Crossword Update: A to Z

A to Z After an interval, the alphabetical jigsaw puzzle is back Last month we published a Saturday prize puzzle set by Paul (No 26,495, 14 February). It was a jigsaw puzzle, where the clues are presented in alphabetical order of their solutions, which then have to be fitted in to the right places in the grid. This format was 'invented' by Araucaria and last month's puzzle was the first that we had run since 2013, when John Graham became too ill to continue producing them. The last Araucaria alphabetical was published on 10 September 2013 (No 26,047). Enough time had now passed, I think, for it not to be disrespectful, if others picked up where the great man left off.  Paul's puzzle seems to have been well received. We used to publish two, or sometimes three, alphabeticals a year and I am proposing to resume the same sort of frequency. They are very popular with those who like the challenge of harder puzzles. But I know that there is a large, largely silent, majority who groan when they see one, assuming that it must be beyond their capacity to solve. There is also the restriction with alphabeticals that the online interactive program for solving puzzles cannot cope with them, because the software is written on the basis that every numbered clue corresponds to the matching numbered slot in the grid. As this cannot be the case with a jigsaw puzzle, when it is faced by one the system has a nervous breakdown. For the printed paper this is not a problem, but it means that alphabeticals can only be presented online in a PDF print version for downloading, As we cannot, therefore, provide the popular online 'check', 'cheat' and 'solution' functions with alphabeticals, they have to be confined to the Saturday prize puzzle slot, where you are not allowed to check or cheat and where you are not supposed to see the solution until after the deadline for submitting entries. Incidentally, for the same reason, if you try to use the archive search facility on the home page to look up old alphabetical puzzles by serial number, you are unhelpfully told that no puzzle with that number exists. (This defect in the system is being worked on.) But you can, in fact, get to the desired puzzle from the left-hand side of the home page by choosing 'All Prize puzzles' and then proceeding either via number or via setter to a downloadable PDF version. _____ Paul's 14 February puzzle, in fact, was dedicated to the memory of his friend, Araucaria, with the clues presented as rhyming couplets (which Araucaria was wont to do). The first one (for A) ran as follows: 'He'd bend to steal my heart with song, all our lives enhancing (9)', for AR[(p)AU(l)]C/ARIA ['bend' = ARC; 'Paul's heart' = AU]. The puzzle was linked to Paul's intention to run for charity in the London Marathon on 26 April, his chosen charity being Sense, the National Deafblind and Rubella Association. If you would like to support him in this venture, you can do so by going to https://www.justgiving.com/guardiancrossword/ . Paul is overcome by and immensely grateful for all the money raised so far. At last count there have been 247 donations, totalling more than £4,700, which is a fine tribute both to Araucaria and to Paul. As I have told him, all that he now has to do is to run 26 miles and 385 yards. _____ Last month's tale of the Astronomers of Warwick, who gather as a group in the middle of the day to tackle the Guardian Quick puzzle collectively, provoked reports of a number of similar instances of how our simple and unassuming crossword can produce unexpected social effects. 1) The Quick is clearly appreciated by non-native English speakers as an agreeable way to extend vocabulary and knowledge of the English idiom. PedAunty suggested that the puzzle might be renamed the Quick Crossword Language Lab.  2) An international group of engineers and technologists doing development work in Silicon Valley at Google HQ shortly after it became a public company in 2004 also used the Guardian Quick to clear their heads at lunchtime in the canteen after back-to-back meetings all morning. 3) MisspellAny reported the existence of a multinational group of friends, formed as a result of first meeting virtually in the comment space under each online Quick puzzle. Four of the group, including one from Buenos Aires, met in early February in London at the Tate Modern and finished off that day's Quick,before moving on to other less serious matters. I am beginning to wonder whether all this activity could not be monetised (I think the word is) as a sort of exclusive niche computer dating agency. _____ Advance notice: our special Easter jumbo puzzle will be published on Saturday 4 April. Congratulations: to the winner of the February Genius puzzle (No 140 set by Paul), Philip Kicks from Stockton-on-Tees _____ If you have any technical problems with our crossword service, please emailuserhelp@guardian.co.uk . If you have any comments or queries about thecrosswords, please email crossword.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk . For Observer crosswords please crossword.editor@observer.co.uk .