{"id":5393,"date":"2025-05-06T19:12:33","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T18:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clueclinic.com\/?p=5393"},"modified":"2025-05-07T09:44:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T08:44:20","slug":"azed-2750-lunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/06\/azed-2750-lunch\/","title":{"rendered":"The Azed 2,750 Lunch"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

On May 3rd<\/sup> I attended the lunch in Oxford to celebrate the publication of Azed 2,750, a most extraordinary landmark. The event, superbly organized by Richard Heald and Will Drever, started off with a drinks reception in the grounds of Wolfson College, where I met Azed for the very first time and was able to thank him on behalf of myself and solvers old and new for the pleasure that he has given us. Those who haven’t had the chance to meet him will not be surprised to hear that he is a true gentleman, with just a hint of the absent-minded professor.<\/p>\r\n

The assembled throng then moved inside the college for lunch, an excellent meal which I found difficult to eat because it meant that I had to stop talking for whole seconds on end. After the strawberry pavlova (for which I was happy to stop talking!), we were treated to some Azed-themed poetry (including a ‘Clerihaiku’) from two of the guests, followed by a wonderfully diverse collection of speakers. The first of these was Azed’s young grandson, whose short address went down well with the\u00a0 audience. He told us that Azed was known to him as ‘Gongy’ [a childhood nickname of JC’s] and something that sounded like ‘Dumper’, although I’m going to wait for the transcript before I risk addressing Azed by that name myself. He was followed by Martyn Sloman, a long-time Azed solver, who described his 40 years of clue-writing competition entries in terms that spoke volumes for his pertinacity, which has sadly not so far been matched by his results. A four-time candidate for election to Parliament, he told us how the only thing that stopped him becoming an MP ‘was the electorate’.<\/p>\r\n

Then came the Times<\/em>\/Sunday Times<\/em> puzzles editor, and multiple Azed cup winner, Mick Hodgkin, reminiscing about his copy of The Azed Book of Crosswords<\/em> (“Fiendish puzzles for the crossword fiend”), and Alan Connor, among other things Guardian<\/em> crossword editor, current setter of the Everyman<\/em> puzzle, and ‘puzzle consultant’ for the TV show Ludwig<\/em>. Next up was the lady whose job it is to get the Azed puzzle into the Observer every week, Caitlin O’Kane, decked out for the occasion in a most striking crossword-themed dress, with fingernails to match. Finally it was time for the great man to say a few words, which he duly did to considerable acclaim, before he was presented with a huge bunch of flowers to give to his wife, Alison.<\/p>\r\n

We were then invited to Azed’s home, within easy walking distance. Instructions were given regarding a short cut, which involved passing through what appeared to be someone’s garage, but several of the party went seriously off-piste, having understandably ‘refused’ at the entrance to the garage, and were seen striding purposefully through a neighbour’s garden, something which tends to be viewed unfavourably in North Oxford. The Crowther family (with help from the Manleys) provided a sumptuous spread, to which I tried heroically to do justice, despite having on my smartest trousers, which have strictly limited expansion room.<\/p>\r\n

It was great to meet many Azed aficionados, some veterans and some more recent converts. The conversation throughout the day was hugely entertaining, and the setter Leo’s description of his near miss with Listener<\/em> puzzle 2,566 (Lip Service<\/em>, the last one to receive no correct entries), and his subsequent attempt to validate the solution (the inscription on the Blarney Stone) in the face of adverse weather conditions, was nothing short of hilarious. The whole event was joyous from start to finish.<\/p>\r\n

I would very much welcome any corrections, objections, additions, anecdotes or thoughts. Please add comments to this post, or email<\/a><\/span> me.<\/p>\r\n

The pictures below are reproduced by kind permission of Dave Carter and the organizers<\/em><\/p>\r\n

\"Azed

Azed and Don Manley<\/p><\/div>\r\n

\"Azed

Azed and Alan Connor<\/p><\/div>\r\n

\"The

The youngest speaker, pictured with co-organizer Will Drever<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Martyn

Martyn Sloman, the epitome of persistence in the face of cruciverbal adversity<\/p><\/div>\r\n

\"Mick

Mick Hodgkin reveals next month’s competition word, to Azed’s obvious surprise<\/p><\/div>\r\n

\"Caitlin,

Caitlin, with wonderfully apposite dress…and nails<\/p><\/div>\r\n

\"Flowers

Flowers for Mrs Azed<\/p><\/div>\r\n

\"Chez

Chez the Azeds<\/p><\/div>\r\n

\"\"

The team responsible for getting Azed into the Observer every week – Caitlin O’Kane, Azed, Alan Connor and John Grimshaw<\/p><\/div>\r\n

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<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The lunch to celebrate Azed 2,750 took place on May 3rd<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-azednotes"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5393"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5424,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5393\/revisions\/5424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}