Posts Tagged ‘crosswords’
Ludwig | BBC1
24 September, 2024Great fun working with Robbie again and Jonny and Georgie on this:
Gegs | Radio 4
6 April, 2024Good times being profiled by James Peak for this documentary.
And an Everyman puzzle to match.
Radio 4, 7 April 2024, 1915
The World At One | Radio 4
23 October, 2023I’m right at the end of today’s episode:
Off-Grid | Podcast
9 April, 2023More from the ‘not really about crosswords’ podcast:
Everyman crossword | Observer
27 November, 2022It’s my 200th puzzle for the Observer’s Everyman series.
There’s an interview at the Guardian; Enigmatist / Nimrod has kindly assisted in the unmasking there and in the weekend i (print/subscription):
Summer puzzle supplement | Guardian
18 July, 2022Off-Grid | Podcast
24 November, 2021The ‘not really about crosswords’ podcast:
Inside Inside No 9 | BBC Sounds
5 May, 2021More detail than you could reasonably expect on Inside No 9’s Riddle of the Sphinx and Two Girls, One on Each Knee …
… in this podcast episode.
John Dawson obituary | The Guardian
5 November, 2020Support for solvers | The Guardian
2 November, 2020Two new features in my Guardian column. Recommendations for remote activities, and a collaborative playlist of music recorded under current conditions:
Crossword column | The Guardian
2 July, 2020An unusual honour: featuring in The Antidote: the ‘list of non-coronavirus [Guardian] articles our readers spent the most time with’.
Attention should pass to St Christopher’s hospice in Sydenham.
David Moseley obituary | The Guardian
13 March, 2020Also known as Gordius.
American-style crosswords | The Guardian
16 October, 2017I’m writing some American-style puzzles at the Guardian [feed].
For British solvers, the main differences are that abbreviations and fragments of phrases are allowed. All squares are part of an across as well as a down, so there’s more ambiguity.
The puzzles are presented as printable PDFs, but are better approached as .puz files using Across Lite or better still Crossword Solver.
- And We’re Off! [ medium: .puz / .pdf / solution .pdf ]
- Cheers! [ medium: .puz / .pdf / solution .pdf ]
- PO… [ tougher: .puz / .pdf / solution .pdf ]
- Store’s In What? [ gentler: .puz / .pdf / solution .pdf ]
- Cryptic Currencies [ gentler: .puz / .pdf / solution .pdf ]
- (miscellaneous) [ gentler: .puz / .pdf / solution .pdf ]
- Money Talks [ tougher: .puz / .pdf / solution .pdf ]
- Shoot! [ gentler: .puz / .pdf / solution .pdf ]
See also:
- My book, Two Girls, One On Each Knee
- And also The Crossword Century
- Image taken in NYC, 5 Nov 2008, the day after the election
Inside No 9 | BBC2
28 February, 2017I am proud to have performed the minor role of “crossword consultant” for this excellent episode of Inside No 9, The Riddle of the Sphinx:
I’m further proud to have filled the role of some kind of muse:
- BBC Two, 10pm, 28 Feb 2017
- Two Girls, One on Each Knee
- Steve Pemberton set the episode’s crossword as ‘Sphinx’, which is also the Guardian’s cryptic on the day of broadcast
- Interview with Sphinx at the Guardian crossword blog
- More Inside No 9
The One Show | BBC1
15 March, 2016I’m on The One Show this evening, discussing spying and crosswords with Gyles Brandreth.
How to Win at Quizzes, and Solve Cryptic Crosswords | The Guardian
13 September, 2014Two pieces in today’s Do Something supplement: How to win quizzes – from pub contests to Mastermind and How to solve a cryptic crossword.
Also, I will be signing Two Girls, One on Each Knee (7) at the reception for the keynote of the Chiswick Book Festival this evening.
- 6.00pm, Sat 13 Sept: Festival Drinks Reception
- St Michael & All Angels Parish Hall, Bath Road, London W4 1TT
- Tickets
The Crossword Century: 100 Years of Witty Wordplay, Ingenious Puzzles, and Linguistic Mischief for Gotham
3 July, 2014“Amusing and informative”
— Pultizer-winner Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post
“such a fun read”
— Dinesh Ramde, Washington Times
My book about the fun of crosswords, The Crossword Century: 100 Years of Witty Wordplay, Ingenious Puzzles, and Linguistic Mischief, has been published by Gotham.
