossword No. 4184, "Claim" by Raich, a few weeks ago. I didn't solve clue this straight away, but by the time I had a few checked letters in place, it looked (from the wordplay) as if the answer was going to be DEEPAK: PEED = "went" was familiar enough, and surely "stripped oaks" had to be AK. But what about DEEPAK = "Indian guy"? The main body of Chambers (2011) failed to reveal anything, and (as jerrywh commented when I wrote about the this latest edition here) the Some first names appendix has been deleted, so there was no point looking for it there.

However, a quick check in that appendix in my old copy of Chambers (2003), which I still haven't thrown out (the heavy black tape holding it together make it unlikely to be of much value to Oxfam), threw up "Dipak, Deepak ... (Sans) little lamp, or lamp-like ...", so DEEPAK clearly had to be the right answer. I expect those more multiculturally savvy than I am will be familiar with this name, but (despite living in Ealing) I don't recall coming across it before. (Aha! Google reveals that Deepak Parashar made a "guest Bollywood appearance" at the London Sharad Utsav 2011, held at Ealing Town Hall from 1-4 October last year. Damn! Missed him.)

Clearly googling "Deepak" or searching for the name in wikipedia was easy enough for those with access to the World Wide Web, but somehow I'd have expected the preamble to "Claim" to have owned up to the fact that the answer to 39dn was not to be found in the Listener Crossword's "primary reference", which since the start of this year has been the 2011 edition of Chambers. Given the continually changing fashions in forenames, I suppose the dictionary's editor might have decided that it was too much effort to keep the appendix up to date. A comparison of names beginning with D in

THE MORE COMMON ENGLISH CHRISTIAN NAMES,
WITH THEIR ORIGIN AND MEANING.
See especially Miss Yonge's History of Christian Names (2 vols. 1863).

in the original edition reveals that (between 1901 and 2003) Darius, Davida (and Vida), Demetrius, Dionysius, Dorcas and Drusilla have been axed to make way for Dafydd, Dai, Daisy, Damian (and Damien and Damon), Dana, Daniel(l)a, Danielle, Daphne, Darren, Davie, Davina, Dawn, ...

And that's just the the ones beginning with "Da". Could Chambers be persuaded to restore this appendix? There'd be room for it (and some other lost appendices) if they removed the otiose new central pages. Its removal presumably means that clues which use meanings of names as their definitions - allowing DEEPAK to be clued as, for example, "Keep a death's-head adapted as a lamp (6)" - are no longer permitted. This seems rather a shame since I've found it an interesting new convention. (Or rather not so new by now. Can anyone remember when it first appeared?) Anyway if forenames are still regarded as fair game, I'm going to hold on to the 2003 edition of Chambers at least for the moment.

Current Location: Ealing
Current Mood: nostalgic

The clue for 5dn in Monday's Times Crossword (No. 25,144) was "Hero's lover moving East into German parts (7)". This looked straightforward: Hero's lover would be LEANDER, and moving the E (for East) would turn it into LAENDER, which is how Länder (the plural of the German word Land, defined in Chambers (2011) as "a state or province in Germany or Austria functioning as a unit of local government") is represented when umlauted characters are not available. So I bunged in LAENDER and moved swiftly on, while at the same time mentally congratulating the setter on knowing enough German to use this form of the word - though I now note that it's there in Chambers for all to see.

The clue for 11ac was "Stone thrown into a bar in St. James, for example (7)", and the first E from LAENDER gave me the initial E in E‑‑‑T‑E. EPISTLE looked a faint possibility (with St James as recipient?), but I couldn't make anything of EPILE. And then the horrible truth dawned: the answer to 11ac had to be APOSTLE, and the answer to 5dn therefore had to be LEANDER. So my mental congratulations turned to execrations, as the use of "into" (rather than "within", say) in the clue made it clear that the setter had represented Länder by LANDER.

Of course I'm experienced enough to know the convention by which accents in answers to clues in English crosswords are simply ignored. However, I take the view that this is a naff convention when it comes to representing German characters with umlauts. There is a well-established, simple rule for doing so (Ä -> AE, Ö -> OE, Ü -> UE) so why not use it? Failing to do so simply makes the setter (and the editor) seem ignorant. Unfortunately, things actually seem to be moving in the wrong direction, since in Times Crossword No. 23,784 (14 December 2007) we had "Composer - one shaped by school pupil of his (10)" = SCHOENBERG, but in No. 24,810 (30 March 2011) we had "Timeless song Brecht translated for composer (9)" = SCHONBERG, an offensively ignorant clue given that Arnold Schönberg had the good sense to spell his name SCHOENBERG when he moved to America.

