Vikram Seth – derrickjknight

A Knight’s Tale (105: Two Solutions And Fan Mail)

‘A Suitable Boy’, Vikram Seth’s 1993 novel, a magnificent saga of an Indian family, came up in conversation early in 2015. Although not normally a name-dropper, I just had to mention that I had received a very complimentary letter from the author a dozen years before.

The Times Listener Crosswords were ones that I enjoyed setting during a period of about twenty years. They are termed ‘advanced cryptics’ as they are very difficult both to create and to solve. The clue solving was often the easy part, as there is always a final twist that requires further thought and activity. One of my devices was to involve solvers in producing a drawing at the end. ‘Four-Letter Word’ was one of these that earned the praise of Mr Seth.

The solution, published on 2nd November, for reasons that will become apparent, didn’t have much printed in the grid.

I am fully aware that most of my readers will not be familiar with cryptic crosswords, so I will not bother you with the clues. It is the theme I would like to offer.

The drawing I wanted to create needed flowing curves. How on earth was I to manage this on a typical square grid? It was after six months thought that I hit upon the idea of using hexagons in a honeycomb. That particular device was not original, but I like to think the use to which I put it was.

Focussing on the preamble and the grid, and ignoring the clue column, this is what solvers were presented with:

The preamble is the paragraph on the left beneath the title. It explains what is required in addition to solving the clues. The grid is where the answers are written.

Examples of entries given in the above illustration are 30 REGRET, 31 RIPPLE, and 32 PENNON.

Once the whole grid has been completed and the correct sequence of letters blocked in, an outline that could be a cat is produced. I have used a highlighter to make it stand out. The initial letters of the 8 letter answers, in clue order, spell out CHESHIRE, helping to identify Lewis Carroll’s character. For clarity I have not confused the issue with a fully completed grid.

With a little artist’s licence, solvers will have reproduced a suggestion of Sir John Tenniel’s famous illustration to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

In that story, the creature disappears leaving its GRIN. Thus, according to the preamble’s instructions, solvers, having used a pencil, are to rub out everything but the four-letter word appearing above hexagon 38. This location is shown in the entry examples given above.

Finally in this episode of my memoirs I can reveal the answer to a puzzle presented in https://derrickjknight.com/2022/02/18/a-knights-tale-104-mordreds-development-and-various-publications/

“Unplug It”

This post this morning https://throughthecolouredglass.wordpress.com/2020/10/30/a-suitable-boy/

on the acclaimed novel

prompted my thoughts to return to my own copy – a first edition from 1993. I concur with Vibha Lohani’ s assessment of the novel and suspect that her comparison of it with the TV series, although I haven’t watched it, is accurate.

I am rather proud of the author’s complimentary letter appraising my Crossword puzzle featured in “Hoisted By My Own Petard”

Another earlier post of mine features “The Magnificent Seven”, a book about London’s Victorian landscaped cemeteries on which I collaborated with author John Turpin.

On yet another mournful monochrome morning it seemed incumbent on me to tackle my scanner problems. Following the highly technical advice of Sherry from port4u who suggested I should “unplug it’, I managed to achieve the correct settings for colour slides and was therefore able to begin a project featuring.

photographs which did not make it to the book. Rather fortuitously, these images were produced in November 2018.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s vegetable and egg packed savoury rice with a rack of pork ribs and prawns – some tempura and some spicy, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Corbieres.

Hoisted By My Own Petard

This morning, whilst Jackie continued with her planting, tidying, and extensive garden maintenance, I carried out some more work on refining the gravel path in the front garden. This involved marking out a line, digging up and either moving or rejecting stray plants, and replacing some rocks and concrete that line the side nearest the house. Some of the hellebores were so interested in my activities that their normally shy flowers actually raised their heads. These can be seen my clicking on the image above.

‘A Suitable Boy’, Vikram Seth’s novel, a magnificent saga of an Indian family, came up in conversation recently. Although not normally a name-dropper, I just had to mention that I had received a very complimentary letter from the author a dozen years ago. In ‘The Listener Setters’ Dinner’ I describe how this came about.

