The DA Trippers When only a DA cryptic will do…

An Expanded Pantheon

Instead of just citing most of the noel crossword's clues as Gold, I thought I should just induct the whole thing into the DA Pantheon where it may reside alongside its much-heralded peers.

By my reckoning, this week's induction brings to four the number of crosswords that we have a record of which stand unsurpassed in brilliance.

They are as follows:

1. the McCrossword;
2. the footnote crossword;
3. the marriage crossword; and, of course,
4. last week's noel crossword.

Amongst DA's followers, many speak in hushed tones of other crosswords worthy of worship which have, regrettably, been lost to the ravages of time. They include:

1. the Muralidaran/nong's rumba/red-handed crossword;
2. the taboo crossword, which featured DA breaking all known cryptic conventions;
3. the "no animals were harmed in the making of this crossword" crossword; and
4. the do-re-mi crossword.

And in the second echelon, acclaimed yet not worshipped, reside the following:

1. the AC/DC crossword;
2. the Simpsons crossword;
3. the George Orwell crossword; and
4. the bobbing-message-in-a-bottle crossword.

Thus stands the DA Pantheon. May we bow down in obeisance.

A New Category: The DA Pantheon

RC made a wonderful suggestion while we were walking down Chapel Street, searching for a second-hand trumpet (I ended up buying a steel-stringed acoustic guitar and a ukulele) and marvelling at what we had just experienced: we need a separate category to hail the best DA crosswords.

So now we have: The DA Pantheon.

To our minds, three crosswords stand head and shoulders above the rest:

1. the McCrossword, which is perhaps the best crossword we've ever done;
2. the footnote crossword, which was exactly the kind of eulogy David Foster Wallace would have loved;
3. last week's marriage crossword, which was just brilliant.

There are probably others worthy of the pantheon. Undoubtedly, the Muralidaran/nong's rumba/red-handed crossword would have been another, yet that was released before this blog had begun and we have no record of its brilliance.

I would move to also include The Simpsons crossword into the pantheon, but I'm biased because I love the show so much.

What do you think? Is The Simpsons crossword worthy? Are there others that spring to mind?

And does anyone know if there's been a pangrammatic crossword where every letter of the alphabet has been included on the grid? I'd love to see one and would definitely consider it worthy of the pantheon simply because of the degree of difficulty involved.