Thus, effort's wasted... (5,5) OTHER STUFF
50 clues for IO
The French novelist and crossword setter Georges Perec once wrote that anyone calling themselves a crossworder should be prepared to find 100 different ways to clue IO. Io was a woman who was turned into a cow in Greek mythology. Her name was later given to a moon of Jupiter. She also appears in my crossword tribute to Perec, unlike the letter E.
Perec managed 28 clues for IO, so I don't feel too bad leaving the job half-done. Obviously, this is a completely pointless exercise, as unlike Perec I'll never need to clue IO for a crossword: it's too short to appear as an answer in a UK grid, as the setter who took it as his pseudonym found out long ago.
See full list
| Cowgirl (2) | Holy cow! (2) | Moo(n)? (2) |
| Ovid occasionally recalled her (2) | Greek girl getting muse half-cut (2) | Two-bit rival to Hera (2) |
| Cow tucked into violet (2) | Heavenly body framed by Orion (2) | Icon oddly presenting Greek priestess (2) |
| Maiden's cry for attention rejected (2) | Zeus' lover or inamorato gutted (2) | Lion-hearted girl (2) |
| Priestess is a little eye-opening, we hear (2) | Cow or bison regularly taken out (2) | Priestess skipping middle of wedding vows (2) |
| Seconds on time bomb getting lower (2) | Priestess and maid having division of opinion (2) | One over the moon (2) |
| She went moo (or occasionally miaow) (2) | A pair in deli ostentatiously translated Greek (2) | Priestess regularly scrubbed idol (2) |
| Greek character - another one cheers out (2) | Old MacDonald's last two syllables mentioned cow (2) | Woman your setter's got to pay, we hear (2) |
| Circle Line heading west for Greek girl (2) | Turkey ditching small group for cow (2) | Satellite radio not very cool (2) |
| A couple of asteroids going round moon (2) | One in orbit of Number Ten (2) | Woman Zeus made low (2) |
| Priestess front and centre in imbroglios (2) | Satellite Galileo Galilei ultimately brought up (2) | Celestial body captured by Pioneer (2) |
| Nymph heads to inland ocean (2) | Zeus' lover hit on now and then (2) | One transformed into cow bit by bit (2) |
| Pair finishing off lothario's lover (2) | Maiden getting round behind bar (2) | Greek maiden's the first person in Rome (2) |
| Greek character knocking back most of olive product (2) | Moon's charged particles obscuring both poles (2) | Lower emissions somewhat? (2) |
| Maiden in state letting out shocked cry (2) | Moon made of halogen and gas (2) | Mythological character letting out prime pieces of ichor (2) |
| Priestess emptying out inferno (2) | Greek character deconstructed phi? (2) | Greek character's logic oddly ignored, then rejected (2) |
| This Greek girl and uni pals could become Oulipians (2) | ||
| Piece of livestock found in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (2) | ||
Crossword haiku
Back in 2019 it occurred to me that it might be possible to produce a haiku that also functioned as a set of cryptic crossword clues; three crossword clues of 5, 7 and 5 syllables respectively, with the answers having 5, 7 and 5 letters just for added symmetry. Here's what I came up with:
Old mist moves leaves out (5) Reveal answer
OMITS - O ('old') + anagram ('moves') of MIST. The definition is 'leaves out'
From treetop. Late autumn lull (7) Reveal answer
PLATEAU - Hidden ('from') in 'treetoP LATE AUtumn'. The definition is 'lull'
Birds start to call lines (5) Reveal answer
CROWS - C ('start to Call') + ROWS ('lines'). The definition is 'birds'
I also had go at “translating” a well-known haiku written by the 17th-century poet Basho about a frog jumping into a pond. As with the other haiku, the "translation" functions as three cryptic clues.
In Spring, quiet bog (5) Reveal answer
MARSH - MAR ('in Spring') + SH ('quiet'). The definition is 'bog'
Little frog jumping – pale dot (7) Reveal answer
TADPOLE - anagram ('jumping') of PALEDOT. The definition is 'little frog'
Noise of some water (5) Reveal answer
SOUND - two definitions: 1. 'noise' and 2. 'some water' as in the type of body of water
Unhelpful phonetic alphabet
I created this great alternative to the NATO phonetic alphabet where each of the original codewords has been replaced by a different word or name which (sometimes loosely) rhymes with one of the originals. Perhaps one day this will be adopted globally.
| A for Alpha B for Bravo C for Charlie D for Delta E for Echo F for Foxtrot G for Golf H for Hotel I for India J for Juliet K for Kilo L for Lima M for Mike |
K for Kalpa A for Arvo B for Barley P for Pelter G for Gecko H for Hotspot R for Rolf O for O'Dell W for Windier Y for Yuliet F for Filo Z for Zimmer I for Ike |
| N for November O for Oscar P for Papa Q for Quebec R for Romeo S for Sierra T for Tango U for Uniform V for Victor W for Whiskey X for X-Ray Y for Yankee Z for Zulu |
M for Movember N for NASCAR U for Upper X for Xebec D for Dromio V for Vieira Q for Quango C for Cuneiform S for Stricter J for Jetski E for Exclave T for Tankie L for Lulu |
Seasonal puzzles
In 2019 I wrote a couple of seasonal puzzles inspired by inspired by Daniel Peake's Puzzlevent project (25 devious Christmas puzzles). The following year I wrote another puzzle to mark the new year.
Hello 2020 | Solution
Rogetta Stone puzzle for Quiz Master Shop
I drew this map to accompany a wordy puzzle I set for the website Quiz Master Shop. Click here to give it a go and here for the solution.
Cross-letter puzzle for Dog-Ear
When I lived in Norwich as a student (and before I really knew how to set crosswords) I created a small cryptic puzzle for Dog-Ear, a free mini-magazine published in the form of a bookmark which is stocked in bookshops around the country.
My "cross-letter" puzzle consists of 26 clues each leading to a letter of the alphabet - e.g. Sign of affection (1) and Buzzer's sound (1). It was inspired by an essay on crosswords by the French author Georges Perec in which he rather off-handedly writes "it is not really difficult to construct a 1 x 1 crossword with no black squares", before presenting a single cell with the across clue Consonant (1) and the down clue Vowel (1). I eventually did a full-sized crossword tribute to Perec as well.
Click here for a more readable version of this puzzle, and here for the solution.
To be or not to be
During my MA I did a module on Ludic Literature where everyone took turns to produce an experimental or playful piece of work. I produced this version of Hamlet's most famous soliloquy by cutting up bits and pieces of the module paperwork and reading list.
Consonants
There's a neat poem by the experimental poet Christian Bok which is made up entirely of words spelled with letters in the word "vowels" (it's part of his book Eunoia, which includes five main sections that each limit themselves to words featuring only one of the five vowels). I tried to do a similar thing using only words that can be spelled with the letters in the word "consonants":
cancan can stocatta
a tattoo as constant as an ant's,
No canon's cantos
can scan sans
non-consonants.
("Assonants"?
[O, so scant a cant!])
So a consonant contacts
an assonant,
casts a cotton cocoon
onto a sonant scat,
to concoct a canasta, a cantata
(not a so-so sonata).
A toast to co-acts,
To consonants.