Shall we just go with “life got in the way?” Leaving one job, starting another, fighting and mending fences with two old friends and finishing the final draft of On Crosswords are just the things I can talk about. So let’s catch up before Income Tax Day slips out of our memories completely:
Alex and Tyler are at it again. Will a normal BEQ puzzle turned diagramless be Tyler’s downfall? (No.)
Tweets of the week: Francis Heaney, Rex Parker.
App of the week: Crossword Scrambles HD. Slapp of the week: Stand Alone’s Crosswords. Check out the reviews before you buy its latest iteration.
Jeanne Godard re-imagines crosswords, among other things, as dance. (News writeup here.)
The sneaky thrill of Yahoo’s puzzle format.
Will Shortz is honing internationally competitive table tennis players.
Another study, or review of 40 years of studies, calls crosswords, Sudoku and such the chief weapon against dementia. Alert readers may remember we’ve been down this road before, with exercise and advanced tech also touted as the solutions. The Nursing Times sifts through the data carefully and finds it valuable with qualifiers, whereas The Express turns it into an opportunity to plug its own puzzle section: “We’d advise everybody to just give it a go and see if it works for them!” After all, if it doesn’t, it’s not like you’ll remember to complain about it!
In local news: The Canton Crossword Puzzle Tournament. And if you live in Pictou County, this crossword could win you a car.
Try solving another cryptic clue Jeeves couldn’t. Or compose one for STATE FUNERAL or the late Ms. Thatcher.
Sure, this doesn’t sound suspiciously vague or anything.
Finally, you may know that beloved BBC detective Inspector Morse loves crosswords, but did you know that he and his faithful bagman are actually named for constructors?
Don’t forget Woot’s Crapword puzzle. Though some of the fill was rather horrendous (OSLI, TNRM, FAVI, OF LOT, LLU, ALL PB, OF ME, YMSB, etc.). But ELF CO was cute.
I still like the Crosswords app, but, yes, it’s had a lot of problems lately. It was really messed up a couple of weeks ago. Mostly now it sometimes stays in one square when you type instead of advancing with each letter, which is extremely odd. But at least it’s not losing puzzle progress like it had been. :-(
Just watched the Tyler/Alex face-off, then went back to watch last week’s for the first time. Enjoyable, and reminding me strongly of Lars von Trier’s collaboration/confrontation with his hero, the elder Danish director Jørgen Leth, The Five Obstructions. I recommend it highly.