If you're still commuting to the office, or if you just need something to read on the train, three free London newspapers continue to make themselves available outside stations. Some people start with the news and gossip, others the sport, but many simply turn to the puzzle page and whip out a pen. So which puzzle page is the best, and why hasn't anyone passed judgement on this before?
Commuter puzzle page review
METRO
This is Wednesday's puzzle page, or rather 75% of a page because the right hand column is all horoscopes.
Sudoku: There are three of these starting with Easy, then Medium, then Hard. I think the last designation used to be Challenging sometimes, but Metro changed its puzzle provider at the end of last year and difficulty levels changed somewhat. The Easy sudoku used to be damned simple, a swift write-in with no head-scratching, but the new incarnation is noticeably less straight-forward. Meanwhile The Hard isn't quite as hard, though still tough, and sometimes I will fail to see a way forward before chucking the newspaper in the bin.
Crosswords: A Cryptic and a Quick, each on a 13×13 grid. The Cryptic is less cryptic than a broadsheet, with clues like "Ogre from Georgian town (5)", "Bed with little hesitation providing nonsense (6)" and "Authorisation for take off (6,7)". Sometimes the lack of a subsidiary clue makes it hard to complete but generally it's doable. The Quick is fair thanks to decent-length clues, but with an occasional deviation into general knowledge demand.
Wordsearch: For when you don't really need to put your brain in gear, merely fill time before reaching your destination.
Word scramble: Six themed anagrams, potentially tough if you're not on the right wavelength for the theme of the day (groups from the 1990s: BEST YOKE BRACTS, GRASP USERS, SEE OAF CAB)
Split words: Not something I've seen elsewhere, essentially dead simple anagrams for people who can't do anagrams (one word film titles: V EHE ART BRA, A ARM DON GED, OR AD GL AT I)
Add up: A pyramid of single digits to total in order to find the top number. As arithmetic goes it's basically 8-year-old standard so hardly taxing, although if you've got a higher qualification you'll be aware that a shortcut to the summit total is a+4b+6c+4d+e.
Word Wheel: An old favourite where you try to construct words from the given letters, maybe attempting to scribble them down into the tiny gap in the margin. Personally I never bother because there isn't a solution, merely a target so there's no satisfaction from completion.
Conclusion: Whether you're a words person or a numbers person there should be enough in the Metro to keep you occupied on your journey - a proper puzzling time sink. But not every day.
This is Thursday's puzzle page and it's rather different.
Two additional puzzles appear - Numberfit and KrissKross - both of which are essentially the same jigsaw task with either numbers or letters. With a bit of effort they could have been constructed to be challenging but they're not, and with ambiguity absent it's not difficult to start slotting everything in. Many people appreciate a simple puzzle, and on Thursdays that's what they get.
The drawback here is that online casino Sky Vegas has sponsored the double-page spread, filling half the right-hand page with an oversized word search which also promotes a new series on ITV. Fitting the other puzzles into the remaining space has proven challenging so the crosswords are larger than normal, the Sudokus are tiny and Word Scramble and Split Words have disappeared. The Sudokus are so small that the grid is only 3.5cm wide (that's not even an inch and a half), so if your eyesight's even vaguely dodgy the entire process is now impractical. The moral of the story, as ever, is that adding sponsored content inevitably makes quality worse.
CITY AM
This is Thursday's puzzle page, or rather half-page because it's a bit sparse.
City AM doesn't really do puzzles, indeed even the title 'Coffee Break' suggests it's not for tackling on a journey, rather saving for a spare 15 minutes later. One sudoku, one word wheel, one crossword... and it's not even a decent crossword, it's a quickie slotted into an 11×11 grid. The only innovation is Kakuro, the Japanese puzzle where each horizontal and vertical block has to add up to a certain total. It's always a satisfying solve but again somewhat on the small side given the density of the grid.
City AM are up front about where their puzzles come from - a company called Puzzle Press who construct puzzling content of all kinds for publications nationwide. They're based in Norfolk, a world away from the Square Mile, and have been doing this kind of thing for years so if you need a puzzle spread do get in touch.
Conclusion: More a token presence than a busy spread, but even this is an improvement on the complete absence of puzzles in City AM until a few years ago. I'm surprised because I'd have thought financial types would have relished a mental challenge, but maybe that's why the number puzzles are tougher than the word puzzles.
THE STANDARD
Yes it's still publishing but only weekly, so if you never pass a hopper during the brief window of opportunity then The Standard may now pass you by. The puzzle page hasn't altered since it was a daily though. Here's this week's.
Double Crossword: This is a clever use of space, a set of cryptic clues and a set of quick clues using the same grid. You have to pick one or the other, the answers aren't the same, as you'll soon discover if you try to mix the two.
Battleships: Everyone knows how to play this, but can you get the totals on each row and column to tally? I enjoy this one and I generally get it correct about 90% of the times.
Codeword: Another puzzle page staple but the Standard is the only freebie still to include it. Three letters always feels insufficient to get started, but once you find an opening it generally all pans out as all the words inexorably reveal themselves.
Circlegram: More of a novelty this, a themed venn diagram with one overlapping missing letter. What I can't believe is that anyone ever wants to solve this so desperately that they contact The Standard's clue service at £1 a pop, let alone that this makes the paper any money.
The Tube Quiz: A Standard exclusive, a chain of tube map stations to identify by solving a set of clues. Some are general knowledge, some more cryptic, and as the years have passed they've become increasingly contrived because there's only a finite number of ways of clueing Oxford Circus. "Which station is an anagram of OUTFOX CLOSURE SCHEME?" and "The Crown and Treaty pub, which hosted abortive peace negotiations during the English Civil War, is located in which town?" are two of this week's ridiculousnesses.
Gogen: This is my favourite, a 5×5 grid into which the letters A-Y have to be fitted so that a specific set of words can be traced out. It's a shame I now only get to play this once a week, if I'm lucky, so I'm pleased to have discovered a website where I can enjoy a Gogen daily.
Sudoku: Just the one grid here but generally the standard of Metro's 'Hard'. Comes with a 30 minute target to beat, so technically you could get all the way from London Bridge to Orpington without managing to deduce the final digits.
Quick Crossword: And finally another crossword, just the simple clues this time. It's from the American school whereby clues are single words and most letters overlap, so words like ERA, LEES and ASTER appear a lot (this week 10 across, 18 down and 32 down respectively).
Conclusion: A bumper collection to suit allsorts, showing some originality and with plenty to keep you busy. A quality offering that's better than it needs to be.
Overall conclusion: Given the choice I'd always reach for the Standard first, indeed its puzzles are more engrossing than ploughing through its slanted articles. But if it's not a Thursday then the three sudoku in the Metro usually keep me occupied, then the crosswords if it's a longer trip. City AM generally remains in its hopper.
Observation: At least Londoners do still have puzzles as part of a free newspaper offering that continues to provide a valuable and informative service. Nothing quite beats filling in a grid with a pen rather than tapping on a screen, but I fear one year in the not-too-distant future we may no longer have the option. Yield (4). Delete (5). Finish (6).
