The Stickler Weekly 123 Solution

Doing my usual cryptic crossword search recently unearthed a keynote speech by Dr Alan Finkel, Australia’s chief scientist, a government position of some note. I was intrigued and excited and scanned through looking for the cryptic reference. When I found it, I was very disappointed, as Dr Finkel had managed to tarnish the reputation of all cryptic crossword setters and cast doubt on the authenticity of all cryptic crosswords in one small paragraph. How did he do this? A few weeks ago I talked about the plagiarism scandal that hit a particular part of the US crossword community. Somehow Dr Finkel took this story and superimposed it on the (Australian) cryptic crossword scene – an extremely irresponsible and unscientific thing to do. There’s no reference in the speech to the study involved, or anything that the listener (and reader) could follow up after for clarification, leaving most thinking that the cryptic they solve in the local paper is probably made up of 75% old and other people’s clues. I guess he wanted to make it relevant to an Australian audience, but the US crossword study that focussed on US-style theme crosswords, can’t be applied to any other type of crossword here or anywhere else in the world. It was very specific. It looks like he picked up a few facts and made some assumptions – it’s unlikely he read the entire article – not a great look for a man of science.
I sent an email to his office asking for a response, but an auto-responder told me I could wait up to a month for a reply and only if the office deemed it necessary to send one. I couldn’t wait that long. I’ll provide an update if I get one.

Update: 1/4/2016: I received a letter from the man himself concerned that his remarks could be open to misinterpretation and stating that he has never questioned the integrity of the Australian crossword community and has no reason to do so.
That said, I think if he’d left out the cryptic crossword reference all would have been fine.