The Times Listener Crosswords were ones that I enjoyed setting during a period of about twenty years. They are termed ‘advanced cryptics’ as they are very difficult both to create and to solve. The clue solving was often the easy part, as there is always a final twist that requires further thought and activity. One of my devices was to involve solvers in producing a drawing at the end. Four-Letter Word was one of these that earned the praise of Mr Seth.

Thinking it might be fun to present this to my WordPress readers, I consulted my albums of published puzzles. Because of the nature of this work, I was required to solve the entry method. I couldn’t do it without a struggle that took me quite a long time. Well, it was as long ago as 12th October 2002 that it appeared in the newspaper. The solution, published on 2nd November, for reasons that will become apparent, didn’t have much printed in the grid. Thus, I was hoisted by my own petard.

I am fully aware that most of my readers will not be familiar with cryptic crosswords, so I will not bother you with the clues. It is the theme I would like to offer.

Focussing on the preamble and the grid, and ignoring the clue column, this is what solvers were presented with:

The preamble is the paragraph on the left beneath the title. It explains what is required in addition to solving the clues. The grid is where the answers are written.

Examples of entries given in the above illustration are 30 REGRET, 31 RIPPLE, and 32 PENNON.

With a little artist’s licence, solvers will have reproduced a suggestion of Sir John Tenniel’s famous illustration to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

This evening, for our dinner, Jackie’s delicious chicken jalfrezi and egg fried rice was supplemented by the contents of a doggy bag provided by Lal Quilla last night. We were grateful that Elizabeth hadn’t been able to finish the chef’s special that she had enjoyed. So did we.

The Listener Setters’ Dinner

This morning, tramping around Morden Hall Park, I came across two young men examining the construction of a bridge, in preparation for a boardwalk through the wetlands. As I said, this should save our shoes and trouser bottoms. This meant I just had to investigate that waterlogged area. I should have tried out my new wellies, but they are in the car and Jackie had the keys. I was, however, rewarded by meeting two surveyors who were measuring the terrain.

This reminded me of ‘Under the boardwalk’ from The Drifters’ marvellous 1963 album ‘Up on the roof’. You can hear it on youtube.

Volunteers were tending the rose garden.

The small adventure playground contained much activity. Those playing in there were wearing wellies.

This afternoon I made a lamb rogan josh. All my balti meals are based on a wonderful little book, Mridula Baljekar’s Real Balti Cook Book. Jessica bought this for me in a remainder bookshop in Edinburgh on the only occasion she accompanied me to the Listener Setters’ Dinner. It wasn’t her scene but she tried it out once.

I had discovered the Listener crossword puzzle when The Times took it over in the early nineties. Solvers who successfully completed each of the 52 puzzles in a year were rewarded with an invitation to attend. After Mike Kindred and I realised we were never going to earn our admission that way, we began to set puzzles ourselves. Mike never did attend, but I enjoyed several of the annual gatherings which take place in different cities throughout the UK.

John Green, who, as a labour of love, checks all submitted solutions, sends all received comments to the setters. There are many comments. One of my proudest moments was opening a most complimentary letter of approval from Vikram Seth. On one occasion one of my clues was inadvertently omitted from the published puzzle. I received a plain postcard from Georgie Johnson. It read, simply, ‘was Mordred (my pseudonym), poor bastard, really one clue short of a crossword?’. There began a correspondence friendship. In those early ’90s, we didn’t have computers, so we communicated by post. Jessica suggested I should invite this delightfully witty penfriend to a dinner. Georgie came to York. Since we had never met, we arranged to convene in the hotel bar. I sat waiting with a pint of beer until in walked a most elegant woman who had the poise and looks to have been photographed by Patrick Litchfield in her youth. ‘That can’t be her’, I thought. She looked across the room, turned and walked out. ‘Ah, well,’ I thought. Then she came back in and I noticed she was clutching a copy of ‘Chambers Cryptic Crosswords’ (see 12th July), which had been our identification signal. After she joined me she confessed that she had thought ‘that can’t be him. He must be an actor or something’. We enjoyed a most pleasant evening which lasted well into the small hours. In the twenty first century we continue our correspondence by e-mail.

I have resolved my PayPal problem. Pictures can continue.

To celebrate, with our rogan josh Jackie drank a bit more of the Wickham medium white 2010, and I dipped further into the Era Costana rioja 2009.