Some of you may know from various interviews I’ve done that I was introduced to cryptic crosswords by my English teacher when I was 15. He used the Guardian that was published every Sunday in NSW to teach us the ins and outs of cryptic crosswords. In fact, we would spend all week solving it and do a report at the end of the week summarising what we’d learnt. He had a huge impact on my life. As no-one in our family did cryptics I doubt I would have ever taken up solving. I look back at that time in the late 1970s, when there were only books to aid solvers, as a wondrous time. I had no preconceptions, no idea of what was normal, permitted, hard, easy, clever, sloppy or wrong – I just had a puzzle to solve and a language of sorts to learn along the way. I was 15 years old and I knew this puzzle was meant for people with wider word knowledge than me, so I expected to struggle, but as the clues were well-written with generally clear wordplays, I knew I would recognise the answer when I saw it. Solving was fun – much more fun than in this current era – as there was no choice but to chip away at the puzzle the entire week – not an arduous task because rewards eventually came with satisfaction. I can remember thumbing though an old 1962 “Book of Words”, page by page, trying to match the letter pattern I needed in the hope of finding an answer. I didn’t mind this and for all I knew it was normal. Some of the best answers came from nutting out the wordplay without actually knowing the answer word. What joy when the worked-out answer is found in the dictionary with the stated definition in the clue!
I think the joy I experienced back then will never be repeated by me or anyone else as blogs, anagram searches and word pattern matches give a clue a short life, and our instant world encourages us to finish and move on. Maybe there are some out there who intentionally prevent the digital age from intruding on their solving pleasure and those, perhaps, who resolve anagrams with pencil and paper.
Tell me your stories.
| Across | Answers and Clues | Explanations |
| 1 | TEASE | |
| Wind up when in part of a golf course (5) | AS inside TEE | |
| 4 | DISPATCH | |
| Take out fancy bath found in dump (8) | SPA inside DITCH | |
| 10 | LIFE-THREATENING | |
| Large fire-engine that disturbed grave (4-11) | L + anagram of FIRE ENGINE THAT | |
| 11 | PROTRUDE | |
| Get through nonsense admitted by old maid (8) | ROT inside PRUDE | |
| 12 | PESETA | |
| Spanish bread once hardened with skin of vegetable (6) | SET inside PEA | |
| 14 | STRATA | |
| Answer given at end of electric guitar classes (6) | A after STRAT | |
| 15 | PRUSSIA | |
| American, living in Paris, remapped old part of Europe (7) | US inside anagram of PARIS | |
| 18 | LEI | |
| Floral necklace that is left in retreat (3) | (IE + L) reversed | |
| 19 | NOMINAL | |
| Small tailored loan extended by short time (7) | Anagram of LOAN outside MIN | |
| 21 | RACISM | |
| Retired coach is associated with male prejudice (6) | CAR reversed + IS + M | |
| 24 | LAXITY | |
| Neglect sign that something’s wrong in congregation (6) | X inside LAITY | |
| 26 | STARLIKE | |
| Stellar combination of right and left, one blocked by stick (8) | (R + L + I) inside STAKE | |
| 28 | TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS | |
| Wonder if a term’s wrong at end of temporary sign (6,2,7) | Anagram of IF A TERMS after (TEMP + LEO) | |
| 29 | DOMESTIC | |
| Medical man, accepting troubled times, hired help (8) | DOC outside anagram of TIMES | |
| 30 | DERBY | |
| Colour of cricket ball knocked back by bowler (5) | RED reversed + BY | |
| Down | Answers and Clues | Explanations |
| 1 | TULIPS | |
| Mouthpieces behind trade union’s showy plants (6) | LIPS behind TU | |
| 2 | AFFRONT | |
| Insult fellow wearing hairstyle not shortened (7) | F inside AFRO + NT | |
| 3 | ENTERTAIN | |
| Go through metal spread around a harbour (9) | ENTER + (TIN outside A) | |
| 5 | IRAN | |
| Claim made by chicken and oil supplier (4) | I RAN | |
| 6 | PEEVE | |
| Features of landscape eventually cause irritation (5) | landscaPE EVEntually | |
| 7 | TOILERS | |
| Hard workers love getting stuck into tradesmen (7) | O inside TILERS | |
| 8 | HOGMANAY | |
| Take over one month holding an annual celebration (8) | HOG + (MAY outside AN) | |
| 9 | GRADUALLY | |
| Guard converted associate slowly but surely (9) | Anagram of GUARD + ALLY | |
| 13 | SPIRITUAL | |
| Religious spin cut short ceremony (9) | (SPI)N + RITUAL | |
| 16 | ULCERATED | |
| Cankerous lesion finally removed from diseased uncle and assessed (9) | Anagram of UNCLE minus LESIO(N) + RATED | |
| 17 | INFLATED | |
| Pompous one left and relocated (8) | I + anagram of LEFT AND | |
| 20 | MAXIMUM | |
| Top parent holding a consort up (7) | MUM outside [A + (MIX reversed)] | |
| 22 | SLIMMER | |
| Be angry about large person who’s trying to lose weight (7) | SIMMER outside L | |
| 23 | MEASLY | |
| Poor meal, mostly dodgy (6) | (MEA)L + SLY | |
| 25 | TALES | |
| Liberal’s primary representative in electorate retracted reports (5) | (L)IBERAL inside (SEAT reversed) | |
| 27 | TOPI | |
| Item of clothing worn with one type of hat (4) | TOP + I |
Talk about chipping away for a week or so, this one was the toughest one yet! Had I known anything about electric guitars I probably would have got the “strat” bit and in retrospect starlike seems like such an easy answer for 26. But after about 10 days of struggling I did manage to get the rest. Most of that time was taken sorting out 28, What a beauty?
In my very early cryptic-solving days, I used pattern-matching and anagram software all the time. These days, I limit myself to the Chambers and Macquarie Dictionaries, and very occasionally the Chambers Thesaurus — all on my smartphone. It’s much more satisfying this way.