Solve A Puzzle While On Hold

Thank you.  Your call is important to us.  Please hold and an operator will be with you shortly.

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We apologise for the delay.  Currently we are experiencing a larger number of callers than usual.  Please hold for the first available operator.

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Does that sound familiar?  How much time have you spent twiddling your thumbs while you wait for your call to be answered?  It is not unusual for large corporations to be swamped with calls and all you can do is hang on the end of the phone and wait your turn.

What do you do while you wait, apart from getting more and more impatient and frustrated?  You could use the time to your advantage.  Pull out a puzzle!

Why not be prepared for a long wait?  Grab a coffee, your puzzle and your pen and then make the call.   Not only will the time pass more quickly but you will be far less stressed by the time your call is answered.  You will have fun doing your puzzle and keeping your brain exercised, too.  Believe me, something as simple as this can affect your mood for the rest of the day.

Choose the good mood, by grabbing that puzzle!

Education Doesn’t Just Have To Happen At School!

If you have school-age children, crosswords and other types of word games are great activities to supplement with their regular schoolwork.  They don’t have to stop learning just because they have come home.  If you have several children at school, why not include a general knowledge quiz or a spelling bee around the dinner table.  A favourite when I was a child was a Capital Cities quiz.  It didn’t matter that my sister was two years younger, it was something we could both learn together, and we both relished the challenge when Dad asked us what the capital of Nicaragua was!

Why not try some Crosswords for Fun free kids crosswords on the Crosswords for Fun website?  Crosswords and other puzzles are great for kids.  They will have fun, and at the same time it is an educational experience for them as well.  It will help them improve their spelling and build their vocabulary, which in turn will help with their school assignments.

Don’t forget, that you have any ideas about puzzle topics, or hear an interesting word that you think would work well in a puzzle, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

Get the whole family puzzling together and have fun!

Keep Your Employees Brains Healthy With Puzzles

Modern day employers are aware of their responsibitilies when it comes to workplace health and safety.  Safety checks, ergonomic equipment and safety training have all helped to reduce any health risks in the workplace.  Some employers have set up special facilities such as dedicated lunch rooms/time out spaces and even gyms so that their staff can maintain their physical health and manage stress.  A healthy employee is far more likely to be productive so there is a good return on the employers investment.

Physical health involves more than just managing the body.  What about managing the mind?   Although gyms and time out spaces are great for helping manage physical and mental stress they don’t do enough to help maintain brain health.  Exercise is an important component because it keeps the blood flowing to the brain but it doesn’t work the brain in a way that will keep it sharp and active.

Part of an employers corporate responsibility should involve brain health as well as physical health.  Providing mental stimulation in the form of crosswords, puzzles or trivia quizzes is very cheap and easy to do.  Imagine how much better your people will be able to concentrate with their well trained brains?

Your organisation may have a social club.  Why not work with them to establish a crossword club, or a regular event that involves memory, focus and thinking?  We all know how popular Trivia Nights have become.  That could be a fun method to exercise your employees brains.  Just think of the fun you could have together and what a bonus that could be for employee-employer relations, too.

If you have staff room, just drop a few puzzle books, crosswords or wordsearches on the tables and encourage people to become crossword solvers.  You might be surprised at how quickly they become in demand.   People may choose to take up the challenge on their own or in a small group.  Why not allocate Friday morning tea to solve the latest Crosswords for Fun Mystery Word Trivia Quiz?

Do you have a company newsletter or website?  We can design a crossword for you on a regular basis.  It can either be general or related to your core business.

A healthy and happy employee will produce better results in the workplace.  For a small investment in different formats of puzzle, you will see great returns in your business.

Book Review : Your First 100 Words In German : German For Total Beginners Through Puzzles And Games

Did you know that you can learn another language by doing crossword puzzles?  It may sound like a challenge, but its a really fun way to learn your new vocabulary and spelling.  At Fishpond I found a book called “Your First 100 Words in German: German for Total Beginners Through Puzzles and Games” .

“Your First 100 Words in German” will help you learn German in the same effective way that children first learn to speak their own language.  The blurb says: “Learning German can be scary to you as a beginner, especially if you have attempted once before and failed. The reasons are many: too fast a pace, an overwhelming amount of vocabulary, or problematic memorization. “Your First 100 Words in German” eliminates these obstacles by presenting the meanings and pronunciations of 100 basic words in a simple workbook format, each illustrated and transliterated so you can grasp the word without struggling.”

