Listener Crossword: Statistics

Near the end of 1975, The Listener magazine carried an announcement that the most successful solver in the following nine months would be invited to meet the setters at their Dinner in 1976. (In the event, four solvers were all-correct and all received an invitation.) Full checking, record-keeping and notification of the results commenced soon after this exercise, with No 2397 (7^th October 1976), under the auspices of Michael Rich, the crossword’s first statistician.

Soon after becoming an Editor for the series Michael passed the mantle to John Green, who commenced his duties in 1985–86 and is still in post. John has maintained the overall procedures established by Michael, but has developed and enhanced them in the light of experience. Solvers are offered, each year, a set of documents that contain their own individual records, with each error detailed, as well as:

• A list of each puzzle, with the number of entries, correct and incorrect, new solvers (for the year) and number of currently “all-correct” solvers.
• A list of “Common Errors”, in part to help prepare the individual records, but enabling readers to indulge in a spot of schadenfreude.
• A ranked list of the leading solvers, i.e. those who achieved no more than 10 incorrect or unsolved puzzles.
• A “triangular table” showing the number of solvers who had correct solutions to m puzzles out of n submitted, for all possible m and n.
• A report on the annual Dinner that has just been held.
• Miscellaneous, eg, historical or address distribution, data if there is room spare. (Postal rates restrict the bundle to eight pages plus personal record.)

John is an active solver who therefore has direct experience of attempting each puzzle. He is also able to be tolerant over late submissions, but only if good reason has been reported in advance, e.g. absence on vacation, provided, of course, that the submission is dispatched prior to the publication of the solution (on Friday evenings by the Times Crossword Club).

Recently, all versions have been converted to electronic format. This has involved some corrections and reformatting. An account of this can be read HERE.

The lists of ‘Leading Solvers’ have been reduced here to only those who were ‘All-correct’ for each year. This is for reasons of privacy. Also, the postal districts for these solvers have been removed.

The following collates the numbers of solvers who failed on between 0 and 10 puzzles in each year; it also gives the total number of individuals who submitted at least one puzzle in each year.
     TABLE : numbers of solvers for each year

All the Annual Statistics documents are available in two versions. The “PDF” versions should be readable if the browser used to read this file has been properly configured. These versions cannot be altered, eg, they cannot be reformatted to suit a particular type of printer. The original versions are in “DOC” files, as produced by Microsoft Word ®, and can be read only if that program is available on the user’s computer. Whichever is used, you will need to use the “Back” button to return to the menu. Please select:

PDF       or       DOC

A single file including the submission data for every puzzle from No 2397 to the end of 2007, suitable for input to a spreadsheet program, can be accessed HERE. It may be best to save the file and open it outside the browser. To do so, Right Click on the link above, then “Save Target As…” wherever convenient.

The Listener		The Times
1976–77	2397 to 2435	1991	3090 to 3130
1977–78	2436 to 2474	1992	3131 to 3182
1978–79	2475 to 2516	1993	3183 to 3233
1979–80	2517 to 2566	1994	3234 to 3286
1980–81	2567 to 2614	1995	3287 to 3338
1981–82	2615 to 2666	1996	3339 to 3390
1982–83	2667 to 2714	1997	3391 to 3442
1983–84	2715 to 2763	1998	3443 to 3494
1984–85	2764 to 2815	1999	3495 to 3545
1985–86	2816 to 2867	2000	3546 to 3598
1986–87	2868 to 2918	2001	3599 to 3650
1987–88	2919 to 2971	2002	3651 to 3702
1988–89	2972 to 3023	2003	3703 to 3754
1989–90	3024 to 3075	2004	3755 to 3805
1990	3076 to 3089	2005	3806 to 3858
		2006	3859 to 3910
		2007	3911 to 3962

[Back to the top]