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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Salon 26

1 July, 2013

Planetary bikes. Beatnik players. Payable stinker. (At least Tanya Plibersek has plenty of anagram potential.) But the rest of the new Rudd team are pretty frugal with their pliable letters. If you don’t believe me, see if you can make any cogent combo out of these new (or recycled) ministers:

Jenny Macklin
Penny Wong
Jacinta Collins
Brendan O'Connor
Warren Snowdon

Five names, with 14 bloody Ns. (It’s just as well Neil Finn, Nene King and Anna Karenina kept their distance from Canberra.) See if anyone can reweave these stubborn strings.

You’ll be cheered to learn I have regained my voice, and my tranquil desk reign, this week, after a stormy patch of work and poor health has robbed us of our usual Storm games.

That said, ‘voting’ Storms will be a little less frequent in this new FY – more like once or twice a month – in tandem with regular clue/wordplay games where winners are not determined. Think this keeps us all a tad fresher, and frees up CL, and my Saturday mornings. Don’t worry. DA Central will always offer plenty of mind-gum to chew, and chances to vaunt your devious stuff.

Have a great week, and don’t forget Wednesay’s Times (tips Athony) is a lollapalooza. Here’s hoping the Guardian gang are equally evasive.

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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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