Puzzling

On Friday 18 May, I was interview by Russell Woolf on his Drive program, on 720 ABC Radio Perth. It was the first time I've been interviewed about my work, so was rather exciting (and only a bit nerve-wracking!). I have just got a copy of the interview, and you can listen to it too via my website. It's only about 8 minutes long. I hope you enjoy it! I've had a lovely holiday at Jervis Bay with my husband; we even found heaps of fossils at the beach, which was very exciting! These are just a couple of examples. This week I've started a copyediting job for a federal government department, just for one month; so if I'm a little absent over June, this is why. I will do my best to keep up with the cryptic crossword lessons as time permits.

I'm on holidays at the moment, hence the hiatus ... But as I sit here knitting by the fire at the delightful Huskisson B&B , I've remembered my 1 Across Beanie. It is a crossword beanie pattern I designed, which is published on the free online knitting magazine, Knitty. So, if it's heading into winter where you live, as it is here in Australia, and you're a knitter, you might like to give it a whirl! There are a couple of design variations, and you can choose an American style crossword grid, or a British style grid. My gorgeous daughter Jen is the model ... And yes, she's wearing a wig ;)   1 Across on Knitty.com 1 Across on Ravelry The Ravelry page has a smaller size variation, as the original design is rather large.

There's an interesting story going around at the moment, about a Venezuelan crossword setter who has been accused of hiding an assassination plot again President Chavez's brother Adan, within the text of one of his crosswords. Here's the grid with the supposed hidden messages. There are seven words highlighted in the grid ... who has highlighted these, and who decided these particular words were suspect, isn't revealed. Photograph: Sky News (As an aside, it's interesting to see how the grid has been designed, it's got almost 100% checked (overlapping) letters, like an American crossword, but the grid isn't symmetrical, and there are 2-letter words. The word positions are indicated with coordinates rather than clue numbers in the grid, as we use. The clues are also much more wordy, and they're called Horizontals and Verticals , rather than Across and Down .) Neptalí Segovia is the hapless setter, who was 'brought to the authorities' at...

Here's the full cover for Cryptic Crosswords For Dummies ! The book went to print yesterday, huzzah! If you click on the image above, you can see it at a better size ... This book is a companion volume to Solving Cryptic Crosswords For Dummies , which is the in-depth how-to guide. This book has a little basic info on cryptics, but is mainly a collection of 56 new cryptic crosswords, for you to have a go at. There are 25 Easy cryptics, 18 Medium ones, and 13 Hard crosswords. I was all set to do my weekly analysis of The Canberra Times Gemini Cryptic last weekend, using the Saturday paper. But then I noticed that the paper runs a competition about the Saturday crossword (you can tell I'm not a regular reader!), and I'm sure they would not have been impressed if I'd done a 'full reveal' on all the clues, before the closing date for the competition, LOL! So I decided on discretion over valour, and let it slide. In some rather exciting news, I am going to ...

The next clue device we're going to cover is the charade clue. What on earth?!, you ask, and with good cause! Well, you know the parlour game of charades (not that we actually play them any more!)? People guess the name of a book, or a movie, or whatever, and you act out the name in pieces, possibly syllable by syllable, or word by word? Well, these cryptic clues are sort of the same, in that you string together the components of the clue, one after the other, in order. So, for example, the word WHEEL could be clued as W + HEEL. That's a charade, one bit after the other, in order. A few more examples: SLIGHT = S + LIGHT, MANDRAKE = MAN + DRAKE, and GOSLING = GO + SLING. This is a very common cryptic device, and you will come across charade clues in every cryptic crossword. s you can see, it's quite common to need to clue a single letter (such as the W in W+HEEL), so abbreviations are widely used in charade clues. Charades can also be used in conjunction with other devic...

I'm allowed to show you the cover of Solving Cryptic Crosswords For Dummies ! I'm very pleased with this cover, as they've included a photo of mine! I laid out one of the crosswords from the book in Illustrator, and made it look like it's from a newspaper. Then I printed it out, filled in some of the answers, and set up the shot. I removed the Staedtler branding from the pencil in Photoshop ... This book is the 'how to' book on cryptics — there is a whole chapter, with a mini 'tutorial crossword', for each clue device. There are 16 full crosswords to solve (mostly easy ones), info on the history of cryptics, and cryptics around the world, a bunch of reference lists, and lots of hints to help you on your way. It's 200 pages long, and will retail for $19.95 in Australia. It will be available in other countries (New Zealand, UK, USA/Canada etc) too. The Wiley listing is up too, so you can read more about it here .

This is my explanations for the clues for the Gemini Cryptic Crossword from The Canberra Times , on Friday 4 May 2012. Definitions are underlined (apart from in &lit, double and cryptic definition clues). ACROSS 1.   Strip a firearm? = RIFLE A double definition clue, the two definitions are strip and a firearm . 4. One hears it being broken = SILENCE Cryptic definition ... if you break the silence, it involves making noise! 8. Give vent to a song = AIR Another double definition clue, give vent to is the first definition, a song is the second. 9. They supervise — prophets? = OVERSEERS Cryptic definition, seers being prophets ... 10. French arrogance = HAUTEUR The origin of this word that we use for arrogance is French , from their word for "height". Don't know that this is really a cryptic clue, maybe cryptic definition? 11. Pious — nothing short of goodly = GODLY Nothing (abbrv = O) short of (deletion) from goodly 13. He 's not ...