Category: Globe And Mail

And the correct grid is...

6/6/2020

If, like me, you awake on Saturday morning with a thrill of excitement, knowing that Fraser Simpon's cryptic crossword awaits you in the Globe & Mail, you will have felt crushing disappointment this morning. In today's puzzle, the clues don't match the grid.

This isn't the first time it's happened, although it's rare. A few years ago, when I discovered that the grid didn't match I reverse engineered the grid based on the clues provided. (That was back in my pre-toddler days when I had more time!) It was so exciting to be able to share the right grid with all of you. I even got a shout out from the public editor at the Globe & Mail, which was a lot of fun. And it brought me in touch with other cryptic crossword fans, including one named Sally who has been compiling Fraser Simpson's grids for years just in case a mismatch happens. She kindly sent me her library.

So, let's all give Sally a big "Thank you!" Because when I saw the mismatch today, I immediately dug out her old email and located the right grid. I'm happy to be able to share it with all of you. Happy puzzling!

9 Comments

Making the Cryptic Political

5/1/2018

3 Comments

This past Saturday, I was a little surprised to see the following clue in Fraser Simpson’s Globe and Mail puzzle:

Escort enters sound bargain with the prosecutor (4, 4)

I stared at it and wondered: could it be it anything but a reference to President Trump’s alleged affair with the porn star Stormy Daniels and the $130,000 his lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid her not to disclose it?

3 Comments

Cultural Zeitgeist and the Cryptic Clue

4/20/2018

0 Comments

On Saturday, April 14, 2018, Fraser Simpson published a simple clue in the Globe and Mail cryptic crossword that made me want to cheer:

Actress McGowan stood up (4)

Why cheer for this? You may ask. It’s just a straightforward double meaning clue. The actress in question is Rose McGowan. And if someone stood up, they rose from their seat.

Here’s why.

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The Proof is in the Cryptic

6/26/2017

6 Comments

In just ten days, I'll have my first cryptic crossword in print and I couldn't be more excited. It's being published by Montreal Review of Books, which you can get all over Canada (see here for a list of places that carry it). I'm especially honoured given that this is the first time they've published a cryptic crossword before.

I hadn't really thought of it until my editor called to double-check a word in one of my clues, but proofreading a cryptic crossword puzzle must be really tricky. Clues can sound really weird even when they're right and even a perfectly symmetrical grid can have a structural error (which happened with The Globe and Mail a few months back).

If you don't happen to solve cryptic crosswords, which my editor doesn't (yet), how do you proceed?

6 Comments

Measure Twice, Cryptic Once

1/9/2017

4 Comments

Figuring out how to fit everything into the small master bathroom.

Have you ever renovated?

We spent the entire fall in the throes of a major house reno. It was tons of fun, everything worked out well, and I learned a great deal. The most important lesson was the golden rule of construction: measure twice and cut once.

This is smart advice to take literally but it's also a wise principle to apply more generally. Spend a lot of time planning. Review your work. There will be fewer mistakes and when surprises do crop up, you'll be better prepared to deal with them.

Planning carefully is key to producing a good cryptic crossword puzzle, which is why I was so surprised this past Saturday when there was a mistake in Fraser Simpson's cryptic crossword in the Globe and Mail.

4 Comments

Gridlocked

3/14/2015

12 Comments

It's rare but every now and again the Globe and Mail messes up the Saturday cryptic crossword puzzle and mismatches the clues and the grid. We love Fraser Simpson's Saturday morning cryptic over here, as I've said previously, so it's a bummer when we're forced to miss out.

This morning was one of those mornings: the grid started with 1 Across but the clues started with 7 Across. We mourned the lack of puzzle, then moved on to other things. Until my husband said: "I wonder if we could figure it out for ourselves."

12 Comments

Love in the Time of Cryptics

11/20/2014

2 Comments

One of the highlights of my week—particularly if it's been a week in which we haven't seen much of each other—is to curl up on a Saturday morning with my husband and the Globe and Mail cryptic crossword.

2 Comments

On Seeing Your Hero's Early Work

4/18/2014

10 Comments

A friend of mine recently gave me a book of Fraser Simpson's old cryptic crossword puzzles: a collection he published in 1995. I was thrilled to crack it open. Fraser Simpson's puzzles appear in the Saturday edition of The Globe and Mail and it's a long wait from one weekend to the next.

In case you weren't already aware, I adore Fraser Simpson's work. His puzzles are clever, precise, and succinct. They have defined my own style as a setter. So you can imagine what a shock it was when I made the following discovery:

His early work isn't that good.