Sunday, 12th October, 2025

I have been out of commission for a while but pleased to report I’m back in the saddle, with a brand new Shakespeare crossword challenge in the offing since The Two Gentlemen of Verona, is now concluded, Sunday 12th October, followed next Sunday 19th October, by Shakespeare’s last play, at the Globe, Henry VIII which never got beyond Act I before the theatre was burnt to the ground and all the rumours of foul play, set the tongues fairly buzzing!

https://www.facebook.com/david.akenhead

Today we are on 461,512 visits as our readership continues to expand rapidly.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Hybrids everywhere should be the order of the day and, let’s face it, that thinking has already saved us from the added burden of nuclear war! AI can also bring much health and happiness to our world if employed with moderation and responsibility.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

My prayers are, and will always be for the children and elderly infirm who are forced to suffer senseless barbarism as a result of all the present turmoil, as well as for the aid workers and medics caught in the cross fire. Cool heads are called for in this time of crisis for ALL adversaries.

Our fragile existence must ensure that war as we know it, becomes a luxury no one can afford to risk if our entire planet is to be saved from irreversible devastation. Instead why don’t we all unite, or agree politely, to disagree in the face of a large meteorite shower (just starting but at intensity in 2027, I understand!). Listen to our children the world over, and help war become an experience of the past, to be replaced with brotherhood and sisterhood for all man and womankind and everything between! Make love, not war! and heed Voltaire! Nous devons cultiver notre jardin d’abord!!

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

However, let us never forget our past and our family sacrifices and contributions alongside the Newfoundlanders and the Anzacs and South Africans in two world wars and beyond fighting for Britain and our loved ones. Seems history is repeating itself sadly along with horrendous trench warfare stories in Ukraine. Enough! Grow up increasingly fragile world.

On 4th March 1941 against a lonely Albanian mountainside my 23 year old Australian uncle, RAF and Australian Ace 39967 Flight Lieutenant, Richard Nigel ‘Ape’ Cullen, DFC and Bar met his end in his Hawker Hurricane as 2nd i/c to Pat Pattle South African Ace DFC and Bar, defending a Royal Navy Convoy off Corfu against far superior Axis forces.

We face a similar threat today it seems from a Russia which conveniently forgets their allies saved them from annihilation by Hitler’s Nazi forces back in WW2 thanks to the Baltic Convoys to Archangelsk, the name given too to our pocket battleship HMS Royal Sovereign loaned to Stalin and his navy by Churchill to accompany those convoys in the summer of 1941 post demise of the Bismarck.

We know this because I unearthed the above * spy Times crossword from 4th June 1941, – Wikipedia’s version is utter fiction because a dated and numbered Times crossword tells no lies –  bearing Royal Sovereign’s name in 1941 not 1942! which had it been published when submitted could have alerted Nazi Germany with disastrous consequences with 2 British ships targeted, one a troopship in the evacuation of Crete, Stirling Castle, and the other HMS Royal Sovereign, newly equipped with the latest anti-submarine tech courtesy of the USA and Rosyth shipyards.

We must resist again it seems, thanks to odious adherents to Nazi Europe. Wake up, Europe and America! Once bitten was enough! Make Ukraine a member of NATO immediately! Show the Bear we mean business!

* As archivist of The Times crossword, I am familiar with the house grids as opposed those of contributors. Most are innocent whereas others reveal sensitive information, operating to a code as to be recognisable to alien forces. Being the sole remaining TC Archivist, I recognise immediately unrecognised grids, always a good starting point!

I have unearthed three definites and this one was the most sensational, witness my detailed Introduction under War Years. Clue in question to Puzzle number 3,518 of June 4, 1941: 8 dn: Game which should make “The Royal Sovereign” secure in all respects (5,3,6) CROWN AND ANCHOR message to mini subs to sink her in her newfound name anchorage and harbour Archangelsk. Crossword received 29th May, published 4th June by which time the harbour defences had been alerted! Thank goodness for British queues! In that selfsame crossword, if further proof were needed, we also have 7 dn: Flying fortress? (8,6) STIRLING CASTLE emphasis on the question mark, with thousands of troops aboard evacuating Crete for the relative safety of Alexandria! by the time this crossword was published that golden opportunity for the Luftwaffe had been lost. Hitler was more preoccupied with Barbarossa and the imminent invasion of Russia!

