Community Profile

Summary
Like other blogging communities, this one changes over time, sometimes making this information out of date. So watch what happens as well as reading this...

This community is mainly for information about each day's Times (or Sunday Times) crossword. A solver will state their solving time and explain interesting or difficult clues. Other solvers give their views in comments (possibly disagreeing with or correcting the original report). Since about July 2007, 'placeholder' posts have been used to allow early comments on puzzles that will be blogged later in the day. This allows people to leave quick comments about the puzzle or to get help from other commenters on particularly tough clues. The purpose of stating solving times is not to make you depressed because you took much longer (or chuffed because you were quicker), but to give you an idea of the difficulty of the puzzle. Information about typical solving times for each contributor is included in the biographies below.

We don't give solutions to all the clues in each puzzle, for two reasons. One: lack of time - writing this stuff takes longer than you might think! Two: so that we're not seen as completely ruining the paper's chance to make money with their "Phone for today's answers" service. But if we miss out the clue that stumps you, ask about it in a comment. If you do so on the day of publication, the answer will usually come quickly.

We've covered almost every Times crossword since 1st November 2006. Older puzzles (1 Dec 2005 - 31 Oct 2006) were covered at http://petebiddlecombe.livejournal.com/ - a single-handed version.

Who does what
This community is open to anyone for reading and commenting. Posting is restricted to a small group of solvers. If you would like to offer your services as a contributor, please contact Peter Biddlecombe - current contributors are not expected to serve a life sentence. If you solve the puzzles discussed, you should look here AFTER your go at the crossword. The entries will assume that you have access to the puzzle and the answers. For Saturday puzzles and others with prizes, we report nothing more than solving times and comments about overall difficulty before the closing date.

If you want to comment, dive in. You can do so with or without a LiveJournal ID. Having one (which you can do for free) lets you identify yourself with a picture, but there are 'anon' commenters who just add a name like 'Richard B' to say who they are. Be aware that some setters of the Times puzzle read the blog, so there's always a chance that your vicious comments about a clue will be read by the person who wrote it - which may or may not be what you want. I only discourage a few things - gratuitous bad language or insults, detailed discussion of any prize puzzles that are still "active" (though for the puzzles we write about, I don't mind you saying that an active one is notably good/bad/hard/easy. Finally, attempts to identify the setter of a Times daily or jumbo puzzle - whether I agree with 'setter anonymity' or not, it's not our role to change it in this way. Many guesses are wrong anyway, as I've discovered. Exceptions can be made for special occasions like someone's first or 1000th Times puzzle.

Aims
This community has several purposes:

• To assess the difficulty and quality of puzzles
• To help new (and sometimes experienced) solvers understand how the clues work - if beginners read the clue explanations and subsequent discussions, they should learn more than they would by looking at the solution in the paper the next day, and avoid the kind of long struggle some of us went through before finishing cryptic puzzles regularly. (Some will tell you that you should climb the foothills of the Daily Telegraph before attempting the Times crossword. Provided you don't mind doing badly sometimes, I'd ignore that view and learn by trying one of the world's best crosswords from the start.
• To provide a place where solvers (and some setters) of the Times and other crosswords can exchange views by adding comments.

The Times crossword
The Times crossword (we mean the "Times of London" if you're not sure) is probably the world's best-known daily paper cryptic crossword. It has been referred to in many books and films, and being able to complete it is traditionally, though a bit misleadingly, supposed to indicate possession of a sharp mind. Apart from gaps in 1982 and 2001-2005, there has been an annual championship for solving this puzzle since 1970.

Sunday Times crossword
The Sunday Times cryptic puzzle is written and edited by a different team to the Times puzzle, so the clue-writing style and editorial rules are not the same. It's usually fairly easy.

The Times Jumbo crossword
The cryptic Jumbo puzzle currently appears every Saturday. It's a cryptic crossword with a larger grid (23x23 rather than 15x15 (27x27 in the past)). Until about 1998, jumbos only appeared on special occasions like Bank Holiday weekends. The editor and setters are the same as for the 15x15 puzzles, though there are probably some setters who don't write jumbos.

