Australian Crosswords

A couple of people speculated as to the reason for the recent Alphabetical/Alphanumeric interlude in the Stickler Weekly series. It wasn’t paid work, unfortunately, but it was R & R of sorts – a few weeks on the north coast of NSW, an area that my wife and I might retire to in coming years. As a professional crossword and word puzzle setter, time away from home presents a number of significant problems. In the Stickler era, where I was writing all kinds of puzzles full-time, there were four weekly deadlines with different papers, six monthly ones for magazines and websites, and various other ones associated (at different times) with puzzle magazines. In order to get away for any length of time a great deal of pre-planning was required, including building up stock of various puzzles to cover the non-working time. In the case of the Stickler, I tried to stay about 6 weeks ahead to allow for holidays and sickness, but given notice of time off I would attempt to crank up my stockpiling so as to never be too low on puzzles. This meant writing 13 Sticklers every two weeks (12 for regular publication and one extra) – a three-week break (the most I ever took while writing The Stickler) required the creation of an extra 18 puzzles to keep the stock levels the same, a task that would take me up to 6 months to complete.
These days things are much easier, of course, but planning is still very important to ensure a trouble-free time away. Not only should everything needed for publication be sent before the time away, but I have to carry a laptop that is loaded with everything needed to fix a problem or create a puzzle just in case something goes wrong. I even cut a DVD loaded with all my crossword software, dictionaries and puzzle files just in case of laptop failure and the need to buy a new laptop and reload it. Internet connection and email are essential – I can’t afford to let publications down in the situation I’m in. (In one case involving magazine puzzles, a deadline was brought forward while I was on holiday due to a failure on the part of the people I was working with to realise that the printing house in Asia shut down for Chinese New Year.) I’ve now added website duties to my list of things that could need attention while away, so I’m prepared for that and a modernish phone keeps me up-to-date with emails and gives me the ability to do limited things on the move.
Such is the life of a crossword setter.

A couple of weeks ago someone asked me about the number of women involved in writing cryptic crosswords. I know for a long time in crossword history the identities of setters were largely unknown, so the role of women may never really be properly documented during this time. Things are different now as the internet has exposed just about everyone involved, even the anonymous Times setters can be found on bestforpuzzles.com (see below), even if they aren’t directly identified in the paper. I think more women have become cryptic crossword setters over the last 20 years as diversity and variety have demanded women’s views be included in the personalities of cryptic crosswords. That’s not to say women haven’t been writing cryptics – the SMH, in the time that I’ve been setting, has always had at least two women (currently RM & NS) in the weekly roster, and there’s no doubt they contribute something different to their male counterparts.
One of the ACC’s long-time daughters, Shirl O’Brien, was the first Australian of any sex to be a regular on any of the major UK newspaper crossword rosters. She compiled cryptics for the Courier Mail in Brisbane for 23 years, and her success there led to the limelight of The Guardian in the UK. Shirl encouraged me to submit some puzzles the The Guardian‘s crossword editor, Prof Hugh Stephenson, which I duly did, but his emphasis on diversity was a stumbling block for me. Effectively he told me he was looking for more women in the roster, showing that he believed women set cryptics differently.
This page on bestforpuzzles.com gives you a starting point to find out about all the setters in the major UK papers. Glancing through, there’s no doubt that men dominate the list, however women are represented across the board. The most prominent lady setter is probably Sarah Hayes who is a crossword setter in The Guardian (as Arachne), in The Independent (as Anarche), in the Financial Times (as Rosa Klebb), and in The Times. She once wrote a brilliant clue for MASTITIS, (I did a spiel on it), and I believe only a woman could write such a clue without objection from anyone, perhaps highlighting one of the reasons why lady setters are so highly prized on the world’s crossword-writing rosters.

I was asked by Richard how long I spend each week on giving you The Stickler Weekly. The Stickler Weekly and associated website activities have 5 components:
1. Writing of The Stickler Weekly
2. Compilation of The Stickler Weekly solution files
3. Writing of the cryptic spiel that accompanies the solution
4. Writing the clue hints
5. Website maintenance and email/post responses
The Stickler Weekly takes me the best part of a day to set from scratch, with much more refinement necessary than for The Stickler in the Daily Telegraph. I consider The Stickler Weekly to be a level above the old Stickler as it can last a week for solvers, and the international aspect that I want to promote requires me to be more particular than for a normal Australian cryptic.
The Stickler Weekly solution files have two parts – the PDF that is created in Microsoft word originally and the HTML that is needed to display the same thing on the website. I’ve developed processes to streamline the production of these, so they only take me an hour or so to put together.
The cryptic spiel doesn’t take long once I’ve decided what I’m going to write about. That’s definitely the hard (and time-consuming) bit, as it obviously gets harder each week to come up with something. I’m always happy to answer questions that arise from website postings and issues that come out of the crosswords each week. I’d say on average I spend less than a hour writing the spiel once the topic has manifested itself.
The clue hints are an important part of The Stickler Weekly experience but can be time-consuming as each clue has to be individually assessed and a suitable clue hint generated if necessary. I’ve created some short-cuts to speed things up for transferring the hints that are created inside my crossword program to an HTML format that appears on the web, so all up it adds about 30 minutes to the whole process.
Owning a website can be a burden as there are always things to do. I get all kinds of queries via emails and through blog contacts, there are Stickler Boxed Set orders, thank yous to send off for contributions, updates to WordPress (the platform I use on the website) and dealings with spammers and malicious attacks.
All in all, I would spend a day to a day and a half bringing you The Stickler Weekly and associated bits and pieces.

There’s no online solution this week (too hard to do for the alphabetical jigsaw), so you’ll have to make do with the PDF.

It seems a natural thing in crossword circles to try and create something different for solvers to tackle, rather than have essentially the same kind of cryptic puzzle every time. Notable variations include the theme crossword (and its many forms), different grid types (as with The Listener), and the Alphabetical Jigsaw (AJ). The AJ traditionally has 26 answers (I have seen variations), each starting with a different letter of the alphabet, and no indication of where the answers should go (hence to “jigsaw” element of the puzzle). John Graham, or Araucaria, is credited with the invention of the AJ which reportedly first appeared in the 1970s. I love AJs as I think they are tests for the setter in construction AND the solver in construction, with advantages on both sides. A setter is obviously restricted in what they can use and the less common starting letters like Q, X, Y, Z and J make clue-writing quite a challenge. A setter, of course, can use more unusual words than they normally would and use a grid construction that wouldn’t be considered OK for everyday cryptics (with lots of missing initials). On the other hand, the solver knows what they are looking for and has the added bonus of a secondary puzzle, a jigsaw, although a number of clues need to be solved before grid filling can start.
The Australian Crossword Club’s magazine, CrOzworld, has had an AJ almost from the start, that’s 100s of AJs and variations – if you like them, download some published CrOzworlds. If I remember right, as the magazine was finding its feet, an AJ was published and the members enjoyed it so much they asked if there could be one every issue. I had a similiar experience doing the Australian Financial Review (AFR) crossword. I sent in an AJ as a one-off and the response was so positive that the editor asked if I could do one every week! I gracefully declined, saying how much extra effort was involved and the limited choices there were for appropriate words.
Some of my early cryptics were in fact AJs as I was one of the few setters with software that could help in devising them. I haven’t done a new one for a while (you can’t for obvious reasons do an online version) but this little spiel may inspire me.