Chambers Book of Azed Crosswords

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Macnutt’s own death – only mortality appears to stop crossword compilers – created another vacancy. There is an anxious and ongoing debate in crossword circles about how to attract women and younger people, although it does not as yet appear to have resulted in any great uptake from those constituencies. Wheen has been a guest speaker at one of the celebratory lunches that are held, usually at an Oxford college, every 250 puzzles, and which draw about 150 people. To prepare, he met up with a hardcore group of Azed-solvers, called the Groundlings, who meet regularly to discuss the crossword. These are the kinds of people who not only complete the formidable puzzles, but also enter Crowther’s clue-writing competitions. Some of them are themselves setters of other newspaper’s crosswords. Don Manley (2006) Chambers Crossword Manual (4th Ed) p. 208-216, "Azed's Clue-writing School", Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, ISBN 978-0-550-10220-1, ISBN 0-550-10220-5 Crowther met him at the Oxford literary festival some years ago, where Frayn was giving a talk. When Crowther introduced himself as Frayn was signing books, the author jumped to his feet, beaming with a big smile, and declared that Crowther was not at all how he had imagined him. Then turning to his wife and fellow author Claire Tomalin, he said: “Darling, this is the chap who you say ruins your Sundays.”

The Azed Slip presents all the VHC clues in full and adds the names of about fifty "Highly Commended" solvers whose clues did not quite make it to the VHCs. [1]. After the lists come Azed's comments, in which he may respond to reader comments, or reveal the problems that month's competitors experienced, often using anonymous unsound submissions to illustrate his points. [8] He also gives news of forthcoming cruciverbal events or publications, and deaths of long-standing competitors. Described in Chambers Crossword Manual as "Azed's Clue-writing School ", the slip has had a great influence on standards of cluemanship. [9] Annual champions [ edit ] Every year an "Honours List" is published showing the most consistent clue-writers over the course of the year. Each prize-winning clue earns its writer two points and each VHC clue one; clue-writers do not receive points for HC clues. Annual champions are entrusted with a silver salver for the length of their reign, before passing the trophy on to the next winner. Any competitor who has scored four points or more without receiving a prize gets a consolation prize. Currently, the Azed year commences in September and concludes in August.Crowther says that people send him their research on trying to program computers to write cryptic clues. “Without exception, they are pretty useless. There’s no real-world knowledge there. No humour and I think you have to have a sense of humour, otherwise it would be dreary.”

Azed is a crossword which appears every Sunday in The Observer newspaper. Since it first appeared in March 1972, every puzzle has been composed by Jonathan Crowther who also judges the monthly clue-writing competition. [1] The pseudonym Azed is a reversal of (Fray Diego de) Deza, a Spanish inquisitor general. This combines the inquisitorial tradition of Torquemada and Ximenes (the two previous composers of the "advanced" Observer crossword) with the wordplay element of a British cryptic crossword. It might be thought that crossword compiling is an obscure line of work. But the extraordinary recent success of Wordle shows that there is a widespread appetite for word puzzles. If that online test is at the easy end of the spectrum, at the other end is the mysterious and rather daunting world of cryptic crosswords. Even the names of the setters are intimidating. On no less than 2,594 occasions over the past five decades, Crowther has set the cryptic crossword that, among aficionados of the form, is recognised as the finest in the field. In 1991, he was voted “best British crossword setter” in a Sunday Times poll and the same year earned the title of “the crossword compilers’ crossword compiler” in the Observer Magazine’s Experts’ Expert feature. The late Colin Dexter, author of the Morse books, was another keen, and rather successful, crossword-solver, winning a number of competitions. He also became a good friend of Crowther’s. The journalist and writer Francis Wheen is yet another devotee. He says he came relatively late to the party, towards the end of the last century. Up until that point, he’d done the normal cryptic crosswords, but had thought of Azed as looking “a bit weird for the likes of me”.That’s not a word that anyone would use to describe Crowther’s work. Wheen speaks of “the consistent high standards of wit and elegance running through the entire oeuvre”, of a voice so distinctive that he feels he’s come to know the man through his clue-writing. Crowther himself demurs when I ask him what his own favourite is from the many thousands of clues he’s compiled down the years, preferring instead to praise the “staggering brilliance” of some of his readers in the competitions he runs.