"If youngsters are not taught how to spell, how will they ever enjoy the pleasure of doing a crossword puzzle?" writes R A Francis of Wimborne , Dorset in the Times of last week.
I have been to Dorset and it is a fine county, with a dramatic coast showing grand geological features like Chesil beach and Durdle Door. It has my favourite seaside town in Swanage. It has an air of mystery with modern military camps, ancient hill forts, and old place names with the word Magna attached to many places. The county gives off an air of old England and has strong literary associations with Thomas Hardy.
Wimbourne is a small market town dominated by the twin towers of the imposing Minster church, but offering a whole lot more. The Minster (mainly Norman and up to l5th century), includes the famous Quarterjack clock, 14th century astronomical clock, tablet recording King Ethelred's burial in 871 and a chained library. The houses are, to the main, thatched and of a style I call English rural desire, of the type featured in competitions to enable the winner to have slice of old England.
The town's shops include many for antiques and curios as well as a modern centre. There is an antiques market on Friday, a flea market on Saturday and a huge combination of the two on Sunday. Its all very racy...what better place to be the home of a crossword enthusiast.
Racy enough for crosswords ? Nothing else beyond the antiques to amuse the correct spellers of Wimborne? A little unfair, but is not quite the real, modern urban Britain, where possible crossword solvers are obviously being lost and un-nurtured in the urban sprawl and what are we going to do about it?
The crossword has been around less than 100 years. It might be a passing fancy. All this is not to slight Wimborne or R A Francis. I agree with him in as far as crosswords are fun. I think he misses the point. Crosswords are fun because they play with the language which I like to do. Spelling is important to enter a correct solution to a clue, but a good use of a dictionary of word checker will help with this. People will discover crosswords and the fun they can provide. I don't think you can force the fun on to people. I wonder how far R A Francis has got on Mass Effect on his x box. What fun!
I am pleased to say that I have found crosswords at times delightful, but not all of them. Naturally, there are a whole range of these puzzles from the simple word for word substitution, often called 'quick' to those found in the broadsheet papers. These are anything but quick. Their creators take names such as Ximenes and Torquemada. It does not need any more clue to their difficulty when you realise these names are those of inquisitors of the Spanish Inquisition. To me, they might as well be written in Albanian.
The pleasure for me is finding your style of setter, the setter who makes you smile and occasionally groan and who allows you sometimes to complete the entire puzzle. If it involves the help of someone else then that too can be pleasurable.
What is a good clue to me is this example. "It looks like the campanologist is late" (4,6). The solution is dead ringer. Now I think that is neat. It is clever word play. It made me smile when the answer flew to the front of my mind. It gave me pleasure to print the answer, in pencil, placing each letter, in upper case, in the white empty squares. "Fruit and nuts"? Seven letters. Yes. Bananas. Bring it on.
As Forrest Gump might say, unfortunately, clues, like a box of chocolates, come in a variety. Easy and soft to hard and chewy to the ones you want to spit out immediately. And, like chocolates, they are created by many manufacturers.
Its all a matter of finding who makes the best selection.
"Bar of soap" (3,6,6)? The Rover's Return. Lovely stuff.
(With acknowledgments to Rufus)
Monday, 15 September 2008
Saturday, 6 September 2008
At the Fringe 2008
If you enjoy a variety of entertainment, entertainment in a very broad sense, are prepared to cue for and sit in a variety of performing areas, some no more than a room in a student union, be prepared to walk a fair a bit and get a little wet then go to the Edinburgh Fringe. What make its more special for me is having a great group of friends who are prepared to to this as well.
It has been our third week in three years, so let us lay out the battle ground which you have to prepared to fight through to select your weeks pleasure. The 2008 Fringe programme featured a record breaking 2088 shows. It runs for three weeks from August 3rd until August 25th. It involves an estimated 18 792 performers from 46 countries presenting 31 320 performances in 247 venues dotted around the city. Quite staggering and for the past three years, we have tried to select a dozen or so shows to fill our week. It generally works well.
This is what Trish and I did this year. We constructed a fairly joint programme and left quite a few gaps to enjoy walks in and trips to the surrounding areas should the weather prove fine. I'll repeat that...should the weather prove fine. And thus we saw a few more shows than we originally planned.
Each day pans out to be at least a twelve hour day. There were daily free shows. Quite handy for getting a random preview of other performers some new and some iconic figures in the world of radio and television. This year featured the spectrum that was Jim Bowen and Clive James via Barry Cryer. These shows were by courtesy of BBC Scotland withe daily MaCaulay and Co and the Guardian podcast hosted by Miles Jupp. These two shows provided the early morning rendezvous for our group, which numbered fourteen and who were living in two apartments on either side of the city, before the daily diaspora following our planned shows for the day. There were joint meals, lunches and dinners and the occasional drink when plans opened up free windows.
I could run through each show but that would be tedious, so I will mention the highs and the lows. Starting at the base were the Tiger Lilies - Seven Deadly Sins. They are supposed to be in bad taste, but this was a tedious attempt to debauch the seven deadly sins. Better left to one's own imaginings really as the world is already full of evil people doing evil things on a range of scale from personal to global, all of which can be categorised under the seven deadly sins. This contribution to the theme was puerile.
But to the delights and highs. Footsbarn's A Midsummer Night's Dream was magical. Set in a big top atop of Calton Hill, you walked in to the sound of birdsong. Brilliant performances with enchanting music played out the familiar play to every bit of fun and silliness.
