legends · 4 min read ·
Setter's Notes
A crossword setter's clues start to come true, and the last puzzle contains a name and an address.
**The Daily Courier — Crossword Desk**
**Setter:** "Bramble" (Eleanor Voss) · **Puzzle:** Cryptic No. 4,217, published 6 October
*Selected clues:*
**1 across.** Bad weather arrived in the east, say (6) — *Answer: STORMY*
**7 across.** Reportedly pleased with the first woman (7) — *Answer: HAPPILY*
**11 down.** Cut short, a fashionable nobleman returns (5) — *Answer: TREND*
*Setter's note: a fairly gentle puzzle, as requested by the editor.*
· · ·
**Letter from a solver (Mr. J. Hale, Dunmere, 9 October)**
*Dear Bramble, Thank you for a splendid puzzle. A small observation. 14 across: "Vessel lost off Cornwall, the 14th (10)". Answer: TREVITHICK. I looked it up and there was a collier, the Trevithick, lost off Cornwall on the 14th, which is today. I wonder if you meant it as a joke.*
*Setter's note: I did not write that clue. My puzzle had a different 14 across.*
· · ·
**Puzzle No. 4,225, published 14 October**
**3 across.** Lost, the lot, in the sea (7) — *Answer: DROWNED*
**9 across.** Quiet bridge builder is taken by the tide (9) — *Answer: ABANDONED*
**14 down.** No longer in the room, a small thing falls (4) — *Answer: GONE*
*Editor's note: Eleanor, the puzzle is a bit grim this week. Could we lighten it?*
· · ·
**Setter's reply (E. Voss, 15 October)**
*Dear Mark, I'm sorry. I wrote those clues. I have the draft. They are in my handwriting. But they are not the clues I intended. I had a quite different puzzle in mind, with a nautical theme. I wrote it in September. This is not it.*
*The clues for 14 October were in my notebook on the 13th. I wrote them down at breakfast, in a state of calm. I do not remember writing them. I think I wrote them from dictation.*
· · ·
**Solver letters (Courier Crossword Desk, 16–20 October)**
*Mrs. D. Pike: 22 across, "Where Mrs. Pike will be on the 19th (4)". Answer: HOME. A strange clue. I was at home on the 19th, as it happens, but only because it fell through.*
*Mr. T. Ingram: Having filled in 5 down on the morning of the 18th, I found that the clue was true. It said "Someone at the door (7)". Answer: VISITOR. A man came to the door within the minute.*
*Anonymous: I'd like to know who "Bramble" is addressing at 1 across in today's puzzle: "Your name, to begin with (5)". Answer: ALICE. My name is Alice.*
· · ·
**Setter's notes (E. Voss, 21 October)**
I no longer write the puzzles. My hand writes them, in the early morning, while I sit at the desk with my tea going cold. I read the clues afterwards, and I can solve them. They are well made. They are excellent puzzles. They are better than anything I have set in forty years.
They are true. This is the part I cannot bear. The answers are things that will happen. The clues are cryptic only in the way that a thing is cryptic until it has taken place.
I have set the puzzle for 28 October. It is the hardest I have ever written. I will not send it.
· · ·
**Editor's note (M. Hardwick, 27 October)**
Eleanor's puzzle for tomorrow arrived at 05:40 by messenger, in her handwriting, without a covering letter. I have decided to print it. I cannot see that it matters. It is a puzzle. It is a grid, thirteen squares by thirteen, and a list of clues. I have not solved it.
I asked the compositor to check the grid. He said it was a sound grid. He said the answers interlock perfectly. He said that when he finished the last clue the letters in the shaded squares, read in order, spelled a name and an address.
· · ·
**Solver letters (Courier Crossword Desk, 29–31 October)**
*Mrs. P. Ward, Kellow: 21 across of yesterday's puzzle. "Where the editor lives, with a view of the hills (3, 4)". Answer: OAK LANE. A neat clue. I thought it a nice bit of local colour.*
*Mr. H. Adair, Penhale: I did not finish yesterday's puzzle. Nor did anyone I know. Is it true that the last clue was withdrawn? I had got as far as 1 down: "You, the reader, must stop here (4)". The answer is STOP.*
*Editor's postscript: the Courier will not print a crossword today. Eleanor Voss has been found at her desk, pen in her hand. The notebook beside her is open at the page for tomorrow. It has one clue written on it.*
*"This is the last of mine (4)." Answer: DONE.*