I doubt whether what I've written will have any effect. However, should the current (or some future) Times crossword editor eventually decide to follow my suggestion, I will issue some words of warning: do not try the same thing with the Finnish characters Ä and Ö. These are distinct characters from A and O, and have their own separate place at the end of the Finnish alphabet. Even representing them by A and O would probably seem nonsensical to a native Finn, but representing them by AE and OE would be nonsense on stilts.

Current Location: Ealing
Current Mood: grumpy

The Times crossword for the Friday before last (No. 25,136) polarised opinion among those who commented on the Times for the Times blog. Despite feeling tired (which accounted for my rather slow time) I enjoyed this puzzle very much: it contained some delightfully quirky humour, and - with perhaps one exception - the references were all ones I thought Times readers should be expected to know. So I was anticipating a mild complaint from those who didn't fully understand "Rackstraw for one can't put name to lake (3)" = TAR; but I felt that this was satisfactorily balanced by "Save worker catching bus (7)" = HUSBAND, where solvers were expected to be familiar enough with modern technology to know that USB stands for "Universal Serial Bus".

The Times for the Times blogger for the day presented a very fair assessment of the puzzle, though he did take exception to one clue, "Bertie's fabulous wine (6)", which I'd thought reasonable, if only because I'd solved it quite quickly myself. I came to this with A‑‑‑C‑ in place; thought of ACE = "fabulous", which would give A‑‑ACE; thought of ALSACE, which seemed (despite my general ignorance of food and drink) a plausible type of wine (being in France and all that); spotted AL = Albert = "Bertie" (I'd seen this used in a crossword before); bunged in ALSACE and (having used up perhaps 5 or 10 seconds at most) moved swiftly on to the next clue. But then I'm a very experienced solver, so I could imagine that less experienced solvers might have had difficulty with it.

The day's blogger also singled out "My confession of being worse liar? It shows class, naturally (8)" = AMPHIBIA as "great fun or an absolutely bloody awful clue depending on your POV". Being firmly in the "great fun" camp, I was amazed that people might have found this "bloody awful", but the blogger was right and I was wrong. I have to confess that I didn't solve this one until I had A‑P‑I‑I‑ in place, though I'd parsed the clue more or less correctly straight away and it was only tiredness that stopped me from twigging it sooner. I'm experienced enough to have anticipated that "My confession" could indicate "sounds like" as well as an answer starting with IM or IAM or AM; "class, naturally" is a clever definition; and PHIBIA (sounds like "fibbier") is a delightful idea.

So at least I'd been warned, but I wasn't prepared for the bile that poured from the keyboards of some commenters. Things started badly with the very first commenter writing: "I thought AMPHIBIA, CHIP AND PIN and ALSACE were all pants, in descending order of pantsness." Chambers (2011) defines "pants" as "(sl) nonsense; rubbish; anything considered worthless", so describing these clues as "pants" is verging on the intemperate. And in any case the only thing wrong with "Two golf terms associated with one's card (4,3,3)" = CHIP AND PIN is that it might be unfamiliar to people (like the commenter) not resident in the UK. But at least this was just one solver's opinion.

However, it was echoed later by a regular correspondent:

What a rubbish offering - I want my money back. Well blogged Jack.

The tripe has already been highlighted with 11A [AMPHIBIA] and 22A [ALSACE] leading the parade of junk. So bad they nearly leave me speechless. And why should I know about some invented sailor called Rackstraw?

This was not just verging on the intemperate: apart from "Well blogged Jack" (which I entirely agreed with), this was (as a later correspondent rightly put it) "out of place and unhelpful". Fortunately at least some other solvers were familiar with HMS Pinafore (rather different from Patrick O'Brian, but nevertheless something that amuses this inhabitant of a maritime nation :-), but at least those allergic to G&S would have found the wordplay unambiguous. And I'm relieved to report that I wasn't the only solver to have enjoyed this puzzle.

