Time’s up. 2013 has been and gone and… I’VE COMPLETED THE 2500 CLUE CHALLENGE!!! YAAAAAAY!
I solved my 2500th clue on Christmas Eve, making it a lovely present for the following day. I continued to attempt solving the remaining crosswords in the year, and I ended the year having solved 2580 clues!
This month’s Clue Of The Month is by Paul from 24/12/13, and happens to be the 2500th clue solved: You 500? (4). Answer coming later.
Some stats: I solved 2580 clues, including 4 completely correct crosswords. Mondays were the easiest, Thursdays were the hardest. Most common number of clues solved in a day: 10. Most solved setter: Rufus, with 526 clues solved, counting for more than a fifth of all the clues I solved. I happened to meet Rufus in central London a couple of week ago, and he’s a lovely man and quite proficient at magic tricks. His thumb lit up when I shook his hand. Anyway, thank you Rufus.
It’s now time to dig deep into your festive pockets and donate to the 2500 Clue Challenge at http://www.justgiving.com/danielpeake2500 . If you’ve pledged 1p per clue and have been donating a fiver at a time, please donate £5.80 this time, as I solved a bonus 80 clues this time. I’ll have a look through past donations and try to let you know how much you’ve donated (as it can be hard to remember what you do last week, let alone last year!).
The answer to the Clue Of The Month is: THOU. 500 is half of a THOUSAND, and half of the word THOUSAND is THOU. Brilliant.
The Clue Of The Year though does have to go to Philistine (Puzzle 25947 on 14/05/13) for Rupert Murdoch is old (6,3,5) for BEHIND THE TIMES. That tickles my funnybone, so please accept this small pile of kudos.
Thank you all once again for the incredible support you’ve shown to me, I honestly wouldn’t have been able to do it without knowing you were all cheering me on and emailing me asking me how it was going. I’ve no idea what my Next Charity Thing will be, but I’m looking forward to making it happen.
Dan
www.danielpeake.com
2500cluechallenge@danielpeake.com
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