Cryptic food and drink

Opened the Observer for the Azed crossword this morning and got a shock...my name was top of the prizewinners' list. This is the "normal" Azed crossword, not the "competition puzzle" that I never win. Even so, a pleasant surprise, which will be even nicer if I get the book token that I'm supposed to.
 
Duck59 said:
Opened the Observer for the Azed crossword this morning and got a shock...my name was top of the prizewinners' list. This is the "normal" Azed crossword, not the "competition puzzle" that I never win. Even so, a pleasant surprise, which will be even nicer if I get the book token that I'm supposed to.
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Well done! :highfive: I always knew you were clever...
 
I'm not sure that being able to do cryptic crosswords means that I'm clever. I'm quite good at doing exams as well, but that just means that I'm, er, good at doing exams.

Not impressed, though, that The Observer can't get my town's name right.
 
Duck59 said:
I'm not sure that being able to do cryptic crosswords means that I'm clever. I'm quite good at doing exams as well, but that just means that I'm, er, good at doing exams.

Not impressed, though, that The Observer can't get my town's name right.
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Well I'm rubbish at exams (except maths, physics, art and English). Note that almost no memory is required for the aforementioned. So, I still think you are clever. I bet you can do history, geography, chemistry (for which memory is required).
 
Duck59 said:
I was utterly rubbish at physics. The only reason I sat physics O-level at school was that it was mandatory. I got an "unclassified."
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I'm just good at anything logical : physics, maths, chess etc. And as I used to be head of an art college I suppose I must be good at art. I'm not bad at writing - mainly poetry though. The only time I tried writing a novel I go tied up in knots over the plot. I started writing it and it was very strange - the characters began to be absolutely real and almost wrote themselves.
 
This answer might fit into the "wish I'd never asked" category, but here goes.

My novel started with the simple idea of one particular character, based entirely on a former boss I had. It was very easy to give him a role because the only interests that the original had were golf and football. I also had a whole load of situations that I knew I could turn into a form of sketches, but I didn't really have a plot.

So I started writing some of the "sketches" and involved a few other characters. I'd got a fair way through, but still wasn't quite sure where it was going. What set it on the right path was the introduction of a new character, based on a Glaswegian girl I knew from Oxford. Funnily enough, I was unsure about using this character at first, but she turned out to be one of the most important characters in the book.

In the end, I was able to concoct something that involved use of characters that had appeared earlier in the novel and I managed to weave in a series of misunderstandings that made the plot work. So the plot rather evolved as I was writing the book.
 
Duck59 said:
This answer might fit into the "wish I'd never asked" category, but here goes.

My novel started with the simple idea of one particular character, based entirely on a former boss I had. It was very easy to give him a role because the only interests that the original had were golf and football. I also had a whole load of situations that I knew I could turn into a form of sketches, but I didn't really have a plot.

So I started writing some of the "sketches" and involved a few other characters. I'd got a fair way through, but still wasn't quite sure where it was going. What set it on the right path was the introduction of a new character, based on a Glaswegian girl I knew from Oxford. Funnily enough, I was unsure about using this character at first, but she turned out to be one of the most important characters in the book.

In the end, I was able to concoct something that involved use of characters that had appeared earlier in the novel and I managed to weave in a series of misunderstandings that made the plot work. So the plot rather evolved as I was writing the book.
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I think that was the way I started working. I was attempting to write an erotic murder mystery. The plot got very convoluted!
 
My novel does not attempt to involve itself with either eroticism or murder. Well, unless you include the murder of the English language by my anti-hero. And there is an episode involving planted underwear and condoms...
 
I quite like the use of dialect in a novel, though of course this doesn't mean it's bad English. Irvine Welsh, Niall Griffiths and James Kelman do this brilliantly. It can be quite hard to read at first, but I try to think of the characters speaking in that accent and it works.

My idiot gets all sorts of things wrong and I had fun with getting a Polish girl correcting his inept English.
 
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