Barbershopera featured four performers who told the simple tale of barber shop rivalry and the attempt of the British team, who have lost their star tenor, to outsmart the seemingly powerful Swiss team. Up 'n' Under meets close harmony. Great ensemble work by the four singers.
Stefan Golaszewski speaks about the girl he loved was another gem. A one man piece of theatre about a young man's journey into that utterly unbelievable first love was superbly enacted by a most talented man. As an older person, it recalled the hope and knife edged moments between utter disappointment and supreme ecstasy of falling in love.
Count Arthur Strong - the man behind the smile presented my current hero of comedy in a surprise, or I should say sursprise, tribute to himself which he is planning to do. I find this shambling character a hoot because he combines so many British comedy characteristics. There are reminders of comedy actors and comedians from the word confusions of Mrs Malaprop mixed with silly syntax and senile mis-associatons to the muddling, mental confusions of Harry Worth, the false pomposity of Tony Hancock combined with applying social values of the 1950's against the social values of today.
Learn to Play the Ukulele in under One hour (How George Formby saved My life) is contender for the longest title but I doubt for one minute it is. The audience all sit with a loaned ukulele and learn whilst listening to the story hinted at in the bracket part of the title. As your chord knowledge builds up from on to four (via the famous three chord trick), practice is encouraged to underscore points of the story. A major chord (C maj) for brighter parts with a minor chord (A min) to add sadness and contrast. So, apart from learning some chords and some songs, we receive a bit of music theory too. After the show you has the opportunity to buy a ukulele, so Trish bought one for me.
The remaining shows were just bubbling under these warm and enjoyable experiences which, all in all, were perfect for the very wet week that Edinburgh was providing outdoors.
It has been our third week in three years, so let us lay out the battle ground which you have to prepared to fight through to select your weeks pleasure. The 2008 Fringe programme featured a record breaking 2088 shows. It runs for three weeks from August 3rd until August 25th. It involves an estimated 18 792 performers from 46 countries presenting 31 320 performances in 247 venues dotted around the city. Quite staggering and for the past three years, we have tried to select a dozen or so shows to fill our week. It generally works well.
This is what Trish and I did this year. We constructed a fairly joint programme and left quite a few gaps to enjoy walks in and trips to the surrounding areas should the weather prove fine. I'll repeat that...should the weather prove fine. And thus we saw a few more shows than we originally planned.
Each day pans out to be at least a twelve hour day. There were daily free shows. Quite handy for getting a random preview of other performers some new and some iconic figures in the world of radio and television. This year featured the spectrum that was Jim Bowen and Clive James via Barry Cryer. These shows were by courtesy of BBC Scotland withe daily MaCaulay and Co and the Guardian podcast hosted by Miles Jupp. These two shows provided the early morning rendezvous for our group, which numbered fourteen and who were living in two apartments on either side of the city, before the daily diaspora following our planned shows for the day. There were joint meals, lunches and dinners and the occasional drink when plans opened up free windows.
I could run through each show but that would be tedious, so I will mention the highs and the lows. Starting at the base were the Tiger Lilies - Seven Deadly Sins. They are supposed to be in bad taste, but this was a tedious attempt to debauch the seven deadly sins. Better left to one's own imaginings really as the world is already full of evil people doing evil things on a range of scale from personal to global, all of which can be categorised under the seven deadly sins. This contribution to the theme was puerile.
But to the delights and highs. Footsbarn's A Midsummer Night's Dream was magical. Set in a big top atop of Calton Hill, you walked in to the sound of birdsong. Brilliant performances with enchanting music played out the familiar play to every bit of fun and silliness.
Barbershopera featured four performers who told the simple tale of barber shop rivalry and the attempt of the British team, who have lost their star tenor, to outsmart the seemingly powerful Swiss team. Up 'n' Under meets close harmony. Great ensemble work by the four singers.
Stefan Golaszewski speaks about the girl he loved was another gem. A one man piece of theatre about a young man's journey into that utterly unbelievable first love was superbly enacted by a most talented man. As an older person, it recalled the hope and knife edged moments between utter disappointment and supreme ecstasy of falling in love.
Count Arthur Strong - the man behind the smile presented my current hero of comedy in a surprise, or I should say sursprise, tribute to himself which he is planning to do. I find this shambling character a hoot because he combines so many British comedy characteristics. There are reminders of comedy actors and comedians from the word confusions of Mrs Malaprop mixed with silly syntax and senile mis-associatons to the muddling, mental confusions of Harry Worth, the false pomposity of Tony Hancock combined with applying social values of the 1950's against the social values of today.
Learn to Play the Ukulele in under One hour (How George Formby saved My life) is contender for the longest title but I doubt for one minute it is. The audience all sit with a loaned ukulele and learn whilst listening to the story hinted at in the bracket part of the title. As your chord knowledge builds up from on to four (via the famous three chord trick), practice is encouraged to underscore points of the story. A major chord (C maj) for brighter parts with a minor chord (A min) to add sadness and contrast. So, apart from learning some chords and some songs, we receive a bit of music theory too. After the show you has the opportunity to buy a ukulele, so Trish bought one for me.
The remaining shows were just bubbling under these warm and enjoyable experiences which, all in all, were perfect for the very wet week that Edinburgh was providing outdoors.
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