I was about to write something about why I like the Times Crossword, when Lo! They have annoyed me three times in as many days. They have got a new crossword editor - which is news that strikes fear into the hearts of all the readers. And well-justified fear in this case, I am sorry to say. Both the level of accuracy and the general tone have already deteriorated appreciably, and uncouth modern references now pepper the clues and the answers.
What we all used to like about the Times crossword (the cryptic one. I can't do the straightforward one, it's far too difficult) was that it expected better from its solvers. The amount of learning needed afforded the right degree of difficulty so that it felt like a worthwhile achievement if one completed the crossword. We had to know a bit of Latin, Greek, Shakespeare, Newtonian physics etc. - but familiarity was not required with common street parlance, nor with who won the Football in 1973. It harked back to a more elegant time when gentlemen knew how to behave and the riff raff were kept firmly out of sight below stairs. Even the drug references were restricted to the hopelessly out of date E for ecstacy. God, no-one round here's taken that stuff for YEARS.
With this new editor they've got, we are subject to things like 'Princess' indicating the letters DI, (come come, man, 'Diana'? Surely Augusta of Saxe-Gotha springs more readily to mind in connection with the title?) and we have had 'sugar' as a clue for 'drat' i.e. referring to inarticulate people's habit of saying "sugar" as an expletive.
In the Times Crossword the compilers are forbidden to use more than 4 anagrams per puzzle. That is quite enough as they are useful for getting you started (they are always quickly solvable) but too many in a puzzle just make it boring and unsatisfying. Let us hope the silly new fellow does not change this rule.
Checked squares are the ones in both across and down answers. In the Times Crosswords all words must have at least half the letters checked, and although words can have two unchecked letters in succession, they cannot be the first two or last two letters of a word. Other crosswords that disobey these rules are annoying and horrid and I do not do those. However in the Times sometimes nearly ALL the checked letters are vowels which makes me want to punch the editor. Vowels in the checked letters are USELESS. They should try to have at least 85% of the checked letters consonants - and helpful ones, not T or N.
The clues under the old editor were always properly constructed and you knew you could trust them to be so. With this new editor the evidence so far is not reassuring.
They recently had a clue which purported to consist of 6! letters. (They put in brackets after each clue, how many letters the answer has. This is supposed to save you from having to drag your weary eyes across to get that information for yourself by looking at the grid.) 6! means 6x5x4x3x2x1 which is 720 and the grid is only 15x15 so here we have more evidence of careless proof-reading.
Last week they made the catastrophic error of printing the wrong grid for the clues.
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| The Shame of Fleet Street |
The first 2 clues were decoy ones that did fit the grid, thus lulling the solvers into wasting several minutes trying to do the next ones. Times staff were unashamed, merely printing next day a tiny-fonted explanation (NB not an apology) in which they blamed their mistake on 'a printing error'. Fie. It was just astonishingly lazy checking of copy if you ask me, and a blunder for which the new editor should have faced both instant dismissal and lifelong social ostracisation.
Disgraceful when you think we are spending £1.20 to get this. I would like them to reinstate the old editor.
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| "What the...?" Horrified reader looking at crossword. |
UPDATE: 2nd April. This may have been their idea of an April Fool but if so it does them no credit. Yesterday they printed the right Across clues, but the wrong Down clues for the grid. April Fools jokes should be funny and not harm anyone. This was not amusing and it harms i) my pocket and ii) their own future circulation numbers. Since they did not even bother to print one of their tiny-fonted explanations this time I wrote to them
Dear Sirs,
On Tuesday 1st April you have for the second time in recent days printed the
wrong grid for the crossword clues (crossword number 25,749 on this occasion). This is
shoddiness taken too far. The new crossword editor should hang his head in
shame. I buy the Times mainly for the crossword which used to be of a
consistently high standard but the new editor has swiftly lowered that
standard. I shall buy the Telegraph instead if you are not careful.
Yours faithfully,
pp G-AHLK
and received back the most grovelling apology and a cheque for £45,000,000.
No I didn't.
I received back a feeble mass-circulated email with "the right grid" in an attachment. Actually it was the same grid but with the correct Down clues. Dolts. No assurance was given that they are the slightest bit interested or care a hoot.
Therefore, if
nTi and nTe are the no. of
copies sold of the Times and Telegraph respectively today,
here are the new circulation numbers for the "quality newspapers" tomorrow :
The Times : nTi -1
The Telegraph : nTe +1
