How did Navigation get created, and who is Stymphalides? This blog answers these questions, in the same order!

Although we hadn’t yet met in person, we’d been corresponding on crosswords for a while test-solving and commenting on each other’s solo creations, so felt we’d built up an affinity with each other’s styles. To put that to the test, we agreed to attempt a joint puzzle. An initial idea involved a grid based on the Grand Union Canal, the ends of which roughly link where we each live. Trying to fit 137 miles, 156 locks and numerous excellent pubs into the limited space of a 12 by 12 grid proved too ambitious, so we refined the idea to look at one or more of the longest lock flights in the country. We each tried to create a grid involving a lock flight with which we were familiar – the Caen Hill flight of 29 locks on the Kennet and Avon canal outside Didcot, which boasts some wonderful wildlife in surrounding ponds, and the Tardebigge flight of 30 locks, which has interesting surrounding features. Having the longest flight of locks in the UK and being closer to a good pub, Tardebigge won!

The lock flight at Tardebigge seemed a very nice theme for a puzzle, but how to use it? Having TARDEBIGGE appearing in the SW-NE diagonal (roughly its orientation in real life), and using pairs of bars to represent locks as per the OS lock symbol, suggested the idea of creating a map-type puzzle that included the lock flight together with other local features that solvers could find relatively easily (hopefully!) using on-line or physical maps of the area. Many different trial grids were generated during April 2023, exploring a variety of methods for generating features to be included, which to use and where in the grid they should go, whether the grid should be symmetrical or not, and so on. Thankfully, one of us was persuaded to use shared crossword-compiling software to help with this process (not his usual practice), and he was very glad we did – he’d have got through an awful lot of sheets of squared paper otherwise.

The very first draft grid we produced was symmetrical and, as well as the lock flight, already included several of the additional features (tunnel, church, reservoir, halfway house, bridge and Stoke Locks) that were eventually to appear in the final version. The grid continued to be developed over a few weeks, and by early May we almost had an acceptable grid, with the features generated by clashing overlong entries at the appropriate grid positions, apart from the Queen’s Head pub which couldn’t fit next to Stoke Locks and so was put in the one remaining corner square which didn’t naturally contain a feature. There was, however, a remaining problem: one grid entry – EVANEL (the name, so we understand, of a high priest in World of Warcraft!) seemed too outlandish to be acceptable; but we couldn’t find a way to make the grid work without it while retaining the perfect symmetry we needed for a carte blanche grid, required for the eventual endgame of solvers plotting a path. Then one of us had an idea that paved the way for what the puzzle finally became, suggesting that we could fudge the problem by turning EVANEL into EMPANEL, creating an extra clashing cell with MPV as its contents. To accommodate the MPV within the theme, the puzzle would become a map of a walk around Tardebigge; an early draft preamble imagined Stymphalides inviting friends (i.e., solvers) for a walk around the lock flight, starting at the FOOTPATH in the top left, but including a parking space for an MPV about halfway round for those wanting a shorter walk. While the proper car park for the Tardebigge flight would be near the top of the grid, OS maps showed a track off which an MPV could be parked next to the reservoir, allowing a much shorter distance to the pub. Additionally, the walk would include a stop at the local pub; but Stymphalides, being a poor mapmaker, had indicated the pub in the wrong place, so solvers would need to relocate it to its correct position. Finally, the walk would take true solvers (not those cheating with the MPV!) back to the starting point.

Having settled on grid version 126(!), we turned our attention to choosing a title and drafting clues. Our original intention was for solvers to finish with a rough map showing the Tardebigge lock flight and surrounding features, for them to relocate the pub to its roughly correct spot next to the canal, with a route marked out for a “circular” walk from the nearest train station – Bromsgrove in Aston Fields, as shown in a map we thought solvers might access – then along the lock flight to the pub and back again. However, fitting either Bromsgrove or Aston Fields into the NW corner cell proved too difficult. In addition, we thought that it might be an idea to have some hint of canals in the title, so “invitation” was changed to “navigation”. Various attempts to fit the wording of the title exactly into the spaces between landmarks, thereby fixing the relocated position of the Queen’s Head, resulted finally in Navigation For A Walk (to the pub) followed by Back Again. There was also an idea to invite solvers who wished to actually to join Stymphalides on a summer’s day at Tardebigge and do the walk (including the stop at the pub, of course): but this hasn’t transpired – yet!