I am resolved now to concentrate on the Here and Now in 2025 with superlative efforts from some countries but not others. I welcome representatives of any nation on this Earth that does not support terrorists or genocidal maniacs, and respectful of our fragile Earth, women’s rights to equality and respect, and where peace and harmony and truly international cooperation is patently absent at present from its husbandry.

The NEW Times Jumbo Crossword Challenges

Respectful that I must not promote these Jumbos using the Times masthead unless authorised, I have adopted my own masthead, Nital, my own design to ensure the sanctity of the joint copyright on original 27 x 27 grids, designed by me and my father which I share with Times On-Line and the new man at the helm, Mr Lachlan Murdoch, whose enlightened 21st century vision for service to all TOL subscribers keen to preserve a wonderful newspaper, I continue to fully support. After thirteen earlier successful Shakespeare plays courtesy of AI and some sort of magic dust to keep me reindeer worthy!

Go to: https://www.facebook.com/david.akenhead 

Regards,

My regular News editorials elaborate what is fair play for me, speaking reams of earlier happier days, as Peter Brookes does with his wonderful regular cartoons in The Times – DA

War has overnight become a luxury of the past and we need to think 21st century now. Only the combined brains of this world from every single nation can safeguard our increasingly fragile eco-structure. Our late Queen made a memorable start with her Commonwealth tree-planting initiative. In support of which, this too from the late great founder of our crossword, Adrian Bell:

The oldest profession? (9) GARDENING says it all really, that and celebrating our humanity through sport in all its noblest aspirations. Well done, Prince Harry, for the vets. Your courage in the field too is legend!

1 ac. In order of celebration, the ayes have it, it seems! (4,5,4,2) GOOD QUEEN BESS II

1 ac. Silvery-white Ode to Joy, 21st Century style! (8,7) PLATINUM JUBILEE

At the outbreak of World War 2, our beloved Queen Elizabeth was a 14 year old Princess along with her joie de vivre 11 year old sister, Princess Margaret,

both facing an uncertain life ahead but with a sense of duty and devotion to their country reflected in their father King George VI and their own broadcasts to the children in England separated from their families, rather similar to families in Ukraine today, conveying encouragement and hope; but young Elizabeth wanted to go further and by her 18th birthday had persuaded her father that she wished to join the ATS and do her bit for the war effort at their HQ in Aldershot near Windsor Castle.

So it was in autumn 1944 that she met my mother, Angela, and my godmother Stella Cody as she later became, who had both joined the service earlier, and who now acquainted Princess Elizabeth with the business of both driving and servicing Army ambulances, both already well aquainted with their nightly missions of tending in low visibility to the devastation, wounded and dying from London’s Blitz. Below pictures of my mother in 1940 as a young Corporal, after enlisting in the ATS on her 21st birthday, with a troupe of dedicated, selfless, quiet and truly heroic army girls and nurses, culminating in 1944 elevated to Captain, with Stella, by this time her staff sergeant i/c driving lessons, both charged with assisting the young princess in familiarising her and her vehicle with basic mechanics on the one hand, and manoeuvring it in blackout conditions, on the other, both of which she accomplished the following year with flying colours!

Also my father below, an RAF pilot and glider pilot in the newly formed AAC who she met in a pub in 1944 – promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, Edmund Akenhead TD by war end.

‘You can’t be a beacon if your light don’t shine. There’s a little light in all of us by God’s design’ Marty Cooper and Donna Fargo USA

Restoration of my late father, Edmund Akenhead’s Arms, pursuant to Queen Victoria’s Amnesty to landed Scottish families post Culloden (ours a Sept of Gordon) and graciously granted to my father and his descendants in perpetuity by Queen Elizabeth the Second and the College of Arms on the 31st October 1989.

Witness below, a handful of clues including our treasured national institution (apart from the tea!), namely our beloved Times crossword, stemming from its inception some ninety-three years ago! Remainder can be found in my new AZ Sketches by DA (courtesy of Boz!).

