Hello - BIG May 2012

Mother’s Day is here again, a time to appreciate your mother or to put your feet up and be spoilt, if you are one.

Most mothers can remember the moment they first became a mother, that instant when a woman holds her first child in her arms and realises that her life will never be quite the same again.

And I’m no exception. I can clearly remember that moment 30 years ago, when Patrick arrived and turned me into a mother, followed closely by Dominic and then Kathleen.

Being a mother has its challenges - plenty of sleepless nights, pacing the floor soothing a sick child or worrying about a partying teenager, yet no mother would change a second of it.

In no time at all, so it seems, my three little children turned into adults and left home. You look back and wonder how you could ever have managed to do all you did, juggling the childcare, housework, career etc. It seems like a distant dream.

I dreaded the day when my children would move away and feared I’d miss them terribly, but luckily they’ve all come back and all live within walking distance.

James and I were making crosswords well before they were born, so they’ve grown up steeped in the puzzle world. They had years of listening to James and me calling out crossword clues and answers – our way of checking a crossword - so they became familiar with the nuances of the English language from an early age.

Before we could afford to have a mailroom, the competition entries were managed by the junior Lovatts. They had to open the envelopes carefully and sort the contents.

They’ve also had to put up with us discussing readers’ letters, dictionary anomalies, sales figures, staffing issues and a myriad other niggling details that crop up in a family business.

I always thought that a background like this would be more than enough to put them off working in the puzzling world, but it seems to have had the opposite effect.

They all work here at Lovatts, something I never dreamed they’d want to do. When James retired from running the business a few years ago, Patrick was the perfect choice to take over. He knew the business like a mother knows her baby (I’ll get in a Mother’s Day reference) and has made us both very proud.

Dominic has always been dabbling in web-based technologies. With the recent advent of social media he is now manager of all our social media platforms including our popular Facebook page facebook/lovatts (ever the marketing type, he insisted I include the link).

Kathleen, known as Kitty, is the baby of the family and works in Sales. Hers is one of the friendly voices our subscribers may hear when phoning in.

In next month’s BIG, we’re featuring photos of the new Mrs Lovatt, Patrick’s beautiful bride Sarah, as she walked down the aisle to marry Patrick earlier this year. Dominic was the best man and Kitty was a bridesmaid, so you’ll meet the whole family.

Wishing all mothers a very Happy Mother’s Day!

P.S. Don’t forget to check out our Mother’s Day promotion where you have the chance to win a collection of Dianne Blacklock novels. Click here to read more. Competition closes midday, May 10.

CHRISTINE’S HELLO appears every month in Christine’s BIG Crossword magazine. » More info here

Hello - BIG, April 2012

Readers often tell me that when they can’t solve a crossword clue, they sleep on it and hey presto! In the morning the answer suddenly springs out at them.

Writer John Steinbeck discusses this phenomenon “It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.”

Scientists have explored the question of why we need to sleep. Reptiles and fish have periods of inactivity but they don’t actually need to sleep, so why do we?

Apart from the fact that we need to rest and recuperate, sleep provides the perfect time for the body to repair and rejuvenate itself.

It’s been discovered in recent experiments that animals deprived entirely of sleep lose all immune function and die in a matter of weeks.

Sleep plays a critical role in brain development in infants and young children. Infants spend roughy 13 to 14 hours a day sleeping, and about half of that time is spent in REM sleep, the stage in which most dreams occur. A link between sleep and brain development is becoming clear in adults as well. This is seen in the effect that sleep and sleep deprivation have on people’s ability to learn and perform a variety of tasks.

Approximately one-third of your life is spent sleeping, and the length and quality of your sleep directly affects your daily performance, your mood, and your entire waking life. If you’re not getting enough hours of sleep, then you’re not living up to your full potential.

So although it may seem a waste of time spending eight hours in complete inactivity, the good news is that your brain is solving life’s problems, including that tricky crossword clue, while you slumber.

Happy Puzzz…ling!

CHRISTINE’S HELLO
appears every month in Christine’s BIG Crossword magazine. » More info here

Hello - BIG, March 2012

Although Shakespeare wrote his plays about 400 years ago, in some ways the world he wrote about has hardly dated. For instance, the plants he referred to in his plays are the same ones we’re familiar with today.