Mephisto
Mephisto is the oldest rival to the Observer's Azed puzzle - a barred-grid puzzle with difficult vocabulary, and the use of Chambers dictionary expected while you solve. In the past it was the work of one setter, but since the death of Richard Whitelegg, there have been three Mephisto setters - Mike Laws, Paul McKenna and Tim Moorey. (Paul replaced Chris Feetenby in April 2008). It's the only cryptic puzzle I know that prints an e-mail address for the setter, inviting comments and questions. Very useful for baffled bloggers!

Other stuff
In the past, we had an unofficial contest based on the six 15x15 cryptics from Saturday to Friday. You'll also see some posts about the Times Crossword Championship, and about occasional meetings of community members - all in London so far. You'll also see links each weekday to a poll for 'clue of the day'.

Times Crossword Club
If you want access to the puzzles and can't get the paper itself, you can join the Times Crossword Club, which gives you access to all the crosswords published by the Times, Sunday Times and Times Literary Supplement. You can find it here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,252,00.html (Googling for "Times Crossword Club" should also get you there if this link 'rots'.) Current rates are £4.99 for one month, or £24.99 p.a. Alternatively, in some countries you can get the Times puzzle in a syndicated version, with a time delay of two or three weeks. Syndicated versions of at least the weekday puzzles appear in the New York Post and The Australian. The Australian's "Sunday Times" puzzle is not syndicated but written specially for an Aussie market by two of the Sunday Times setting team. The Sunday Times puzzle is also syndicated (in its original form) in the Ottawa Citizen.



Regular contributors
Apart from holidays and other absences, these contributor will cover one day of the week, though some share weekly slots. Some wish to remain anonymous or use their "crosswording" name. So in order (with ages as of late 2007):