Her attachment to Poe makes her also write verse (4) TESS

Saw one of the team off then? (5) TENON

There’s no limit to what a sick kangaroo will do (9) BOUNDLESS

Unsuitable entertainment for Father’s Day? (3,8) POP FESTIVAL

Conference material? Impressive! (5) SATIN

Here’s one from my latest challenge with explanation: 

Antonio’s key impediment to happiness and peace of mind? (2,4,2,1,8,5-3,6) TO HARP ON A DREAMFUL LOOSE-END MECCAN besotted with Bassanio as a lover, and envious of his bi-sexual nature and losing him to Portia who finds Bassanio’s bravado in hanging the expense, irresistible too in his imaginary pilgrimage to Mecca! D. Akenhead and here’s another!

House séance disturbing (6) ENCASE 

“Madam, I’m Adam” — the world’s first? (10) PALINDROME fits as does  (4-2-4) CHAT-UP-LINE cd

Inevitable response to that, of course is:

Madam? EVE! (mad am!!) (5,8) CHAIN REACTION

Visits to date over 3,000 (24 hours)

Thu 1st February     2024                   8,676

Wed 31st January   2024                    7,346

Mon 8th January      2024                    7,134

Tue 30th January    2024                    6,075

Mon 20th February 2024                   6,006

Wed 10th January    2024                     5,693

Wed 24th January    2024                    5,039

Wed 21st February 2024                    4,833

Mon 29th January  2024                    4,326

Tue 9th January       2024                     4,301

Tue 23rd January     2024                     4,206

Sat 24th February   2024                    3,869

Tue 16th January      2024                     3,759

Sun 25th February  2024                    3,742

Sun 18th February  2024                    3,687

Mon 15th January    2024                     3,681

Sun 7th January       2024                     3,574

Sat 17th February   2024                     3,395

Sun 4th February    2024                     3,386

Thu 22nd February 2024                     3,152

Sun 11th February  2024                     3,039

Sat 10th February   2024                     3,001

Interesting article by my father for Times News, the House Journal of Times Newspapers, February 1976 Edition where he indulges his readers in the mathematical intricacies of a Mastermind competition in which he was an entrant – father was very much into code-breaking in his War years, and as usual, a master of understatement.

As a quiet multi-lingual RAF test fighter pilot earlier, he also later flew light aircraft low at night under radar behind enemy lines. I only gleaned this information at the very end of his life in a 5 hour game of chess (which he eventually won instinctively on close to empty!) on enquiring about his TD when he brushed off landing his glider and troop plus jeep 50 miles behind enemy lines prior to the Rhine crossings as nothing much really, and in any case something he had done before at night and in a much lighter aircraft, a Lysander, in more challenging circumstances!

The headline and the signature are adequate evidence of the veritas without any need for the interim RTP or QED!

– 

23rd out of an original field of 800 plus, wasn’t bad going!

Looking on the bright side (and not new), Pimm’s No. 1 time in order! (8) OPTIMISM

And on that note perhaps it’s worth observing that my Chinese following probably comes from Yunnan and Guangdong, and Hong Kong. In Yunnan, Li Jiang in 2007 I was deputy to Verle Ackerstaffe at the Cambridge International Language school where we taught English and Drama to neigbouring students from China, the Himalayas, Tibet and Burma, having taught earlier in Guangdong Province, China, too.

My Russian following stems from my successful Sunday Times Crossword Compendium, where in Moscow for an entire year in 1996 we were featured in their Games and Puzzles Top Ten.

And my Singapore following, undoubtedly stems from my earlier days with Harper Collins, and my visit there in 2002 promoting my computer crosswords alongside the crossword books through their agent in Borders, US booksellers, established across Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and my friendship with Allan Wong and his wife Mei Chan both prominent in the modern Singapore (as well as in India) where they were most gracious hosts to me and my daughter, Charlotte, in the early millennium.

States, Nations and Dependencies (200) contrasted with Visits.

Wise words from a beacon of light in a troubled world:

“Come in I’ll give ya shelter, shelter from the storm” Bob Dylan, 18th September 1974

David Akenhead, CEO Akenhead crosswords, Sunday, 12th October, 2025 – I’m doing it again, April next year, 2026 but in a wheelchair!

Views: 876