In his Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oberon tells Puck to squeeze the juice of a flower onto the sleeping lovers as a love potion:

“Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell:

It fell upon a little western flower,

Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,

And maidens call it love-in-idleness …

The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid

Will make a man or woman madly doat

Upon the next live creature that it sees.”

Shakespeare must have thought this flower was special.

The flower he’s referring to is the pretty viola tricolor, known as heart’s-ease, which sounds more like an angina medication. Maybe the name came from its supposed potency in love charms.

It’s also known by the delightful names butterfly flower, wild pansy, kiss-me-quick, kiss behind the garden gate, love-in-idleness, three faces under one hood, and Johnny-jump-up.

The viola is a relative of the pansy. The name pansy comes from the French work penseé which means ‘thought’, probably because the pansy looks like it has a face. When a bouquet of pansies is given to you, it means, “I’m thinking of you.”

In Hamlet, Ophelia says:

“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance: pray you, love, remember.

And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.”

These pansies look like little men with moustaches.

Shakespeare makes many references to plants, which I will write about again soon.

Happy Puzzling!

CHRISTINE’S HELLO
appears every month in Christine’s BIG Crossword magazine. » More info here

Hello - BIG February 2012

Good news this month for anyone whose birthday falls on 29th February – this is a leap year so you can celebrate your birthday on the correct day instead of 28th February or 1st March. Or maybe you don’t mind not having a birthday, because you claim to be only a quarter of your age!

Adding an extra day to the calendar every four years compensates for the fact that a period of 365 days is shorter than a solar year by almost 6 hours. A person born on February 29th may be called a leapling or a leaper.Famous people born on 29th February include radio DJ Jonathan Coleman, singer Dinah Shore and actor Joss Ackland.

In Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1879 comic opera The Pirates of Penzance, Frederic is finally released from his pirate apprenticeship when he turns 21,only to discover that because he was born on 29th February, and his contract states that he be released on his 21st birthday, he must serve for another 63 years. Luckily his girlfriend Mabel agrees to wait for him faithfully.

However, any woman unwilling to wait for her man to propose may take advantage of the tradition which gives women the right to propose on 29th February. As the story goes, the tradition of women romantically pursuing men in leap years began in 5th century Ireland, when St. Bridget complained to St. Patrick about the fair sex having to wait for men to propose.

In English law, the leap year day had no recognition (the day was ‘leapt over’ and ignored, hence the term ‘leap year’). It was considered, therefore, that as the day had no legal status, it was reasonable to assume that traditions also had no status.

Consequently, women who were worried about being left on the shelf took advantage of this anomaly and proposed to the man they wished to marry.

It was also thought that since the leap year day corrected the calendar discrepancy, it was an opportunity for women to correct a tradition that was one-sided and unjust. So get down on your knees, ladies and pop the question!

Happy Puzzling!

CHRISTINE’S HELLO
appears every month in Christine’s BIG Crossword magazine. » More info here

Hello - BIG January 2012

Fishing is one of the oldest occupations in the world, dating back at least as far as the Paleolithic era when catching fish was necessary for survival. Today, people fish for many reasons such as relaxation, the sport of it, or simply for the fish story - that colourful boastful tale about the size of the fish almost caught. There’s an old proverb that says nothing grows faster than a fish from the time it bites to the time it gets away.

Over time, many fishy terms and expressions have found their way into our language.

The expression a fine kettle of fish dates back to the eighteenth century and means a muddle or mess. There are a couple of possible origins, one is that the phrase was originally ‘a fine kiddle of fish’, a kiddle being a barrier in a river with an opening fitted with nets to catch fish. Poachers would raid the traps and destroy the kiddles, leaving a mess. Kiddle then became corrupted to kettle over time. Another theory is that the gentry would take a kettle down to the river on the border of Scotland and England. Salmon would be caught and thrown into the boiling kettle. The expression relates to the resulting mess or muddle of bones and broken up fish. A different kettle of fish, meaning a different state of affairs, is a newer term, dating from the twentieth century.

To fish for a compliment is to use leading questions to obtain praise and a cold fish is someone who is distant and unfeeling. The expression a fish out of water, meaning a misfit or someone unsuited to a situation, dates back to 1613 where it was published in Samuel Purchas’s Pilgrimage - ‘The Arabians out of the deserts are as fishes out of the water’.

If you’ve been disappointed in love someone might tell you that there are plenty more fish in the sea, meaning that there are many other potential opportunities still available. This is a modern version of the old sixteenth century proverb there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.