	Monday - Russel John / kororareka Born 1953, Sydney. I was led into a life of crosswords by a wayward friend in high school. The Sunday Times (I think) was reproduced in a now defunct Sunday paper and it took a group of us all week to get a handful of clues, sometimes abetted by a Maths teacher. We'd gather clandestinely in the library and chuckle around the complete OED. This was Australia and anything resembling intellectual activity was frowned upon. During my misspent youth as a serious student I stopped doing them, mistakenly believing that life was too short for crosswords. I started doing the Times on a fairly regular basis again in the 90's. Times had changed. Crosswords had become a social event around the tea table at work. Latterly I do them over a leisurely breakfast and hope I can finish before morning tea, lunch at the latest. Life is good.
	Monday - Jonathan / vinyl1 I am in my middle 50s and have been doing the Times puzzle for 20 years, having started in the late 80s when a selected puzzle was published weekly in New York Magazine. When it was cut over to the New York Post sometime in the early 90s, and came out every day, I really got serious and started to finish some, and then most. I have dabbled in American-style puzzle construction, and had about ten daily puzzles published in the New York Times when Gene Maleska was the editor. I am an American who grew up in Connecticut and live now in New York City. My educational background is English literature, but I also used to be pretty good in classical Greek. I know a lot about English popular culture from reading, although sometimes not enough. I am a little weak on cricketers and footballers, and the geography of minor English towns. I do not watch movies or television, but that doesn't seem to be much of a problem with the Times puzzles. I am a serious record collector with 4000 records, so I know music pretty well.
	Tuesday - Jim Biggin / dorsetjimbo Born 1942 (you can do the sums). Introduced to The Telegraph cryptic crossword by my rather Edwardian aunt when I was 12 and she caught me kissing my cousin (those were the days). Moved on to The Times when I was 15 and have been doing it ever since. I've never been particularly fast (I can't read and write at the same time apart from not having the brain power) and puzzles normally take me from 20 to 50 minutes. My all-time favourite puzzles were those set by Ximenes in the Sunday Observer and I've still got my tie somewhere. I'm retired now after spending most of my working life applying IT to insurance and finance. I wrote my first computer based actuarial valuation in 1964 using an ICL1301, which probably accounts for my sense of humour. For 18 years my wife Maureen and I were foster carers looking after teenagers until we retired from that in 2006, during which that same humour kept me sane. I now devote my time to local community affairs, golf and the Times crossword, of course.
	Tuesday - Tim Hall / topicaltim Age: 42 (the answer to everything, apparently - can't see it myself) Level: haven't put the watch on myself lately but would guess around 20 minutes median time. History: In something that seems, in retrospect, like a somewhat cliched scene from Inspector Morse, I had my schooling in The Times crossword over post-essay drinks with my tutor in the back bar of the King's Arms, Oxford. At lunchtime, this place was (and I hope, still is) generally full of people completing the puzzle before their first pint had disappeared. These days, to the pleasure of my employers, instead of a long and boozy lunch followed by a little siesta, I have a strong cup of coffee at my desk and tackle the crossword there (when the website allows).
	Wednesday - Peter Biddlecombe / petebiddlecombe ("Ed." in other comments) Age: 47, Years of Times solving: about 30 (with a gap c. 1978-83 when I defected to the Guardian) Times best: 3'00" (22,954 - April 19 2005), Median time: 8:05 when last measured from a sample of puzzles. Achievements: Times Championship Winner, 2000 and 2007, and in the final 6 other times in a total of 14 attempts. Also attempted Guardian xwd daily 1978-2006, Indie daily since c. Sept 2006. Both attempted on Saturdays. Regular Azed solver, occasional clue comp entrant - best = a VHC for a Printers Devilry clue. Very patchy Listener record at present - got about 25-30 puzzles right in about 3 years, early to mid-1990s. Occasional setter of puzzles but for tiny audiences so far. Occasional solver of US-style non-cryptic puzzles, currently daily solver of Times Two non-cryptic puzzle. I do some SuDoku and other 'Japanese puzzles', but way below Championship standard.
	Thursday - Richard / richardvg Age 49: Times solving speed: about half again as long as Peter B. Graduated from solving the Telegraph to the Times in 1972. Gave up the Times on change of ownership in 1981; survived for a decade or so on Guardian and Listener puzzles. Now back to a daily Times habit. First entered Times Championship in about 1974 and generally achieved respectable score at regionals without getting through to the final. Under the rather different arrangements at Cheltenham, reached the final for the first time in 2006 and again in 2007.
