Australian Crosswords

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.

A recent Stickler Weekly brought up an interesting question about a clue that could be considered ambiguous, with two answers valid according to wordplay and crossing letters in the grid. This was the clue in question: Shut down stall (4). The answer given in the solution was FOLD, a double definition, but a number of solvers offered HOLD as a valid answer. My first response was to dismiss the claim as I didn’t think “Shut down” and HOLD were synonymous enough, as to hold might be to shut down temporarily, but note that “temporarily” is a key part of definition and that’s not in the clue. However, it still could fit with some latitude given. The Australian Crossword Club (ACC) runs competitions each month through their magazine, CrOzworld, where members need to submit solved puzzles to get a chance at a prize. It’s common for alternative answers to be offered by members, usually (understandably) with short clues that have multiple word possibilities. (The HOLD/FOLD pattern of ?O?D has 34 possibilities according to the Australian Oxford, so it’s not uncommon for a word other than the intended answer to be a close fit especially for double definitions). I think the ACC tend to allow entries that could be right as it’s hard to argue against a claim that’s close. So if this was a ACC competition I’d allow both HOLD and FOLD, but I would also say that if HOLD was the answer, then the clue isn’t a good one. I believe FOLD is a better answer that matches the clue and the setter’s usual attention to detail. Effectively, if the answer is HOLD, “Shut down” and “stall” have the same meaning in this double definition – an approach I rarely take – my double definitions are almost always TRUE. However it is the setter’s job to make sure there is no ambiguity, so I have slipped up here.