www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I got bored in a maths lesson. The clues with * after them mean the answer is a European butterfly name or part of one (Latin or English). Some of the other words appear in butterfly names too.

Some clues are pretty rubbish and one is absurdly obscure. But it might provide a few moments of frustrated entertainment. And it's free, so no complaints please.





Guy

PS - I've just edited this because I found I hadn't written a clue for 19 down.
And I've put a printable version here:
http://www.guypadfield.com/crossword.html

Guy
Quite brilliant!! I know how difficult it can be to compose crosswords at any time and doubly difficult to devise a 'theme' crossword. Not sure which clue you thought was 'absurdly obscure' - they all fitted in perfectly with cryptic clue protocol.
9 down had me reaching for Google, though! Well done, a superb puzzle!
Alex

Thanks, Alex!

The one I thought was obscure was 14d, and it might have been better if I'd put 'Smith's French ringlet'. I thought the etymological origins of that name (the answer) might not be generally known. Clearly, I underestimated you!

I have a confession to make, too. I was experimenting with a programme called 'Puzzle Workshop' that I bought here:

http://www.archersoftware.co.uk/crossword/index.htm

for £12.

I imported butterfly-related words from my website (actually, I turned the checklist of butterflies I had seen into a single column, one word per column, raw text file and imported that), chose my grid and clicked 'generate'. The programme supplements the imported file with its own list of 60 000 words but chooses the imported words where possible.

Obviously, I wrote the clues myself! But I've often spent hours and hours just on filling the grids in the past and I thought a programme must exist to do this faster.

Sorry - I'm not quite as clever as you thought!

Guy

Guy
Re 14 down. When I came to consider this one, I already had all the 'across' letters in place so there was really only one ringlet that would then go in!!
Alex

Have just finished !!

Well done Guy....very entertaining & educational . It would have taken me many maths lessons to produce !!

Charles

I try to write the answers in but my monitor keeps scrolling and messing them up.

Sorry Eccles - I haven't made an interactive version. One of the young, IT savvy kids on the forum will have to teach me how!

Guy

I'll see what I can do if you want Guy

You're on, Mouse!

I think it's a hard challenge from scratch though - so you might want to finish that physics coursework before you tackle it. I guess what I need is a form that takes as its inputs the lights in a crossword. Perhaps each square should be a free input. Or maybe that's quite wrong. I'm not quite sure where to begin.

In the short term, people can always print off the crossword - and then they can even do it in the bath.

Guy

Any particular colour or font you want the input text to be? I am just making your text fields!

Done it!!

But it is in the format that this forum doesn't allow. So Guy, I can send you my example, you can test it. I'll improve it and add the clues underneath, and then you can host it on your website.
Or Pete, can I please upload .swf file?

Em

Wow!

I've never even heard of an swf file. Please do send me it and I'll have a look.

Thanks, Mouse!

Guy

You're welcome
I am making the improvemets now, so you should have an interactive crossword soon Eccles!
Em

OMG, I can't solve the clues.

Here's one for those who don't like cryptic clues. This time it's not symmetric, but all the answers are parts (or occasionally the whole) of European butterfly names, either in English or Latin. The clues are tiny thumbnail pictures of the butterfly (all from my website).







Mouse is finalising an interactive version! I have to get back to marking school work.

There is a printable version here:

http://www.guypadfield.com/crossword2.html

Guy