	Thursday - George Heard / glheard Age: 38. Years of solving - 23 (started with the Melbourne Age, moved on to the Times 12 years ago). Solving speed - usually within a half an hour - living in the US I can usually get at the crossword in the late evening my time, so I try to be finished the :"night before". I do the Times, Mephisto and keep another blog on my attempts to get better on the Listener. Expat Australian, now living in North Carolina where pubgoers get a kick out of the man with the funny accent who pores over intractable crosswords. Chemsitry teacher by day, writer and stand-up comedian by night. Weaknesses: Scots phrases, botany.
	Friday - jackkt Age: Soon to be 60. I have enjoyed cryptic puzzles for as long as I can remember, mainly in the Daily Telegraph until I discovered some 10 years ago that the Times is often more challenging and rewarding. I don't compete in the timing stakes as I prefer to try to understand and appreciate each clue as I solve it and I find working against the clock spoils my enjoyment. My favourite crossword puzzle each month is the Oldie Genius however I am less keen on word for word puzzles and have often struggled with the Genius's companion puzzle, The Moron.
	Friday - sabine I started trying to figure out cryptic crosswords when I was about twelve – I used to cut the puzzle out of the newspaper and take it to school to study surreptitiously during classes. I was already heavily addicted to puzzles at that age and would spend hours working on books of cryptograms or logic problems, but nowadays only crosswords really hold my interest. I do the Times - where I’d guess my average solving time is around 12 minutes - and the Listener, which I usually manage to finish. I also subscribe to The Magpie, where I rarely finish anything. The rest of the time I’m a writer and computer programmer. My best subjects are books, pop music, popular culture generally – I’m pretty shallow - and computer games; not a terribly useful collection for solving the Times. Areas of especially woeful ignorance are religion, anything military, and food and drink. I also misspell Italian words with dismaying regularity.
	Saturday - Andy Wallace / linxit Age 44, been solving cryptics since I was about 12 helping my Dad with the Telegraph, moved on to the Times when I was in my mid twenties. Entered Times Championships a couple of times in the nineties, best effort joint 66th in the Bristol regional final, 1992 I think. In 2006 I came 21st in Preliminary B. [12th in Prelim B would have made the final - best 24 contestants. I was much prouder when I made the Times Championship final for the first time than when I won it. Ed.] I do the Guardian most days too, the Spectator every week, and started doing the Listener every week at the beginning of last year. I also do Azed and/or EV if I'm finished early with the Listener. Average time for the Times is around 15-16 minutes, best ever around 5 minutes (started at Southampton station, finished by the time it got to Southampton Parkway, the next stop).
	Sunday - Neil Talbott / talbinho Age: 25, Years of Times solving: about 7 (before when The Telegraph and The Leicester Mercury provided a grounding). Times speed: Median time around 10 mins; sub-5 on a very good day, 30+ on the toughest days. Times accuracy (without references): An average of about 2 mistakes per week or so. 3 or more missing clues in about one crossword per month. Other crosswords: Other dailies (Independent first) as availability and time permit; Listener solver; highly satisfied Magpie subscriber. Weaknesses: Opera, theatre, Shakespeare, Dickens (in fact literature in general), artists. (Oh, and Polish prime ministers.) Achievements: All-correct Listener solver for 2006, Times Championship finalist, 2007
The subs' bench: other contributors who step in when the regulars are away, or write about puzzles other than the daily ones.
	Steven Payne / foggyweb Age: 31, Level: Beginner, but learning fast. Times speed: Median from the last 100 is about 54 mins; quickest is 20:40 for 23696. I am well pleased with anything under 30 mins, a feat I have achieved less than ten times so far. I first encountered cryptic crosswords in the Guardian (2000-2003), completing with colleagues at lunchtime. I have done The Times crossword most weekdays since March 2006. My weakest area is geography - I don't know enough cities, ports, rivers etc... 2007 was the first year I tried The Listener Crossword - my success rate so far is 12 completed out of 17 attempts. I also do the Independent Crossword two or three times a week. My crosswording ambitions are to regularly solve the Times under 30 minutes and to have some crosswords published. I began setting crosswords in 2007, both standard and themed, and don't think I've ever had as much fun.
	Niall MacSweeney / nmacsweeney Niall MacSweeney, 60, doing crosswords since teens, Daily Telegraph, Guardian then a fallow period till the Indy was launched in 1986. Not among the high fliers, but can finish the Indy every day with the odd mistake - average solving time about 20 mins. Blogs as nmsindy on Fifteen squared site which covers Indy puzzles. Encouraged by Don Manley's book, tried the Listener in holidays in 1993 and, amazingly solved the very first one and became hooked. Again not among the high fliers - not broken into the successful solvers' list (10 or fewer wrong in a year), but usually get 30-odd correct. Like the numerical puzzles (4 year in the Listener and monthly in the Magpie). Was very pleased to have a Listener puzzle published (pseudonym: Raich) in July 2007.
