Fully convinced by marriage, one makes regular deliveries, six letters.
Can you solve the clue? Read the interview with the man who created it.
His name is Jonathan Krather and he sets crosswords for the observer. Jonathan has been writing the Observers crossword puzzle for over 53 years. To his crossword fans he is known as ‘Azed’. Clues like this are fairly common in his creations
“Marriage is tie. The institution of marriage a tie. So pause and tie makes posty.”
He says that he has Quite recently I’ve taken on a sort of a fellow compiler.
The fellow compiler is Colin Thomas otherwise knowin as Gemelo and he too writes crosswords for the Observer.
His intention is not to do the same things as Jonathan did, at least not at first. But tries to come up with his own special ideas like
“Rhino is slang term for money. So African rhino is is a currency from an African country.”
“Leicester City Center. Well, the post code for Leicester City Center is L E1. And if you say L E1 using O N E spelling out one, you get Leon which is the currency of Sierra Leone.”
It really is a truly unique lineage – Colin says as Jonathan has been writing for over half a century. Before him there was Ximenes(Derrick Somerset Macnutt also known as the father of the cryptic crossword.) and Torquemada (Edward Powys Mathers British translator and the creator of some of the world’s most difficult cryptic crosswords.) who are like the mount Rushmore of Crossword Setters. They both basically created and shaped the guidelines and rules for what a cryptic can or cannot be or how the clues work.
How did Jonathan Start with this?
He sent the observer an in-memoriam crossword that he’d made in the shape of a large X for Ximenes and he said -“yes I’d like to print that” and by the way would you like to take the job?
Jonathan leapt at it , as he was only 29 at the time but he’s really been doing it ever since. Now he is 83 and he has made an awful lot of crosswords.
His nickname
Don Diego de Deza was a Spanish grand inquisitor. So for him it seemed quite appropriate to turn the name backwards and thus become AZED.
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