When I first read dissenters' comments, I'd assumed that they were objecting because this puzzle departed too far from Ximenean purity. However, looking back over the clues again, I suspect the only one out of the 32 that Ximenes might perhaps have taken exception to is the one for ALSACE, and even then I'm not at all certain that he really would have objected to it. I think he'd have been amused by the clue for AMPHIBIA, and that he'd have been quite happy with the clue for TAR. I should perhaps add that I write as someone who's solved a fair number of Ximenes's puzzles, and read Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword (I rushed out and bought a copy when it was first published in 1966, and have it in front of me now), and studied several of the comment slips he sent out after his monthly clue-writing competitions.

Current Location: Ealing
Current Mood: experienced

... later than usual at any rate.

In fact it's now going to have to wait until next Sunday, as this week is already proving "interesting". But at least the new laptop is working well. (Touch wood!)

I've been having fun setting up my nice new Fujitsu Lifebook A531 these past few days, with the move from Windows XP to Windows 7 as part of the fun. (Whad'ya mean, Windows 7 doesn't support my trusty old Thomson Speedtouch 330 modem?) It's going pretty well by now, with all the basics in place, including the ability to play all manner of stuff via an HDMI link to my (not-so-smart) TV, including some DVDs which had previously proved intractable. However, I was so caught up that I forgot to copy the clues from Friday's Times cryptic (No. 25136) (and paste them into a text file where I can grep them for future reference). So, since that's the one I want to write about, I'm going to have to wait until they become available with the solution tomorrow.

Sorry.

Footnote
While considering how I was going to partition my ginormous hard disk, I discovered that I can use Virtual Box to run Linux. Having tried to set up a dual boot system with Windows ME, and failed miserably (Windows ME didn't take kindly to the idea and I ended up having to reinstall it), I feel that perhaps the time has come to lay this particular ghost. I've loved UNIX ever since I first started using it (I still have my old copy of Kernighan and Pike's The UNIX Programming Environment dated 1984 :-), and had some brief skirmishes with Linux in the latter part of my career (our Finnish colleagues used to use it on their machines, which they named after characters (or, in the case of "sampo", objects) from the Kalevala). But the question is: which Linux? There seem to be so many of them these days! Any thoughts, anyone? (Andy?)

(How long will it be before UBUNTU makes an appearance in the Times crossword? :-)

Current Location: Ealing
Current Mood: apologetic

I've commented in the past that I rarely find Times crosswords dull, but every now and then I come across one that seems to me to be a really quite outstanding example of the setter's art. Jumbo 971 (published a couple of weeks ago in the Saturday Review section of the 24 March edition of The Times) was one such. Clearly judgments like this are very much a matter of personal taste, so I was pleased to see that the Times for the Times blogger who covered it described it as "a real corker". I'm not going to describe individual clues here since that would spoil the pleasure of the many potential penny-drop moments for those who haven't yet tackled it - and if the penny resolutely refuses to drop, you can always consult the Times for the Times blog (but see the footnote below).

Perhaps I should spoken earlier, but I'm generally a little reluctant to comment on prize puzzles before their solutions have been published. If you haven't yet attempted it and you belong to the Times Crossword Club, then I assume it will be readily available to you, otherwise you may have to search back through old copies of the Times, or even take a trip to your local public library - however, I think you'd find it worth the trouble. I enjoyed it while I was solving it, but I enjoyed it even more after I'd finished it and was checking through the clues to see that I'd really understood them, since it was only then that I had time to savour some of the finer points.

Sadly, I don't know who the setter is. Richard Rogan (whom I've known since the days when we used to compete together in the Times Crossword Championship) is a possibility, but there have been other first-class puzzles which he's admitted weren't his, so there must be at least one other contender. (If you're reading this and it's you, but you feel that the anonymity imposed on Times crossword setters prevents you from owning up here and now, just tap me on the shoulder when we next meet and I'll be delighted to buy you a drink.)

Footnote
The Times for the Times blogger and I differed in our interpretations of one of the clues. I wasn't convinced by his, but I'm worried that mine rests on what seems to me a rather eccentric definition in the Sykes edition of the COD. (If I remember, I'll check whether this has changed in the latest edition, but my guess is that it almost certainly will have.) I'm pretty sure I've seen this particular definition used in the same way to justify some past Times crossword clue, but I can't find any evidence from the last few years. In fact 13ac in No. 24,966 (as blogged here) relies on the exact opposite definition, which I would regard as the normal one.

