Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

The June 2026 puzzle from the Crossword Centre (http://www.crossword.org.uk/) is Replace by Curmudgeon. I wonder how others are finding this?

The preamble explains: "Every across clue leads to the answer that must be entered, but each of those answers can be anagrammed to give a thematic word with one additional letter. A sequence of six of those letters suggests the theme, as does the title 'Replace'. More than one down answer fits the pattern. Solvers must select the highest of the thematic down-clue items and write its name below the grid. 5d is in Collins."

My experience of the puzzle is that the grid fill is very straightforward and I have, I'm pretty sure, identified the theme from extra letters given by 6 consecutive anagrammed across answers. However, after that, I am finding the end game frustrating, for two reasons: the theme is an ill-defined concept and in the context of the theme, "highest" is also ill-defined.

If I have got the right theme, I have identified 20 of the 24 Across theme words. Despite having all the letters to choose from for the other 4, nothing obvious presents itself and Chambers Word Wizard is of no help - I suspect some theme words may be quite obscure. There are (at least!) two possible theme words that can be derived from 1 across. For the across answers, none of this really matters as long as I have identified the right theme, but applying this pattern to the down clues is the problem.

I have identified 2 well known theme words from the down answers and one very obscure one. Was that obscure one intended (if there are obscure ones among the across answers)? And even among the few down theme words I have, I can make a case for different ones being "highest", depending on what that means. Is anyone else having this experience?

Hi twit
I had a 'once-through' go at this and intend to revisit but like you I'm a bit perplexed about some of the thematic words - I couldn't find a couple - and the meaning of 'highest'.

I have (probably) the same two theme words from the down clues so I'm inclined to just take 'highest' literally.

I'm in a similar situation.

I think I have correctly identified the across thematics but can only find two in the down answers.

Can you have a 'highest' of two? I suppose not, but I can't at the moment see any others. And is 'highest' a reference to grid position?

Uncharacteristically imprecise, so a bit frustrating!

Back to reexamine my down candidates...

Thanks both. Of the two well known theme words, which I expect we all have, one's jumbled letters appear highest in the grid, but that's probably not the intention behind 'highest'; the other well known theme word I expect to be the intended answer. But this is not a level playing field: if the setter means to be mean, the third obscure theme word I have found (ignoring a circumflex) beats them both. Choosing my words carefully to try not to give too much away!

Yes, but at what point? What's that mean?

Thanks Mattrom. That's my problem with this puzzle. Even if we have a shared understanding of what height means in the context of the theme, there are still different ways of measuring it and therefore more than one possible theme word could be the highest. For example, the Wiki page on one of the well-known theme words does not give a single value for elevation, it gives a (large) range, and that means different statistical measures can be used for comparison purposes.

I have this morning finally found the theme word for 15A, despite knowing all the letters, using anagram-solver.net and a lot of subsequent googling. I would describe that one as obscure. On one measure it beats my well-known down theme word for height; on another I suspect it won't, but I will probably never know, because the Wiki page on it does not give a range.

The obscure down theme word I found purely by chance is comparable in characteristics to the one for 15A, including on the ambiguity over whether it's highest of the downs. My first thought was that this was much too obscure for it to be the setter's intended answer, but having worked out 15A, I'm now not so sure. I found this one purely by guesswork and it doesn't have many letters.

What this puzzle demands is to go through every down clue to work out every conceivable anagram of the grid entry minus one letter and then googling them all to see if they are a theme word (a theme that itself is not well defined - you will not find an answer on the web to how many theme words exist, other than estimates that run into 5 figures). Having found all conceivable theme words, you then have to work out which is "highest" by another ill-defined measure. I would hazard that even the setter will not have done all that, so we're left with the worst possible GWIT - solutions that may exist that the setter has not thought of. All for an endgame that seems like an afterthought to the actual grid fill.

Thanks twit,
I also found this unsatisfactory. To have to go through lots of potential anagrams to find an obscure theme word is no fun at all. I realise the setter doesn't want to make it an easy ride but when you think you have several potential answers but still just aren't sure about any of them....
I think I also have 15a (remove the L?) but as for the downs, I have a couple of obscure ones besides the two more obvious. To be honest I sort of gave up the will two thirds of the way through the downs so there may be others!

I was struggling to spot the theme from unused letters in across anagrams (despite having worked out many theme words) until I realised that there are two theme words derivable from 1ac and I had picked the wrong one. That in turn told me which letter to remove from 15A - and it's not L.
With more than one theme word possible for a given (down) answer, it also means that just because you've found one, you can't stop searching all other anagrams derivable from that answer - they all have to be checked, just in case you've missed the highest one! Not appealing to my completist nature.

Curiosity is getting the better of me. Did anyone resolve (ie solve) this satisfactorily? The 'highest' mention seemed make the last step rather ambiguous, which is never satisfying!

Hi Malone
Not resolve, but I did submit, so that I could put this one behind me! I gave a narrative response on the endgame and quite a lot of feedback on the puzzle overall (constructive I hope!). I think the key question for me is whether the setter can prove that the answer they have in mind is the right one (having exhausted all other possibilities).
Anyway, I have said quite enough on this one.