Alan Connor

Author, Penguin Books Ltd at Freelance

Writer at Big Talk Productions

Editor, Crossword at The Guardian

Author (@DHAbooks); screenwriter; editor @guardian crossword; compiler, quizzes & Everyman puzzle (@ObserverUK)

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Articles

should puzzles avoid Americanisms?

5 days ago | msn.com | Alan Connor

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Crossword editor’s desk: should puzzles avoid Americanisms?

5 days ago | theguardian.com | Alan Connor

How can you tell if a phrase is American English, as opposed to the kinds spoken in the UK and elsewhere? I spent some pleasurable time searching theguardian.com to see who has used the phrase “no way, no how”. An American cadence, but since it had appeared in an editorial about George Osborne, I gave it a clean bill of health.
Crossword editor’s desk: seven days of puzzles a week, kicking off on Sundays

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Alan Connor

Not so long ago, we moved the quiptic – the Guardian’s “puzzle for beginners and those in a hurry” – so that it appears on Sundays. We had no way of knowing it at the time but this has recently proved to be a boon as the subsequent departure of the Observer’s puzzles to their new home left us confronting the unacceptable possibility of there being a horrible day when a new puzzle does not appear at this site, in our app and so on.
Crossword editor’s desk: whatchamacallits and gubbins

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Alan Connor

Happily, for those asking, we can be specific regarding the locations of our departing puzzles: the latest of each can be found on the new Observer site at observer.co.uk/crossword in playable form for the most recent puzzle with an archive for each of Speedy, Everyman and Azed. Vale!Here a splendid Genius puzzle by Tramp takes the place at the top of the index previously occupied by a previous, splendid Genius puzzle by Enigmatist.
Patrick Freyne and Chris Maddaloni

1 month ago | rte.ie | George Hamilton |Celine Byrne |Alan Connor

To listen to RTÉ.ie's radio and podcast services, you will need to disable any ad blocking extensions or whitelist this site. Use the arrow keys to skip the audio ahead or backwards by 15 seconds 00:00 Use the arrow keys to increase and decrease the volume Choose an option below to share ‘Patrick Freyne and Chris Maddaloni’ Leaving this page will stop playback.
Sharon Shannon

1 month ago | rte.ie | George Hamilton |Celine Byrne |Alan Connor

Sunday with MiriamMiriam O'Callaghan presents a live stimulating mix of lifestyle, music, human interest and great interviews, the perfect soundtrack to your Sunday morning. Episode • 56 Mins • 27 APR • Sunday with Miriam
Where can I find the Azed, Everyman and Speedy crosswords?

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Alan Connor

It’s known in every newsroom that a paper making almost any mistake is preferable to dealing with the fallout from moving the crossword. You’d rather print a weather forecast of locust rain. A recipe for poisoned cakes. Just so long as the puzzle is in its usual place. Puzzles do, however, move – not often. Sometimes they even move publication, like when the Listener’s tricky one moved to the Times.
The Guardian’s April fool crossword explained - plus the other papers’ fooling

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Alan Connor

We have tracked in these pages the fall and rise of the April fool puzzle. Once a staple of crosswording, it seemed almost to disappear in the 2010s – just at the time that every brand from hipster to megacorp attempted engagement using unfunny jokes signed off by committees, making the entire morning of 1 April a joyless, wretched chore. Happily, there’s much less organised fun these days, and each year brings more signs of the recovery of a unique kind of fooling.
What is the best way to write a crossword clue describing Elon Musk?

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Alan Connor

Pity the constructor of American crosswords. A name appears in the news and it is made of four especially useful letters. It appears more and more throughout the 2010s and previously you would have clued it by making reference to a not especially well known university in North Carolina. But after a few good years, and assuming you want your puzzle to offer a refuge from the miseries in the rest of the paper, ELON becomes the last thing your solvers want to think about with their coffee.
Fed up with cryptic crossword hecklers? Try the Dave Gorman method

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Alan Connor

Each institution has its own way of dealing with complainants, particularly those whose protests are perhaps not entirely valid. Traditionally, a comedian deftly – sometimes remorselessly – responds to uncivil hecklers. By contrast, a news organisation falls over itself to confess blame: witness a crossword editor’s sackcloth and ashes whenever an aubergine is defined as a vegetable.