	Ken Gillett / 7dPenguin I'm well under 50 years old and will remain so until February next year. I'm a software developer and live in Accrington, Lancashire. I started solving during my student years, being an occasional solver of The Guardian and Telegraph, usually in the pub on a Saturday lunchtime (with Penfold_61, another regular commenter on this blog). I remained an occasional solver of the dailies until about 3 years ago when I paid my subscription to the Times and figured I'd better get my money's worth by solving every day. It usually takes between 10 and 20 minutes to complete, often taking longer and occasionally less. My all time best is 5:10. My weaknesses are many and various, but I have a real aversion towards old books and old music. I've started doing the Indie and Guardian most days and recently had my first bash at a Mephisto. I've competed at three regional finals of the Times National Crossword Competition, but didn't ever trouble the leader board. I'll be at Cheltenham this year, my target being not to make an idiot of myself. Aside from the wonderful world of crosswords, I like to go on walks, watch football (Blackburn Rovers) and mess about with my two sons.
	yfyap / Uncle Yap Born 1946. Discovered cryptic crossword when I attended University of Newcastle in the early 70's. Literally thrown into the deep end as Times was then half-priced for registered students (Yes, I paid two new pence for Times and claimed back half every three months). Now a retired Chartered Accountant, my daily diet consists of Times, Guardian, Independent and FT, with the occasional Azed and Cyclos thrown in. Started setting a weekly cryptic crossword puzzle in a Malaysian Sunday paper which ran for more than 3 years.
	sotira I've been doing crosswords for about twenty years. The bug bit hard at first, and I soon evolved a Pavlovian solving response to anything that looked like a crossword (checked tablecloths weren't safe). Eventually I took a sabbatical from them for fear that the men in white coats might soon be dragging me off, eager little fists still clutching a stubby pencil and a folded copy of the Times. Nowadays I ration myself to solving the Times daily puzzle and no other. I would put my par solving time at around 17 minutes, but I'm a bit inconsistent. When I really concentrate I occasionally manage a sub-ten minute time, and have dipped below eight on a few occasions. I work in design and do some writing these days, and have worked in academia (literature then later linguistics), teaching and a few bizarrely unrelated professions. I'm Cheltenham born and raised, but have lived in a few countries. I'm currently living in Canada but am starting to hanker for England again (if I can ever afford the prices).
	Dorothy Satterfield / dorosatt Age: 54, damn it. Born, raised, and still (still!) residing in Wilmington, Delaware. Discovered the British cryptic in the autumn of 1976, when a fellow grad student/puzzle addict tossed me a New York Magazine and told me to check out the puzzle on the last page. The heading was something like 'World's Toughest Crossword from the Sunday London Times', and not a single clue made sense. All my friend could tell me was that this was the type of puzzle they did in Britain and it involved wordplay. I still remember the first clue I managed to solve: 'Making a fuss bringing up first-born (7,4)'. I shouted out the answer, which was embarrassing, because I was on a crowded train heading for New York at the time. After that, we'd have a go at the puzzle every week; sometimes we'd even finish one. But when I left school, I stopped doing the puzzle, and didn't start again until a few years ago, when I joined the Times Crossword Club. Through the Club, I discovered Peter Biddlecombe's blog and I also bought a copy of Don Manley's Crossword Manual. With all that help, and with daily practice, my solving time has improved considerably (say 45 to 90 minutes on average), but will probably never be fast, which is okay with me. I like to take my time over a good puzzle. I tend to linger lovingly over a finely-wrought clue. My goal is simply to finish within a reasonable amount of time, give my brain a good workout, perhaps learn something, and, above all, have fun.
	JerryWh / Jerry Whitmarsh Age: late fifties, and hope to remain so. Started attempting the Times and Mephisto crosswords in my teens in the ‘60s and have done them on and off ever since. When I gave up full time work in 2000, to stave off senility I swore a mighty oath to complete the Times cryptic every day and so far, have managed to do so. The advent of the crossword club has been a godsend, especially when on holiday! I tend to prefer enjoyment and persistence above speed, and reckon to take between 10-30 mins according to difficulty, sometimes more.. I usually also do the Jumbo, ST cryptic, Mephisto, and The Week crosswords, if time permits. Occasionally Azed, but for me the Listener (and themed crosswords generally) is a step too far. I have discovered that when in bed I can solve (almost) any crossword, and one day I hope to learn how to transfer this ability for daytime use.
Alumni: Former contributors, just in case you're reading an old posting. These entries are not kept up to date.