We wanted the clues to provide messages giving solvers hints for two things: (i) the route of the walk; (ii) how to indicate the locks in the final grid. Additionally, the idea was mooted that we should attempt to make the clueing gimmick thematic, simulating the action of draining and filling locks in a passage through the flight by having letters “drain down” from one clue into the next. After much consideration, we spotted the possibility of having the route described by a series of direction indicators (compass points) with, in each case, a number representing the number of cells to be moved (S ONE; E NINE; SE ONE; etc.); these directions would comprise extra wordplay elements in one clue that needed to move down to make up missing wordplay elements in the next clue. This scheme allowed us to indicate the route using the across clues and the first few down clues whose entries were not involved in clashes, but also meant that – instead of “draining” single letters only – we sometimes had to drain double letters (e.g. NW) or whole words (the numbers). Clueing the message for the lock symbols was slightly easier – the remaining down clues not involved in clashes allowed us to generate the message OS LOCK SYMBOLS in the same way.

Once we had the grid, endgame and message generation established, we could start on clueing! We created a spreadsheet showing the entries, letters to be moved and assignment of clues, using a system of colour coding adopted by Brock (with whom we had both previously collaborated) to identify good and dodgy clues as we progressed. We soon recognised the enormity of the task we’d set ourselves, shipping letters such as NW between clues and coping with different instances of ONE and NINE to be moved.

The second half of May was spent in a flurry of emails back and forth, as we tried out different off-the wall ideas for disguising “shipping” between clues. LEO(NINE) proved successful, ANTO(NINE) less so, and we toyed with using Roman numerals such as IX. Hiding NW in a cockney-themed clue as “I ‘ardly” seemed a bit of fun which solvers might get quickly. FORD(ONE) as a signifier for something being destroyed (i.e. removed) was rather more sneaky, but fitted nicely into a clue for GIO, an Orkney gully. At the time, it was tough coming up with different ideas for “hiding” all those occurrences of ONE and NINE in the wordplay of clues, but in hindsight, perhaps we were fortunate that the route turned out the way that it did: both ONE and NINE offer several possibilities for being elements in suitable longer words – some other numbers might well have proved much more difficult to clue in this way.

By early June we were in sufficient shape to send the draft puzzle out for test-solving in two different forms – carte blanche and with the bars shown. Our gallant test-solvers, Cagey and ‘Eck (both of whom have published their own tough puzzles in the past) struggled manfully with a set of clues among which there were few easy entries, with ‘Eck actually managing to finish the puzzle. In addition to helpful comments on many of the clues, they provided useful general comments, most importantly that such a tough puzzle should create a way in for solvers, preferably in the first across and down clues. We also took on board a comment that the last clue should not “drain back up” into the first clue.

So, our original clues for the first across entry, FOOTPUMPS (“Penny off provisions and shoes – about time, but these may still be inflationary (6)”) and the last, SHEEPSHEAD (“Dolt unhappy about man and woman holding record (6)”) were changed to straightforward anagrams. Altogether, we simplified or tightened up roughly a third of the draft clues.

The final tidying up and preparation of submission documents took place in the first half of July, and the puzzle was finally submitted to The Magpie on 18^th July 2023, three months after starting – not bad, given the puzzle’s complexity, and especially considering that one of us was also somewhat preoccupied by their daughter’s wedding on 1^st July, at a church only a few miles from the Tardebigge lock flight.

Finally, who are Stymphalides? We are a partnership of Hedge-Sparrow and Arcadia. The joint pseudonym derives from the Stymphalian Birds (Ornithes Stymphalides) of Greek legend: birds based in Arcadia who tormented sufferers with poisonous crap! Getting rid of them turned out to be a Herculean task. We hope that our solvers didn’t suffer so greatly, because you haven’t got rid of us yet!

Posted on Sunday, May 19th, 2024 at 12:17 pm under Setting the scene.
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