A new setter in our ‘American-style’ series – along with some tips on how to tackle the puzzles
Good news! This series has its second setter. This month’s puzzle is by the excellent Paul Taylor, who you may well know already: as Listener setter Apt or from his @XwdInATweet Twitter account; from the competitions here or from sundry other puzzles.
Long Shots can be downloaded in digital or printable form.
Without wanting to give anything away, the theme for this puzzle wasn’t too much of a stretch to come up with.
I wrote a few lines of Python code to find suitable words for the “theme” answers. It took a bit of thought working out exactly how they would fit in to the puzzle, since the theme has to emerge just through the clues, rather than with a preamble like in a British themed crossword like the Listener.
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