	David Hogg / dhogg (Left in Nov 2007) Age: 44, Location: Paisley Occupation: Territory Finance Manager for the British Red Cross. Have been solving cryptics since I was 12, starting with the Dundee Courier. I them moved on to the Scotsman and then the Times. My average solving time for a Times crossword is about 10-12 minutes, but I have had sub-5 minute successes on occasion. I don’t do a regular crossword now - just depends on my mood on the day, but I do tend to buy the Times every Saturday, and have just subscribed to the online Guardian crossword service. In the 80s I qualified for the Scottish heat of the Times Crossword Championship on four (maybe five?) occasions, but could only attend one (poor student, don’t you know!). I came 36th. I also qualified for the 2006 and 2007 Finals, but work commitments prevented me from attending. I haven’t got a lot of experience of barred crosswords, but I try them occasionally. I compile a range of puzzles from mazes to cryptic crosswords. Not had a lot of luck with getting them published, but to be fair, I haven’t tried very hard either. I did have a puzzle published in Games five years ago. I enjoy solving US-style non-cryptic puzzles and wonder whether there might be a market for similar “themed” crosswords over here?
	Mr Magoo / i_am_magoo Mr Magoo, 42, is a former Times and Daily Telegraph Crossword Champion. He has also won the Silver Solver Salver for the Listener crossword, and is a co-editor of The Magpie, a subscription magazine for those who like tough thematic crosswords (and numerical puzzles). [For Mr Magoo's solving times, take a look at the weekly contests on this blog. Ed.]
	John Henderson / johnhenderson John is best known as a setter - Enigmatist in the Guardian, Nimrod in the Independent and Io in the FT. He started solving and setting crosswords at a very tender age, was strongly influenced by correspondence with Araucaria, and had his first Guardian puzzle published when he was fifteen. John won the Times Championship in 1996 and claims the fastest time for a competitor in the Times championship - 2:53. After working as a psychology lecturer, he became a full-time setter of crosswords and quizzes in 2003, and runs a website featuring puzzles by various professional and amateur setters.
	the_od (Mephisto, Jumbos) Age: 49: Solving cryptics since my teens, spent pre-teens looking over Dad’s shoulder at the Telegraph. I was weaned on a diet of Azed, The Listener and the much-mourned Games & Puzzles magazine. Never really managed to get any good at the Times, and from 2001-2006, I rarely attempted it. However, the revival of the Championship has inspired me to try and improve! I hope my contributions to the Community may show how practice (whilst not making perfect!) can bring that improvement. I am already trying to implement some of the top tips from the speed merchants. Since resuming solving, and monitoring my progress via Peter’s blog, I have found that my current times are around double his (but I can still come a complete cropper - and often do!). Best time ever 6:24, some 8 years ago. Let’s see if we can get better than that! Weaknesses: Literature. I must be one of the most unread crossword solvers around. I can count the number of fiction books I have read on the fingers of one hand (maths was more my bag), and of those 7 books none is likely to feature in a Times clue. Also poor on Geography. Other crosswords: Azed, The Listener (occasional solver over last few years), Magpie subscriber. I have become hooked on Race The Clock for the T2, although Race The Calendar would be more appropriate for me. Achievements: As far as The Times goes, I have never managed 100% in a Regional Qualifier! Closest I came was one error when I did not know the composer Hindemith (oh yes, Classical Music – another weakness!). So my top crossword achievement has to be an all-correct Listener year back in the 90’s. [As the number of all-correct Listener solvers is neraly always less than ten, this is equivalent to a good place in the Times final. Those with Chambers can look up 'od' and wonder which meaning is being used here ... Ed.]
	Ilan Caron / ilanc Age: old enough to remember the 1966 world cup. Level: journeyman (Times and Guardian dailies, occasional Azed and Mephisto, and the rare Listener). Times speed: best 15 minutes, average: 45'-1 hour. Born in England but have lived overseas since I was 11 (since I was a sports-obsessed child, Brit cricket and rugby allusions are familiar but much modern britslang is unfamiliar). Cryptics in "The New Yorker" (97-99) were what got me going. Just joined Google after spending many years at Microsoft.
	Neil Wellard / Neildubya Age 35. I've been solving crosswords for about 14 years. Started with Guardian and stayed there until Aug 2006. Now a regular Independent and Times solver, and occasional Guardian puzzles thrown in for good measure. Average solving time now around 15 mins. Over the years I have occasional stabs at the Listener but these never last long. I also do the Cyclops puzzle in Private Eye and I have a long-standing ambition to compile a crossword using words and phrases only found in the Viz publication "Roger's Profanisaurus". One day...
	growf I'm 32, living in West London. I sit down at one o'clock to solve the daily cryptic. By profession I'm an auditor for bookmaking and casino software but I tend to use Scrabble and crosswords to take a break from poring over code. I started out with the Telegraph's cryptic about nine years ago because my then-boss frequently left it only partially solved. I've now been solving the Times daily for a couple of years, and the Sunday Times Mephisto puzzle at weekends (timings: 20-40 minutes for a daily).

