Crossword editor’s desk: clues for Michael Stipe and a life in puzzles

A new book about crosswords? From one of the Guardian’s setters? And one of the setters who has set across the board, edited other series to boot, and brought fresh faces into the game?

It’s true. Maskarade, AKA Tom Johnson, has published All Squared. I hereby recommend it and direct you here to learn how to order a copy for yourself and another for a loved one’s beloved Christmas present.

Last time, I wondered why we no longer had funny adverts. I’m happy to pass on Leadballoon’s point-by-point take. If your own branch of the world has less humour and if you have, like Leadballoon, an analysis that is not an obvious culture-wars salvo, please share. Also: am I right in thinking that cryptics are nowadays more – not less – amusing?

Some eye-catching features of September’s Genius: the underlining in the instruction “Solutions should be fitted into the grid jigsaw-wise, wherever they will go.” (We can’t underline here, so we’ve used bold.) Words familiar from Araucaria’a puzzles, but Soup must mean something not quite the same. And is that … 11 15-letter entries?

Genius 267 solution

It is! But in this jigsaw, some of the pieces fit alongside one another in those long columns and rows: a different kind of challenge and bravo to those that made the complete fit. Odo is behind this month’s Genius: tell your friends. And if your friends think they can’t do “advanced cryptics”: send them here.

Many thanks for your clues for STIPE. The audacity award is Jacob_Busby’s for the lengthy “One who calls Leonard Bernstein, Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce, Lester Bangs and Penelope Pitstop back, albeit briefly” – and wouldn’t she have enhanced song?

The runners-up are Montano’s ingenious “STEM subjects: Technology, IT, Physics and Engineering, to start with” and Newlaplandes’s elegant “Singer’s backing contribution to keep it simple”; the winner is the splendid “Band losing religion’s lead?”

Kludos to Calmasyoulike; please leave entries for ALL SQUARE below, along with any favourite clues or puzzles you have spotted.

188 Words for Rain by Alan Connor is published by Ebury (£16.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.