Cryptic food and drink

Does one swallow these things without chewing or is that one of those myths that we are led to believe?

Unrelated to shellfish, I had a look at the Azed site and noticed that I received an 'HC' for the last prize crossword. It's all very patronising; he has three prizewinners, then 15 that he nominates as 'VHC' and then some 'HC' entries. Very highly commended and highly commended. Thank you, Mr Condescending.
 
Duck59 said:
Does one swallow these things without chewing or is that one of those myths that we are led to believe?

Unrelated to shellfish, I had a look at the Azed site and noticed that I received an 'HC' for the last prize crossword. It's all very patronising; he has three prizewinners, then 15 that he nominates as 'VHC' and then some 'HC' entries. Very highly commended and highly commended. Thank you, Mr Condescending.
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Its a total myth. You chew them. And they aren't alive when you pop them in your mouth either.

As for the Azed prize crossword, how does that work? Surely its either 100% correct or not - so how can entries be ranked? I haven't looked at it for years so maybe I'm misunderstanding the way it works.
 
Most Azed crosswords are "plain" ones that have three winners drawn from a hat (or first ones opened, however they do it at The Observer). On the first Sunday of each month, though, there is a "competition" puzzle where you not only have to solve the crossword, but write a clue as well. He leaves one clue with just a definition and you have to provide a cryptic clue for it.

As I mentioned before, there seems to be a clique of people known to Azed that wins every time. You can pretty much guess the winners from a relatively small short list.

There are also occasional competition puzzles where he does weird things like running clues together or missing letters out from clues and solutions. The message I get from those ones is, "Look how clever I am to be able to do this."
 
Duck59 said:
Most Azed crosswords are "plain" ones that have three winners drawn from a hat (or first ones opened, however they do it at The Observer). On the first Sunday of each month, though, there is a "competition" puzzle where you not only have to solve the crossword, but write a clue as well. He leaves one clue with just a definition and you have to provide a cryptic clue for it.

As I mentioned before, there seems to be a clique of people known to Azed that wins every time. You can pretty much guess the winners from a relatively small short list.

There are also occasional competition puzzles where he does weird things like running clues together or missing letters out from clues and solutions. The message I get from those ones is, "Look how clever I am to be able to do this."
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Well...I'd probably enjoy thinking up a cryptic clue but I very much doubt I can solve the crossword in the first place. I expect you are quite right about his 'coterie'. I mean....how do you get to be a crossword setter in the first place, if it isn't 'who you know'?
 
Female crossword compilers are thin on the ground. One was Crispa (Ruth Crisp), who set many puzzles for The Guardian. She died in 2007. Arachne (Sarah Hayes) is a Guardian regular who does crosswords for The Independent under the name Anarche. Hazel Goldman is another, setting for the Financial Times. Barbara Hall was the crossword editor of The Sunday Times for many years and was also a setter until she retired a few years ago. There is a woman who sets crosswords for The Scotsman, though I can't recall her name and I think that the crossword editor of the New York Times is a woman.
 
Duck59 said:
Female crossword compilers are thin on the ground. One was Crispa (Ruth Crisp), who set many puzzles for The Guardian. She died in 2007. Arachne (Sarah Hayes) is a Guardian regular who does crosswords for The Independent under the name Anarche. Hazel Goldman is another, setting for the Financial Times. Barbara Hall was the crossword editor of The Sunday Times for many years and was also a setter until she retired a few years ago. There is a woman who sets crosswords for The Scotsman, though I can't recall her name and I think that the crossword editor of the New York Times is a woman.
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More than I thought. I hadn't realised Crispa was a woman... I remember doing those crosswords back in the day.

I thought my clue was easy... :D
 
Duck59 said:
Oh, I see. I overlooked that one completely.

I couldn't resist this one:

Headless Arsene left, going off for breakfast (4, 10)
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This happens to be one of my all time favourite dishes - but I'm surprised you classify it as breakfast.
 
...although having Googled it, it seems that it is (rather like Eggs Benedict)! I have to say I've never seen it on a hotel breakfast menu, though. I used to eat it regularly for lunch in an Italian cafe in South Kensington, when I was a student in London. I've now got a craving for it...
 
I've always thought of it as more a breakfast thing, or perhaps brunch for those too lazy/busy/sleepy to eat breakfast. My favourite Eritrean breakfast, on the rare occasions I had one in a cafe, was frittata. Most of the time, though, I was getting up at five o'clock and bolting down a cup of tea and maybe a slice of bread and jam.
 
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