A couple of responses…
“Alan Connor’s Crossword Century is a fun and fascinating tale of language, commerce, culture and play. Before reading this book, I didn’t have a clue about the crossword’s checkered past. Now I can see its extraordinary future, too.”
— John Pollack, author of The Pun Also Rises and Shortcut: How Analogies Reveal Connections, Spark Innovation and Sell Your Greatest Ideas
“If you love language and history and marvel at the genius of puzzles, codes, and game design, Alan Connor’s deep dive into the crossword will keep you smiling and eagerly turning pages. Connor playfully explores the history of the beloved, gamified fever dream of sentences, definitions, letters, and words that is the modern crossword and reveals the dance that strange invention has enjoyed with its caretakers across history. If you adore words and wordplay, if you see language as an endless mutating jungle of puzzles and experimentation, you need this book in your life.”
— David McRaney, author of You Are Not so Smart and You Are Now Less Dumb
…some press…
- This Week’s Must-Read Books, New York Post
- The Crossword’s Meandering 100-Year Journey, MacLean’s
- Down, But Not Out: The Uncertain Future of the Crossword Puzzle, The Atlantic
…and the reviews of the British edition as a word cloud:
It is available at your local bookshop, or at IndieBound, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, Books-A-Million, The Book Depository, iTunes, and so on.
And… it contains a puzzle by Brendan Emmett Quigley.
Listen: Think, from KERA
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- Buy or read more about the UK edition
- Up to Date, KCUR · The Book Report · Lincoln Live, KFOR · Craig Fahle Show, WDET · Life Elsewhere, WMNF · Martin Kilcoyne Show, KTRS · Dean & Don, KMA-FM · Central Time, Wisconsin Public Radio
- Word cloud from Wordle
- Health & Self-Improvement Staff Picks, Penguin USA Blog
A Talk at the York Festival of Ideas
16 June, 2014I’m giving a talk about crosswords at the York Festival of Ideas:
- Wednesday 18 June 2014
- 6.00pm to 7.00pm
- Berrick Saul Building, University of York
- Booking through Eventbrite
Update 20 June: Thank you to everyone at the festival and the university. The slides are here:
- Image of a Tour de France bicycle in York
Two Girls, One on Each Knee: The Puzzling, Playful World of the Crossword | Penguin
5 June, 2014My book about crosswords, Two Girls, One on Each Knee, is out today as a paperback.
It costs no more than £8.99, and I have removed an error, one concerning the PG Wodehouse story with the strawberries. It now begins with some commendations:
‘Connor’s wry, good-natured tone and his commitment to the serious business of play make him the perfect guide to a great pastime’ John Gallagher, Telegraph
‘Alan Connor’s charming, fascinating history of how the crossword went from a space filler in the back section of an American newspaper to one of the world’s most ubiquitous and addictive habits – he estimates that in Britain some 14.7m people do a crossword at least once a week – is the guide you have been waiting for. In a single, gloriously decipherable chapter he lays out with perfect clarity the entire range of rules and devices through which cryptic clues work their magic’ Robert Collins, Sunday Times
‘Connor’s scholarly knowledge doesn’t stop him extolling the vocabulary of The Simpsons. The solution to the title, by the way, is ‘patella’.’ Ben Felsenburg, Metro
‘No crossword addict, be they a compiler or a solver, can ignore it‘ Alan Taylor, Herald
‘Connor’s book is cleverly constructed around an initial cryptic crossword in which each clue provides the title of a chapter. And each chapter can be read independently of the others. There is something to entertain even the most infrequent dabbler, from a primer on how to actually do a cryptic crossword to the puzzle’s famous fans – the Queen, Sepp Blatter and Frank Sinatra among them – and its connections with the trains (one line in the US used to carry dictionaries)’ Carl Wilkinson, Financial Times
‘The brilliant new book on crosswords . . . Â Delivers fun galore whether you’re a doer or a duffer . . . Two Girls, One on Each Knee consists of a series of short, sparky chapters on topics as various as ‘Crosswords and detective fiction’, ‘Can machines do crosswords?’ and ‘The many ways of being rude in a crossword’. . . And this is also the guiding principle of his book — it favours the byway over the highway, and can never say no to a red herring’ Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday
