Puzzles, posts, news and general word-chat.

Diabolically Arcane

Bingo. You’ve reached David Astle dot com, a carnival of words, puzzles and more words. Welcome aboard, and have fun.

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Post-It Note

15 June, 2012

Eurozone is doomed to fail, says comedian Dave Thornton. Think about it – 17 different housemates sharing the one bank account. The Greek guy is the bong-smoker who splurges on hangover souvlaki, while Germany is restumping the house, needing to flog another Volkswagen to meet the rent.

Dave hosted five other comics at The Corner Hotel – the who’s who of ha-ha – and went dangerously close to stealing the show. Tom Gleason gleefully scratched the veneer of showbiz, and Pete Helliar made a good point about a female, atheist, de-facto ranga being a traditionalist. But Thornton had me won with his typeface brainwave.

His idea has legs. The Interweb Authority People should screen everyone’s personality, and allocate a different typeface accordingly. That way, when you see Times Roman sanserif, “you know Stephen Hawking is dropping truth bombs”. And when you see Wingding, Kim Kardashian is online.

Check out more Dave here, and feel free to speculate on who owns what font in cyberspace. Noosa dole bludgers could claim Baskerville, Octo-Mom gets Myriad Bold, while Queen Elizabeth scores Perpetua.

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Rewording The Brain

Focus & memory, lateral leaps & logic - every aspect of cognitive health is lit in Rewording The Brain, a book revelling in how puzzles boost your brain. Part 2 equips your brain to conquer any twisty clue, plus the wild crossword finale. Pop science meets neural gameplay, Rewording is rewarding, and out now.

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Rewording The Brain

Care to renew your noodle? Rewording The Brain explores the latest neural studies, seeing how puzzles (and twisty clues) boost your neurons. Part 2 helps you crack such clues, and prep the grey matter for the crossword showcase to finish. More here

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101 Weird Words (and 3 Fakes)

From Ambidextrous to Zugwang, this mini-dictionary teems with rare or alluring words, plus bonus riddles, puzzles and fun word-facts. Dictionary detective will also nab the collection's three fakes. Ideal for late primary schoolers, or word-nuts in general.

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Gargantuan Book of Words

Sneeze words. Fake pasta. Viking slang. Gargantuan is a jumbo jumble of puzzles & games, mazes & quizzes, tailor-made for that wordy wonderkid in your life. Or anyone in love with letters, secret codes, puns, rhymes, emoji & all things languagey. More here 

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Recent Comments

Riddledom Rave

If you missed my riddle chat with Richard Fidler, then feel free to slurp the podcast at http://ab.co/1I9t1x5

Text-speak is creeping into Scrabble. Where do you sit?
OBVS I'm fine with it
Entrenched stuff - like LOL and OMG - but no more.
Words With Friends, maybe. Scrabble, no
Let the 'real' dictionaries decide first
Just the handy stuff, like FAQ and EUW
I mean, WTF?! No way
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