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Diabolically Arcane

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Salon 23

10 June, 2013

Spoiler Alert – the Titanic sinks. No seriously, I have a neat idea for an Omega puzzle. Sydney readers will be familiar with this jumbo puzzle that appears in the Monday SMH. If you enjoy solving this trivia/quick kahuna, then please skip the next three paragraphs, as I wish to discuss a theme.

Have they gone? The central phrase to catch my eye has the ideal 21 letters, namely: needing no introduction. As for toying with the phrase, I started listing household names with their initial missing, so making new surnames.

People like the gardening joker (Heath Edger), the wet TV wag (Hamish Lake), the chain-smoking C&W singer (Johnny Ash), the hippie-cool batsman (Don Radman), the foul diarist (Anne Rank) and the inky motorbiker (Casey Toner).

Can you help add to my list of potential recruits? If you want to give just a clue, then please use byline and number (plus answer length), and we can treat the roll-call as a rolling puzzle.

Enough Omega biz. Happy birthday, Your Madge. The sun is shining. Today’s Times looks a treat. And we begin another wordplay week. If you wish to reflect or repudiate on Brit crosswords, please head for the Comments below. Look for a Storm on Tuesday – and congrats to SK (aka Lagafoolin) – for stealing one more book from my library! Have fun out there. And here.

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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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