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Diabolically Arcane

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Court Appearances

21 January, 2014

Some impressive new players have reached the Australian Open quarters – with some challenging letters. Aside from Simona HALEP, the new brigade carry some clunky consonants that will require the best in clue-mongering.

With no definition required, so who can make the best fist of any of these surnames over the coming days. Choose a tennis alias just to keep things honest, and I’ll pick my favourites by Friday, just to spare you any voting duties in this petering silly season. Here are the service providers, still in the tourney at the time of writing:

RADWANSKA
WAWRINKA
BERDYCH
CIBULKOVA
IVANOVIC
BOUCHARD
HALEP
DIMITROV
PENNETTA

Give any your best shot, using wordplay only.

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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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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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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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