Back in 2021, I made a cryptic crossword for this blog. It didn’t go super well:
It turns out that the intersection of amateur bloggers and amateur crossword writers is, essentially, me. So there’s no way for me to embed a custom crossword on this site without either paying WordPress a lot of money, or paying some crossword provider a lot of money, or paying a small amount of money to a small provider but that involves entering my card details to a little-known website, which doesn’t feel like a sensible idea.
At the time, I gave up, and provided the crossword as an image, a PDF, and a .puz file.
But it’s 2026 now. Surely this is now possible? I actually don’t know. But it’s irrelevant, because I’ve since moved the hosting of this blog to a different provider, something I could also have done in 2021 (but was too much effort for a single post, without another reason to do it), and that means this is now possible. I tested it out on the old post, and so that now has a playable crossword on it.
But I can do better than that. Below is a fully playable cryptic crossword, with the grid-filling and cluing heavily influenced by being in the gap between the Winter Olympics Closing Ceremony and the Winter Paralympics Opening Ceremony. You have to click on it to see it, which is for GDPR reasons that are as thrilling as curling, without even the chance to win a medal.1 I am obliged by law to tell you that you should read the text below the crossword before clicking on it.2
Obligatory privacy note: if you click to view the crossword it will send data to Amuse Labs, where the puzzle is hosted, and set cookies in your browser which is necessary to remember the state of the puzzle. If you click the “Always display content” button crosswords will automatically load when you visit the website again, and a cookie will be stored to remember this preference. By clicking on the puzzle you consent to the applicable parts of this. For more information see the privacy and cookie policy.
If you’d like to have a go without clicking on the crossword, there’s a PDF version below. And why not let me know how you get on in the comments?
- That’s a cheap shot coming from someone who organised weekend plans around the men’s gold medal match. ↩︎
- Do most people who write a blog worry about this? Probably not. Are they technically supposed to? Yes, although the ICO’s privacy notice generator assumes you’re a business, so I suspect it’s not high on their list of priorities. Am I scared by their ability to fine me £17.5 million, even if they almost certainly wouldn’t fine someone like me? Give me a minute while I check my bank account… ↩︎
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