Current Location: Ealing
Current Mood: jubilant

I rarely do the daily Guardian crossword - usually only when someone tells me it's a particularly interesting one. However, I almost always have a go at the Guardian Genius crossword, which is published at (or shortly after) 12:00 a.m. on the first Monday of the month. In the days when I took part in the Times Crossword Club's former (and much missed) Race the Clock competition, which was the original inspiration for this blog, I usually competed very late in the day, though I used to record the first 10 solvers to finish each day, and I published aggregate weekly and monthly results. With the Guardian Genius puzzle, I try to solve the puzzle as soon as it appears, and like to see if I can be first to submit a correct solution.

On the whole I've been reasonably successful at this, though of course it helps that I'm retired and no longer have to get up early on Monday morning to go to work - I imagine the midnight start eliminates most of the potentially serious opposition. Last year there was only one puzzle that I had to abandon before retiring for the night, and that was June's (No. 96, set by Araucaria), a Printer's Devilry, but with the added twist that five letters in the clues (all first or last letters of a word) were misprinted. I found this a bit of a stinker, and after about three-quarters of an hour I could see that I was still some way from finishing and had to admit defeat - which was just as well as it took me a good while to finish off when I came back to it later.

Perhaps solving late at night dulls my brain, but I always seem to make ridiculously heavy weather of one or two clues (and/or of spotting the theme) and so never post the times that I feel I ought to. Last month's puzzle (No. 105, set by Crucible) was no exception. The theme wasn't a problem since it was presented in the preamble:

Seventeen clues lack a definition and lead to a partner in a well-known pairing. The required grid entry, however, is the other partner in the pairing. With these clues the letter count indicates the solution to the clue, not the word to be entered in the grid.

And indeed some of the pairings could be spotted very quickly, for example: "Writing about first zoo (5)" with a 7-letter light (select between the square brackets for the answer [MARKS and SPENCER]). However, I struggled with "Reaver or benefactor in Nottingham originally (5)" which had a 6-letter light. The answer to the clue was pretty obviously [ROBIN], but with ‑A‑‑‑N in place I confidently bunged in MARIAN as the other member of the pair, and it took me ages to spot that [BATMAN] was what was expected.

Even worse was the clue "Nice setter leaves (4)" with a 4-letter light, making it impossible to deduce from the lengths whether this was a normal or a thematic clue. After solving the rest of the puzzle, I finally established that this must be thematic; and, with M‑T‑ in place, came to the conclusion that the pairing must be MOTE and BEAM (as in the Sermon on the Mount - see Matthew 7:1-5) and then spent simply ages trying to work out why. In the past, I've lost time by being perhaps overly cautious in checking that I really had the right solution instead of just going with my first thoughts, which eventually (perhaps after much deliberation) turned out to be right all along. So I was sorely tempted to bung in MOTE and submit my solution, particularly as I'd already lost time at the start (see below). But I couldn't bear to do that, which is as well because I did eventually work out that the correct answer was [MUTT and JEFF].

I made a particularly bad start last month, since my ISP (which had been behaving better in recent months) went off the air at around 11:30 p.m. on Sunday evening and didn't return again until around 12:15 a.m. I often seem to have difficulty bringing up the new month's puzzle (presumably something to do with caching) so I lost a couple more minutes as I wrestled with IE (the recommended browser when it comes to actually submitting). However, things could be even worse this month since the Guardian website uses GMT for the start and end times of its Genius puzzle; and since the clocks have just gone forward, I'll have to wait until 1:00 a.m. BST before I can even begin. I may be in for a late night!

Footnote
If anyone wants an explanation or discussion of the clue "Nice setter leaves (4)", just add a comment and I'll reply. I suspect that this might pass muster as wordplay in a daily Guardian puzzle, but perhaps not in a daily Times puzzle.

One of the regular Times for the Times bloggers entitled his entry for last Wednesday's crossword: "Times 25,115 - A Daily Telegraph Puzzle". I think he simply meant to imply that he'd found it easy (perhaps rather too easy for his taste), but if we're playing "word associations" then the word that I immediately associate with The Daily Telegraph (the newspaper, that is, rather than the crossword specifically) is "boring". This could well be grossly unfair as I can't have done more than glimpse at a Telegraph in the last 50 years (I switched to The Guardian when The Times was out of action in the early 1980s). I tried a few Telegraph puzzles when I was investigating what it was like to solve them online, but was so put off by the experience (as reported here) that I didn't really notice the crosswords themselves - the obvious conclusion being that they weren't particularly interesting.