To swallow something hook, line and sinker is to believe a tale or be extremely gullible, like a fish that not only takes the bait and hook, but the lead weight and some of the line as well. A similar but older phrase is to swallow a gudgeon. A gudgeon is a small freshwater fish used as bait to deceive fish and came to mean an easily fooled person.

So, if you don’t have other fish to fry, then dive into this issue and get solving. I know you’ll have a whale of a time!

Happy puzzling!

CHRISTINE’S HELLO
appears every month in Christine’s BIG Crossword magazine. » More info here

Hello - December BIG

As we start counting down the days to Christmas, here at home, it’s a good time to look at what the rest of the world does at this time.

Nearly all countries that celebrate Christmas have Christmas trees, although not necessarily fir trees. Sometimes fig trees or palm trees are decorated and lit. Most countries display Nativity scenes and people gather to sing Christmas carols. Present-giving is fairly universal.

Santa Claus has different names abroad. In Britain he’s known as Father Christmas and in France he’s Père Noël. In the Netherlands he’s St Nicholas or Sinter Klaas (pictured left).

In Germany, children receive their gifts from Christkind, a sprite-like child (pictured right) considered to be an angelic messenger.

Swedish children get their gifts from Tomte, a gnome who lives in the forest and arrives by sleigh.

In Russia, the presents come from Babouschka, a kindly old grandmother in a headscarf whereas in Italy it’s a good witch called La Befana. Her name possibly comes from Epiphany, which is celebrated on 6th January.

Surprisingly Christmas Day is a public holiday in non-Christian countries such as Singapore, South Korea, Pakistan, Lebanon, Indonesia, India, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Malaysia.

Wherever you live, and I know we have puzzlers from every corner of the globe, we wish you a very Happy Christmas!

Happy Puzzling!

CHRISTINE’S HELLO
appears every month in Christine’s BIG Crossword magazine. » More info here

Hello - November BIG

The early 20th century was a time of huge changes in the global marketplace. Before this time most of what manufacturers made could be sold easily. For example, soap was once made a batch at a time in kettles and sold in chunks from door to door. There was no variety in colour, fragrance, or performance. Soap was. . . just soap.

Technological advances during and after the war greatly increased manufacturing capacity and consumers soon had more and better products to choose from, meaning manufacturers had to pay attention to their customers. Soap makers, holding unsold chunks of “just soap,” began to respond to demands for better cleaning soap and more fragrant soap.

Out of this, the industry known as marketing research came into its own. Pioneers such as Arthur Charles Nielsen and George Gallup invented methods to survey the public so that the consumer’s opinion was finally being heard by the manufacturer.

Today, the gathering and analysis of public opinion for business, political, and social issues is sponsored by government agencies, academic institutions, and business groups. The growth of survey research means that, for example, instead of getting any old crosswords, you get good-quality crosswords that cater to the needs of the readership – or puzzlership. Your opinions do count. Surveys are how your opinions are collected.

So although being stopped in the shopping centre or on the street by an opinion pollster can be quite a nuisance, especially when you’re in a hurry, it’s often in the cause of perfecting the product or making it more available.

Here at Lovatts, from now until the end of the year we’re conducting a reader survey to gain an insight into you, our readers. On completion of the survey, you will go into the draw to win $500 cash plus other prizes!

To get started, go to www.lovatts.com.au/survey

Happy puzzling,

CHRISTINE’S HELLO
appears every month in Christine’s BIG Crossword magazine. » More info here

Hello - October BIG

When making a crossword, one of the useful words is the Spanish cry “ole!” There’s a theory that it is derived from the Muslim cry “Allah!” from the days when the Moors invaded Spain, with the pronunciation changing over the years, so that instead of meaning God it has become a shout of triumph or encouragement, associated especially with bullfights and flamenco dances.

Puzzler Keith Brook recently wrote about our use of the word toreador, meaning bullfighter. It is really an archaic name, nowadays referred to as torero in Spain, but we are probably familiar with the word toreador because of The Toreador Song , one of the most famous arias from the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet. Sung by the matador Escamillo, it describes various situations in the ring, the cheering of the crowds and the fame that comes with victory. If you think you’ve never heard it, I challenge you to listen to it and I’m sure you’ll find you’ve heard it before.

The picador is the lancer horseman and is often jeered by the crowds for weakening the bull by piercing his neck, but in the past the picador was the star of the bullfight. It was only when the matador started to face the bull on foot that the picador was relegated to the unpopular role of lancer. The matador is the one who kills the bull in the end.