Coverage of other puzzles
The (cryptic) Times Jumbo and Sunday Times Mephisto puzzles are covered by small groups of us. We have no plans to add the Listener puzzle as it's discussed in detail elsewhere). Some contributors may include brief coverage about cryptic crosswords in other papers, but we won't be analysing them in much detail.

Notation
There are no hard and fast rules about notation in the posts - contributors are free to use any method they like to show how the wordplay works. Here are a few bits of notation that might not be 100% obvious to beginners:

• (brackets) are used in the same way as in algebra, to indicate that something must be done to the result of doing something else. "Something else" might be as simple as combining two adjacent words.
• "quotes" indicate a homophone - e.g. WAIT="weight"
• (ski rates)* an asterisk may be used instead of "anag." to indicate an anagram
• CAPITALS may be used to help distinguish the answer from the words that lead to it
• <= or <- may be used instead of "rev." to indicate reversal in a similar way to * for an anagram
• &lit. is short for something like "and literally so". It indicates a clue where the whole clue forms both wordplay and definition, rather than wordplay and def standing side by side. Old example: "I'm one involved with cost (9)" = ECONOMIST - which might be explained thus: "(I'm one cost)* &lit - 'involved' = anag. indicator"

Some comments about comments
Anyone is welcome to comment about puzzles, but you need to be aware of a few ground rules and facts. The main ground rule: avoid mentioning answers to other puzzles that people might not have solved when reading your comment. Puzzles published before the one you're talking about are safe (we assume that people doing puzzles late do them in chronological order), but not those published on the same day or later, especially competition puzzles for which the closing date hasn't yet been reached.

If your comment relates entirely to something someone has said in another comment, it's best to use the "reply" link under that comment, as this makes the overall set of comments easier to understand.

LiveJournal allows comments to be edited (non-anonymous users only) until they have been replied to. After that, comments can only be deleted. This can be done by the commenter if they commented from a LiveJournal account (which you can get for free), and by the community "maintainers" in all cases. If you comment anonymously, you cannot delete your own comments. Deletion of other people's comments is rare but just occasionally necessary.

The main text of a post (clue explanations in particular) may be updated in repsonse to comments. This is usually indicated by the words "on edit", or by text in italics.

Finding reports
Sometimes you'll want to find a report on a particular puzzle without looking through comments on more recent ones. LiveJournal gives you two pages that are useful for this: The "View All Archives" link under the "latest" month calendar at the top right of the main page shows you a calendar with links to the postings for each day. If you know our schedule and the publication date of a puzzle, you can use this to find the puzzle. On the archives page, there are "View Subjects links for each month. These show the subject line for each post, which includes the puzzle number.

For older posts, you can use an advanced Google blog search, specifying the URL for the blog. Here's an example. (After following this, Click on the 'Advanced blog search' link to see what to do.) Unfortunately, our notation methods for answers mean that searching for answer words often doesn't work except for a few clue types like cryptic definitions and hidden words. There are also times when Google's blog search just doesn't seem to work. If that happens, you may have more joy with a standard Google search for "Times for the Times" (with quotes) plus your other keyword.

Missing reports
Sometimes we forget or can't fulfil our blogging tasks. This is usually restricted to the weekly puzzles for which the work is shared. If you think this has happened, first send an email to: missed-blog {at} biddlecombe {dot} demon {dot} co {uk}. If Peter Biddlecombe is not on holiday, this should get you a response, though it may just be "sorry, we missed it". If this gets no response, add a comment to a daily puzzle blog, asking about the missing report.

Reference Books
For the Times daily cryptic and Jumbo, the reference dictionaries are the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (COED, Concise) and Collins English Dictionary (Collins). The Chambers Dictionary (Chambers) is officially irrelevant, though we seem to get an occasional shade of meaning or phrase that's justified by Chambers.

For Mephisto puzzles (and pretty much any barred-grid puzzle published in the UK), Chambers is the reference and most solvers will need to use it to solve the puzzle - the hope of the setters and editor is that you can complete a daily or Jumbo puzzle without looking things up. I'm not aware of a stated reference dictionary for Sunday Times puzzles, but would expect the COED/Collins combo to work most of the time.

Other books you might see mentioned in reports: "Bradford" is Bradford's Crossword Solvers Dictionary, "Brewer" is Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, ODQ = Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, "Shorter" = Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (only "short" by comparison to ...), "OED" is the full multi-volume Oxford English Dictionary - which is great for word origins, age of slang and the like, but should not be required for any crossword in the way Chambers is for Mephisto.

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