The Guardian Quick Crosswords 1: A collection of more than 200 entertaining puzzles (Guardian Puzzle Books)

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Connor, who has occupied the Everyman seat for four years, only sets one regular newspaper crossword and has a day job writing scripts, books and working as the question editor on Richard Osman’s BBC TV quiz show, House of Games.

It’s FABERGÉ, a name that was originally Favri and which acquired a decorative acute e, Sotheby’s suggests, “to appeal to a Russian nobility that paid a premium for French works of art”. The anniversary puzzle carried in this Sunday’s paper is special in several ways. Not only are all the previous setters’ names referenced, it includes clues from every era, including one from Everyman No 1 and one from last week. “The remaining clues – those needed to hold together the edifice – were compiled by the three surviving Everymans and it was a thrill for me to collaborate with those whose work got me hooked in the first place,” said Connor, justly proud of the challenge they have jointly set. Setters have had their trademark quirks, but Connor believes the different eras of the puzzle “do have at least two things in common: a commitment to traditional cryptic grammar and an urge to be solvable – or, as they put it in the 1960s, ‘soluble’.” Since then the appeal of this neat format of cleverly intersecting answers has withstood incursions from newfangled rivals such as Sudoku, or more recently Wordle, not to mention Candy Crush, so that it remains a favourite pastime for anyone with a love of words and a matching competitive streak.wordplay: most of (‘not entirely’) synonym for ‘honest’ + Mike in Nato alphabet + abbrev. for ‘Pence’ ]

wordplay: first letter of (‘initially’) EMPLOYED, after (‘on’) synonym for ‘fantastic’ & measure of energy (‘work unit’) ] And this is not the only link the Everyman crossword has with hit television shows. Connor worked with the creators of the BBC2 series Inside No 9 to create the highly-rated episode The Riddle of the Sphinx. Not only that but, with Connor’s encouragement, the show’s co-star and co-writer, Steve Pemberton, set his own cryptic crossword for the Guardian to accompany the broadcast. A lovely clue for a creator of lovely things from Anto in the quiptic, our puzzle “for beginners and those in a hurry”: There was an Everyman link to the BBC2 Inside No 9 episode The Riddle Of The Sphinx, which starred, from left, Reece Shearsmith, Alexandra Roach and Steve Pemberton. Photograph: Sophie Mutevelian/BBCIt’s always a pleasure to see a string of words put to completely unrelated uses; so it is with this Telegraph setter’s clue … The resulting puzzle is perhaps surprisingly consistent, testament to the eight decades of effort in making fair crosswords which will reveal their secrets after a bit of solving exercise,” he said.

It’s not just Russian nobles: Estée Lauder was born as the more humble Esty, for example. The subject of our next challenge, though, is pronounced with various degrees of “Frenchness”. Esty Lauder’s New York neighbours, like British speakers until the 19th century, prefer the “original” unaspirated version: reader, how would you clue HERB? Cluing competition Many thanks for your clues for MEDLEY. For the reference to another entrant, the audacity award goes to Porcia’s “Mix the Sicilian drink albery’s regularly seen with!”. The runners-up are TonyCollman’s relatable “Sequence of numbers rearranged led me to unknown quantity” and KeepLeftSign’s retro “The Strokes megamix?”; the winner is a terse one: “Mix of sea and land”.