Aficionado is now used to mean a person who is very enthusiastic and knowledgeable about a particular subject, but once meant a bullfighting buff and comes from the Spanish aficionar ‘to inspire affection’.

The ballroom dance Paso Doble (meaning double step) is based on the bullfight, the man playing the part of the matador and the woman represents the matador’s cape.

The first bullfight can be traced back to 711 Ad, when it was staged to entertain the crowds at the coronation of King Alfonso VIII of Spain. It has now been banned in Barcelona and activists are hoping it will soon be banned as a cruel sport in the whole of Spain.

Happy Puzzling!

CHRISTINE’S HELLO
appears every month in Christine’s BIG Crossword magazine. » More info here

Hello - September BIG

It’s easy to lose track of time when you’re absorbed in solving our crosswords, but most of you tell me it is time well spent!

The means of keeping time began with the observation of day following night. As early as 3500 B.C.the Babylonians started using a sundial, an instrument that estimates the time of day by tracking the movement of the sun’s shadow.

The Egyptians invented the water clock, consisting of a pot with a hole in the bottom. People could easily tell the hour of the day and night by noting the water’s level in the bowl. This was the first timepiece that worked independently of the sun. Further progress came with the invention of the hourglass or sand clock which possibly originated on sailing ships. In China candles or incense were used to measure time. By the Middle Ages the first mechanical clock had been designed.

The word clock derives from the Medieval Latin word clocca, meaning bell. This Latin word may have been of Irish origin, reaching English via Middle Dutch klocke. Clocks were bells that were rung to announce the hours, although they were not very accurate!

These bell clocks were referred to as turret clocks. One of the world’s oldest turret clocks, dating back to 1386 is the Salisbury Cathedral Clock in England.

Big Ben, the world’s most famous clock, often appears in our crosswords.

Big Ben is, strictly speaking, the name of the bell hanging in the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster, but the nickname is commonly used to refer to the whole clock tower, hence our clues ‘London clock bell’ and ‘London clock tower’.

Big Ben is famous for its accuracy. Small adjustments are made regularly, by putting a penny on or taking a penny off the top of the pendulum. Adding one penny creates a 0.4 second adjustment by increasing the rate at which the pendulum swings.

We’ve been working round the clock to get this latest issue to you, so start puzzling.

There’s no time like the present!

Happy Puzzling!

CHRISTINE’S HELLO
appears every month in Christine’s BIG Crossword magazine.
» More info here

Hello - August BIG

I was just about to take a bite of my hot buttered toast this morning when it slipped through my fingers and landed on the floor… buttered side down.

Although my outlook on life is generally optimistic, I found myself thinking of that well known expression with the underlying message that if anything can go wrong, it will - bread never falls but on its buttered side. This phrase was first published in a New York magazine in 1835 as part of a rhyme:
I never had a slice of bread
Particularly large and wide
That did not fall upon the floor
And always on the buttered side!

After testing the theory, scientists found that humans and tables aren’t actually tall enough for toast to regularly land butter-side up. Toast sliding off a plate from a height of less than 8ft spins too slowly to make a complete revolution and is more likely to land buttered side down.

Naturally, my thoughts drifted to other butter-related expressions, and there are quite a few.

Someone who is clumsy or prone to dropping things may be called butterfingers. The term could be used to describe someone who has a tendency to drop toast but is more often associated with cricket, where “butterfingers!” is sometimes shouted at the poor cricketer who misses the catch. To flatter with smooth talk is to butter up, usually in the hope of receiving something in return and bread and butter is a person’s livelihood or provider of income.

To know which side one’s bread is buttered is to be mindful of one’s own interest; or know what to do in order to gain an advantage. To butter one’s bread on both sides is to gain advantages from two sides at once or to be wastefully extravagant.

Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth is a phrase that dates back to the 16th century. It refers to a person who has a cool demeanour without enough warmth, even in the mouth, to melt butter.

Fine words butter no parsnips means that words alone are not enough to rectify a situation and what you do is more important than what you say.

So as I sweep up the crumbs and re-stock the toaster, I’m hoping you can plough through the puzzles in this issue like a hot knife through butter while I get back to my bread and butter job of making crosswords!

Happy puzzling!

CHRISTINE’S HELLO
appears every month in Christine’s BIG Crossword magazine.
» More info here