Puzzling

Today's the day!   One hundred years ago, on 21 December 1913, Arthur Wynne published the first crossword ( you can try solving it here !). He called it 'Wordcross' ... But a few weeks later, a typesetter made a mistake and wrote Crossword ... And we've called them that ever since! This puzzle has grown in that time to be one of the most popular puzzles around, worldwide. To celebrate this special occasion, Google and famous American setter Merle Reagle got together and created this interactive crossword .  And from me, here is a new cryptic clue competition for you all to enter! Rule Thingies 1) Write an anagram clue for the word CENTENNIAL . Your clue has to contain a definition for CENTENNIAL, an anagram indictor, and the anagram fodder (an exact anagram of CENTENNIAL). See below for more information. 2) Submit your clue as a comment on this post. Please sign your clue with your first name or alias (especially important for those of you posting A...

If you live in Australia, you may have noticed a bit of a media flurry in the last week about the message MURDOCH IS EVIL running backwards through a word search puzzle for kids. It appeared in the Sunday Telegraph  — a Murdoch-owned paper! Oh my! Image source: Gawker.com This caused rather a storm on Twitter  and online. So — this is the big question : is this one of those accidentally created messages, like the faux pas we saw with the Woolies word search a few months ago ? The short answer: NO. The long answer: This hidden message was put there intentionally by the setter (and personally, I'd give them a medal). Yes, it's possible for words to be accidentally created in any grid of random letters — but these are almost exclusively 3, 4, and 5 letter words (and the 5 letter words are rare, at that). This is why swear words — those infamously 'four letter words' – can easily be accidentally created in a word search grid. For a short phrase like MURDO...

A new set of cryptic clues for you to try out. Dithering about narration topics (15) Wound’s nasty to the German editor (9) Frond cut short for meadow (3) Shallots regularly stuffed with seasoning (4) One who escapes north in ripped brocades (9) Let me know if you got them!