The Stickler Weekly 161 Solution

Theme crosswords or crosswords with gimmicks are not easy to put together. The main issue is that incorporating themes words or words/clues that carry the gimmick often causes the inclusion of obscure words, words that a setter might not normally choose to clue, and there’s also a good chance a less solver-friendly grid will be in play too. It’s a trade-off, more theme/gimmick words for the prospect of having to deal with words bound to cause clueing problems. With various types of gimmicks, like in a recent published local crossword where each clue’s definition carried an extra letter, surface readings of clues can be compromised due to the limiting nature of the gimmick involved. It seems that for these types of crosswords a little extra latitude is allowed with such things, a kind of recognition that a setter has to be really good to get both aspects (good sound well-made clues and the inclusion of a gimmick) right at the same time.
I once wrote a crossword for the Australian Financial Review that included a large number of different types of financial accounts, in a Listener-style (barred) grid structure. A problem was caused by one answer word (that wasn’t connected to the theme) that was really obscure, and try as I might, I couldn’t get rid of it without losing some of my key words. The obscure word was so out of character with the rest of the crossword that I eventually abandoned the whole thing and wrote it off to a learning experience – I wasn’t prepared to compromise or run the risk of alienating my AFR solvers who have come to rely on consistency in my work.