Roy Clarke’s affectionate, astonishingly inventive and consistent evocations of character are well described. He had saved up a beauty for the central thematic Day 18, which gives no inkling of what is about to be revealed. That shock to the system over, Vlad’s tougher challenges awaited. ![]() My first clue solved was CREPUSCLE, though I had to check in Chambers that such a spelling was acceptable - of course it was, though I’d never seen it before. Compo, Clegg and Foggy (no room for the others, but you can’t have everything, and it’s with that trio that I remember the series, comforting Sunday-night watching in the 1980s, staving off the return to work the next day) fitted in beautifully. HOLMFIRTH, the fascinating SIMMONITE and NORA BATTY (in administrative or perhaps Magyar form) satisfyingly framed the subject-matter. Nine-letter words are plentiful and varied, as the devisers of Countdown anticipated all those years ago, and with this theme the grid worked perfectly. 9x5x5 gives a satisfying proportion to the page: no straining to see the cells, and an elegant layout which will make this page most welcome on my kitchen wall in the least attractive of months. Solvers can be delighted that there’s more to come, while this grid was for me a most welcome innovation. ![]() ![]() When I sat next to half of Calluna at the 2021 Calendar’s Prizes Lunch, I had no idea of the full extent of this composing team’s expertise and originality. Graham Fox’s highly thematic photograph sets the pattern for a year of sumptuous colouring: here I detect an appropriate touch of nostalgia in this painterly image.
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