Though the Independent has stopped appearing in print, new puzzles from its former stable happily continue to appear, most of them preserved online in the site’s Games section. Most, but not all. Saturday’s Inquisitor – one of those challenges which typically has no black squares and demands full concentration – is too varied and unpredictable in its form for anything other than print (in the i tabloid).
Case in point: PW RBS by Base, which you can see here as a PDF and print to solve. The puzzle’s subtitle is “(with apologies to Only Connect)” (full disclosure: I am the current question editor for that BBC2 quiz). It’s a staggering achievement which incorporates all of the show’s devices: the walls are represented by four groups of four words hidden among the clues, there are missing vowels, and even a set of three pictures which the solver must peer at and guess what comes fourth.
And it doesn’t diminish the staggeringness of the achievement to note that you could now assemble a decent booklet of Only Connect-themed puzzles (from, among others, the Telegraph’s Enigmatic Variations, the Guardian, the Listener, the Spectator and the Magpie).
There’s a clear affinity between these two cerebral hobbies, never more so than in Sy’s general-knowledge crossword in the Guardian Weekend magazine. But I frequently ask myself, having delved further than is probably healthy into both: which is the greater hobby? Full disclosure: I have somehow written a book about the appeal and history of crosswords (Two Girls, One on Each Knee) and of quiz (The Joy of Quiz).
To answer that, let’s put them head to head, over four rounds. Ready?
Longevity
Compared to other word games, the crossword is surprisingly young at 103, a product of the era of the first world war. But it beats the quiz, since Britain only began quizzing during the second world war, back when the activity wasn’t even called a “quiz”; it was a “bee”. A sample show from the BBC’s Forces programme is described in the Radio Times:
Here is a general-knowledge bee that should cause some fun. A team of four husbands — consisting of Jack Hardy, director of the Little Orchestra; Ralph Truman, BBC announcer and well-known radio actor; a commercial traveller; and an air-raid warden — meets a team composed of their wives.
Each question will be put first to the wives. If they fail to answer correctly, it will be passed on to the husbands; and it is just possible that even on domestic matters a mere husband may at last be able to show that his views are sometimes the more correct.
Winner: the crossword.
Versatility
The crossword was born in print and arguably works best there. It has worked OK on radio, though not for long and no one has yet managed to make it really sing on TV:
Quizzing started on the radio, transferred seamlessly to TV and in the 1940s people realised that they could organise their own events. Women’s Institutes and Mothers’ Unions offered wholesome fare about local history or farming techniques in church halls and civic centres, hoping to keep menfolk away from the pub. This of course evolved into ... the pub quiz.
Both activities are adapting to the new world of taps and swipes on screens and quizzing has so far stolen a considerable march.
Winner: the quiz.
Inventiveness
A peek at the credits for any serious quiz show is likely to reveal the name of a crossword compiler among its question setters. The same minds, then, can be applied to writing both questions and clues, and each requires careful consideration of where to put the give-away information to ensure maximum penny-drop pleasure for the contestant or solver.
But in the cryptic, misdirection and cheek are positively encouraged in a way that would be unfair in quiz. Crossword clues can be pointed and rude, both exemplified by Arachne’s clue ...
7d Throw shoe! Bugger invaded Iraq! (6,4)
... for George Bush, while, despite the valiant efforts of the indomitable Bradley Walsh ...
... the same cannot be said of quiz.
Winner: the crossword.
Cultural reach
Real life is often made of questions and answers, and the parlance of quiz, from “the $64,000 question” to “pointless answer” have gifted the language plenty of fun expressions when we’re asking each other questions.
University Challenge (which started as an activity for American soldiers; in Jeremy Paxman’s words, “a way to keep servicemen from their more conventional styles of recreation”) gives us “your starter for 10”; Mastermind (based on a BBC producer’s harrowing memories of his three years as a Gestapo prisoner-of-war) “I’ve started so I’ll finish”.
Real life more rarely asks us to look for reverse acrostics or triple definitions, and so the crossword’s catchphrases – “comp. anag. &lit.” and so on – are on fewer tongues.
Winner: the quiz.
So, at the end of the game, the scores are excitingly equal. Which brings us to our tie break. Over to you.
- The Joy of Quiz is published by Penguin on 3 November. To order a copy for £12.29 (RRP £14.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
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