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Diabolically Arcane

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Fear Dinkum

12 September, 2012

Two puzzly treats to keep your mind in shape. The first comes from Dabbler RK who’s back in the creative groove with two new crosswords. RK8, which I tackled yesterday, is an elegant themer with plenty to like.

The second offering is older-school, those abbreviated equations you confront at every trivia night (8 = T on an O, etc), but here’s a difference. This is one almighty long list, and there’s bound to be some coded maths you haven’t met. (Thanks for Nib for the link.)

And lastly, a creative challenge for you. The New Yorker blog runs a Twitter game called Questioningly, posing readers with offbeat dares. Like invent a new phobia, as happened on Friday 13. With apologies for trimming the contributors' names, here are some comical suggestions,:

Shymalanophobia: “The fear that your life will have a great twist ending, but you’ve already figured it out”

Susuphobia: “The fear of Phil Collins”

O’phobia: “The fear of all things Irish”

Phophobia: “The fear of delicious Vietnamese noodles”

Rosebudophobia: “The fear that you won’t enjoy a movie because people have already told you its secret”

Fee-fi-phobia: “The fear of giants”

Möbiusphobia: “The fear of moving forward and ending up back where you started”

Read more here. And concoct your own fresh fears 3.0 in the forum.

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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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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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