‘This book shows you, among other things, how speaking aloud unpromising phrases such as ‘Tooting Carmen’ and ‘Servants Tease’ can yield obvious answers, and how sociable the crossword is. Of course, it can be tackled alone, and in Brief Encounter, it represents the antithesis of the longed-for romance, but it’s also perhaps fun to tackle with two or more heads rather than one’ Michael Caines, The Times Literary Supplement
‘Connor writes with great flair . . . it is nice to dip in and out of his entertaining essays’ Don Manley, Church Times
‘It is the relationship between setter and solver, between words and fun which provides the narrative thrust for Two Girls, One on Each Knee … ‘The experience of reading this book’, Connor says in the preamble, ‘should be equivalent to that of solving a cryptic puzzle…’ In fact it is rather better; it does not demand as much of the reader as a good puzzle does of the solver, but it delivers far more of its own accord. It is witty, charming, encyclopaedic and highly readable – and it can be read in any order. Take a chapter or a paragraph, a puzzle or a clue. In each the reader will find something to intrigue and delight‘ Sandy Balfour, Spectator
‘A wonderful little book that looks at the fascinating, often baffling world of the cryptic crossword. What connects Bletchley Park and the Daily Telegraph? And why should you always start in the bottom right-hand corner? Most of all, it’s a celebration of language‘ Jon Stock, Daily Telegraph
‘Delightful . . .
Verdict: Top rating for odd number of celebrities (4,5)’ Brandon Robshaw, Independent on Sunday
‘A joyous paean to the history of puzzlement and an essential guide‘ PD Smith, The Guardian
‘Delightful celebration of crosswords’ The Observer
‘A glorious guide that explains the history and universal appeal of the crossword’ Sunday Times, 100 Best Books for the Beach
You can buy it from your local bookshop, or from Penguin, Waterstones, Amazon, on Kindle, via Google etc…
- Another Penguin: The Joy of Quiz
Two Girls, One on Each Knee (7): The Puzzling, Playful World of the Crossword
7 November, 2013My book to mark the centenary of the crossword is published today by Penguin. Here it is…
…in Kew Bookshop.
Reviews, etc: Sunday Times; Mail on Sunday; Spectator; Telegraph; Scotsman; Financial Times; Metro; Times; Herald; Globe & Mail.
Hear me: on The Verb and on Weekend.
From the blurb:
• How have crosswords helped international relations, caused a strike by welders, become embroiled with espionage and even caused a moral panic?
• What have Frank Sinatra, P. G. Wodehouse and Stephen Sondheim got to do with the humble grid?
• What connects Bletchley Park and the Daily Telegraph?
• Which famous fan starts each day with the Telegraph crossword and kippers?On 21 December 2013, the crossword puzzle will be 100 years old. In the century since its birth, it has evolved into the world’s most popular intellectual pastime. In Two Girls, One on Each Knee, Alan Connor celebrates the wit, ingenuity and frustration of this addictive sport and how it has grown.
The story of the crossword takes us from the beaches of D-Day to the banks of the river Neva, via Fleet Street and the Old Bailey. It involves the most fiendish setters, such as Torquemada and Ximenes; famous fans (both real and imaginary) from P. G. Wodehouse to Frank Sinatra, Inspector Morse to Reggie Perrin. You’ll discover how crosswords have featured in films such as Brief Encounter and songs by Madness and Ian Dury; how they intersect with espionage, jokes, class and morality; and how they reflect back how our language and behaviour has changed over the last century. You’ll also discover how listening to white noise can help you do a crossword, why you should start in the bottom right-hand corner, and why cryptic crosswords are actually easier than quick (honestly).
This is a book about language and how it speaks to itself, twisting and transforming through cryptic clues before resolving itself, with a bit of luck, into an answer. Where else would you find words such as Intussuscept, Obtemperate, Zibet and Raisiny?
You can buy it from your local bookshop, or from Penguin, Waterstones, Amazon, on Kindle, via Google etc…