An occasional broadsheet for people who enjoy being misled fairly

No. 07 · Friday edition

The Setter’s
Desk

Price: one quiet hour

Inside: six clues, forty-nine squares, and the small electric instant when stubborn ink becomes obvious.

“A clue is a contract written by a pickpocket.”— H. M. Barley, setter
PROOF 03

Confuse misdirect, but never deceive.

⌁ ⌁ ⌁
Take up the pen

The Friday Miniature · Puzzle 007

Six lights before luncheon

Every clue contains a definition and a second route to the same answer. Tap a clue, then type. The blue nib marks your active light.

PENNY
DROPPED
7 × 7180° symmetry6 lights0 / 27 squares inked

Select a square or clue to begin.

Clues Enumeration included
definitionanagram foddercontainer

Across

Down

The reward

That bright little
click behind the eyes.

Solving is not the slow arrival of knowledge. It is a trapdoor: one second the clue is furniture, the next it is a machine with every cog visible.

WRITER?definition?
NEW YORKtoo broad
PEN + NYexact parts

Clue-writing masterclass · Lesson 01

Build a clue that leaves
no fingerprints.

We will make TEAPOT from two honest routes, then sand away the join.

STAGE 01 / 04

Setter’s note

Begin with the answer. A clue cannot be fair until its destination is exact.

The Ximenean creed

Mischief,
with rules.

Named for the exacting setter Ximenes, the creed permits disguise but forbids missing steps. The solver should lose because they did not see it, never because it was not there.

“I will indicate every operation.”
  1. 01

    Two roads, one address

    A definition and complete wordplay must independently reach the same answer.

    NON-NEGOTIABLE
  2. 02

    Indicators do the labour

    Anagrams turn, containers hold, deletions lose. The grammar tells you which.

    CHECKED
  3. 03

    Grammar stays grammatical

    The cryptic reading may be well hidden, but its instructions must still parse.

    CHECKED
  4. 04

    Difficulty is not obscurity

    Rare answer, rare definition, or rare wordplay: choose one. Never demand all three.

    HOUSE RULE

Names in the margin

The setter is
never quite themself.

Pseudonyms are part mask, part promise. A familiar name tells a solver what weather to expect.

HB
House setter · Fridays

H. M. Barley

Domestic surfaces, botanical answers, and containers hidden so neatly that solvers blame themselves.

LO
Guest setter · No. 43

Lodestar

Long charades and impeccable misdirection toward astronomy.

MN
Rookie setter · No. 08

Minikin

Short clues, bright definitions, almost no spare punctuation.

Choose your ownINKWELL

The quiet architecture

A grid should balance before a single letter enters.

British barred puzzles prize variety; American blocks often obey 180-degree rotation. Our miniature uses six open “lights”: rotate the page and every opening returns to itself.

Plan at 0°. Every block has a partner.

LIGHTBLOCK
49

squares arranged around one exact centre