Exciting news guys! I've just been invited to compete in this year's University of Bath Summer Crossword Hunt. It's an annual invitation-only event held by a small number of people within the university immediately after final exams. There are two distinct streams - the standard stream and the mathematics stream which requires a minimum of two years of mathematics degree knowledge to solve, to acknowledge the fact that a disproportionately large number of mathematicians like cryptic crosswords. I shall be entering under the mathematics stream.
It's a whole day event where a trail of clues are scattered across the city. Teams must solve cryptic or mathematical puzzles then race to the next point which will be somewhere within the city. Permitted modes of transport are walking, running, cycling and the U1 bus network. Clue setters are not permitted to point the final puzzle at Bristol as they did a few years ago!!
Teams must be of size either 6 or 8 broken down into sub-teams of pairs which rotate throughout the day and points are scored both for the team as a whole and for individual sub-teams. Answer submissions are made by one member of the sub-team on each occurrence although they can put down the name of their accomplice in solution as any of the other member within the overarching team. This makes the rules fairly confusing but means that there becomes an element of competition within teams too - you are able to stab each other in the back and must spend several days beforehand trying to form alliances or friendships lest puzzles you solve get given as credit to other team members behind your back!
Usually though it's just a nice way to spend a day sitting in cafes and exploring the city, trying to solve puzzles with a group of friends :)