Whatever. I've no objection to easy crosswords per se, particularly when they're as elegantly clued as last Wednesday's Times puzzle. The first across clue set the standard: "Son on plane tucked into extra snack (9)" (select between the square brackets for the answer [ELEVENSES]). This is a neatly constructed clue with a good surface reading. It may be easy (though I have to admit that I didn't solve it first time through), but I certainly wouldn't call it boring. There were easier clues (or ones I found easier - these things are highly subjective), but all of them had a certain charm; and, even though I was tired after a busy day, I enjoyed this puzzle very much. I get the impression that some Times for the Times bloggers / commenters equate "easy" with "boring" - but I don't.

This could be where competitive solvers like me have an advantage over more casual solvers. If a puzzle is easy and I solve it in a satisfyingly fast time, then I'm happy; if a puzzle is difficult enough to present an interesting challenge, then I'm happy. But I also think it makes sense for The Times to offer a wide range of crosswords from the very easy to the quite difficult: less experienced solvers need to be rewarded occasionally with a puzzle they can crack in under half an hour. And I'm aware that clues which old hands like me can solve at sight (perhaps having come across something similar in the past) will often appear fresh and original to the newcomer.

Current Location: Ealing
Current Mood: easily pleased

Last Saturday's Times crossword (No. 25,107) contained the clue "Question given to a sailor: who won the cup in 2010? (5)" (answer QATAR). Although the wordplay (and the checked letters Q‑T‑R) made the answer easily guessable, it would seem from comments on the Times for the Times blog that not everyone understood which cup Qatar had won in 2010, and I have to admit to being slightly surprised that I knew the reference myself. However, despite not following sport in general, or soccer in particular, in any serious way, I did vaguely recall that the events surrounding Qatar's bid to host the 2022 World Cup caused a certain amount of kerfuffle when it was announced in December 2010 that Qatar had won.

This followed the clue "Criminal speller initially, one unable to spell right (8)" (answer SMUGGLER) in No. 25,105 a couple of days earlier. Most Times for the Times commenters, even those who hadn't read the books or seen the films, were aware of the word "muggle", defined in the (online) OED as:

In the fiction of J. K. Rowling: a person who possesses no magical powers. Hence in allusive and extended uses: a person who lacks a particular skill or skills, or who is regarded as inferior in some way.

Although this word hasn't yet made it into Chambers (2011), I'm surprised that there were solvers who hadn't come across it before, since I'd have thought it would have been hard to avoid in the last 15 years.

Perhaps I have a slight advantage, since I do buy a copy of The Times once a week - on Saturday - and actually read some of it as well as doing the five crosswords (15x15, T2, Jumbo, Jumbo T2 and Listener - since there's only one Jumbo grid, I wait until the solution to the cryptic Jumbo has been published so that I can check my pencilled-in answers before overwriting them in ink with the answers to the T2 Jumbo). I like to think that this, together with listening to / watching BBC news headlines, keeps me at least a little aware of what's going on in the world; and I'm also aware that it introduces me to words I haven't come across before, particularly in the writings of Giles Coren and Caitlin Moran, both of whom often include modernisms in their columns. I'm pretty sure that the former has used the word "muggle" occasionally, and that it's cropped up fairly regularly in other parts of The Times. For example, looking through yesterday's paper, I see that in Jane Knight's article A close look could break the spell in the Weekend Travel section we have: "Call me a muggle (not magical) but I'll never see the films in the same light again."

For my part, I'm entirely happy to see new words or references to recent events appearing the Times crossword. The new (or newish - new to me, anyway) words that I tend to have most trouble with are ones relating to food, an area where I seem to be significantly more ignorant than most other solvers - though here again, I think regular reading of Giles Coren's restaurant reviews may be starting to improve things - but I certainly wouldn't want them excluded just because I don't eat out enough. There are some who feel that the Times crossword should avoid anything too new, following the same principle that dictates that the names of living people should normally be excluded. However, as I understand it, the reason for this rule is to avoid the risk of (even inadvertently) dissing someone who might take umbrage and sue. I've a vague feeling that this actually happened sometime in the past, but I can't quote chapter and verse. I can, however, state categorically that it wasn't the classic: 'I can be represented by the phrase "I'm an evil tory bigot" (8,9)'. I imagine this will be familiar to most older Brits, but anyone who hasn't come across it before will find the answer here.

Current Location: Ealing
Current Mood: up to date