We know that learning a new language exercises a part of the brain that we don’t use every day so it is a great thing to do.  This book combines the best brain exercise techniques all in one.  Grab yourself a copy today!

Build Your Vocabulary With Crosswords for Fun!

Do you enjoy learning new words?  I certainly do.  It’s great to be able to increase our vocabulary.  You never know when an unusual word is going to appear in a crossword or codeword.  It’s fantastic feeling when you realise you have heard of it, or better still, know its meaning, without having to go and look it up in the dictionary!

Not that I mind looking up words in the dictionary. I love looking through them to find words that I haven’t yet come across.  It’s also a good opportunity to revise the words that I do actually know.  I particularly like long words.  I found a word today that means a word with many syllables… it’s SESQUIPEDALIAN.  Isn’t that a great word?  Look out for it in a Crosswords for Fun crossword or codeword soon.  Now that I’ve found it, I’ll be sure to use it.

If you come across an unusual word, be sure to let us know about it.  All crossword solvers enjoy boosting their vocabulary!

Have Fun and Keep Your Brain Active With Crosswords for Fun Codewords!

Are you a fan of the codeword puzzle?  Have you tried a Crosswords for Fun codeword puzzle?  If not, then this is a great time to start!

Here is what some other codeword fans have said about Crosswords for Fun codewords:

Mary-Jane from Canada says “Your codewords are the best I can find anywhere”.

Felicity from Bendigo in Victoria says “My son-in-law gave me a codeword book and they are not nearly as good as yours.”

Richard from the UK writes “I very much enjoy your codewords – the best I’ve found.  I suffer a lot of long-distance flights and they are perfect to while away the hours between London and Sydney!”

The difference between a crossword and a codeword is that with a codeword there are no clues.  You just have a grid and each letter of the alphabet is represented by a number 1-26.  You are given some letters (sometimes 1, maybe 2 or 3 depending on the difficulty of the puzzle) to start you off and then your challenge is to analyse the number patterns to work out which letter is which, using your knowledge of the English language, your logic skills, and probably a little bit of educated guesswork to crack the code and decipher all the words in the puzzle grid.

Codewords are really great for giving your brain a workout, and provide you with a real sense of achievement when you solve the puzzle.

So what are you waiting for?  Simply visit the Crosswords for Fun Codeword Puzzle Archive, where you will find a great selection.  We now have 70 in our collection and it’s constantly growing!

We have a few codeword tips that you might like to read, if you are new to this type of puzzle.

Now go and have some fun.   Good luck!

Happy puzzling!

Help Us To Create Crossword Puzzles That Are Fun Our Community of Crossword Solvers

When you join the Crosswords for Fun puzzling community, you become part of a group of like-minded people.  We  are all crossword solvers.  We enjoy expanding our general knowledge, vocabulary, and keeping our brains and minds active.

We all have a different range of interests, but at the same the time, they are the same interests of other people as well. Therefore there are many topics upon which crossword puzzle clues can be based and which many people will have an interest. I invite you to leave a comment on the blog, making your suggestion so that we can all learn about new things and enjoy crossword puzzles at the same time.

Solve Crossword Puzzles and Improve Your Spelling

Relying on your memory is fine, but there are certain things you just don’t know or can’t recall at that particular time. Researching  words and facts will enable you to enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that you have solved the puzzle, and have extended your general knowledge on a particular topic..The advantage of this is that once you have learnt the information, you will be able to remember it again the next time it appears in a crossword or in another situation.

The other day I was at the hairdressers and we started to talk about crosswords.  My hairdresser was telling me that when she started work she started to solve crosswords to pass the time travelling to and fro, and during lunch breaks.  She used her trusty dictionary and thesaurus, and found that by using them to solve the puzzle they improved her spelling markedly.  She didn’t necessarily need to know how the words were spelt at the outset, but the the dictionary and thesaurus helped her fill in the gaps.  She still solves crosswords, and uses the same dictionary and thesaurus.

If you think your crossword puzzle dictionary is a little out of date and need a new one, visit the Crosswords for Fun Bookshop.  We have several copies of the Chambers Crossword Dictionary available at the great price of $29.95.  It’s a fantastic tool for all crossword solvers, containing over 500,000 solutions for cryptic and quick crosswords.  It is the crossword dictionary Crosswords for Fun recommend.

Quotations and Crossword Puzzles – A Great Way To Boost Your General Knowledge!

One of the things I most enjoy about setting general knowledge crosswords is finding great quotations to turn into clues. Not only do they make the crossword puzzle interesting, they also help boost our general knowledge.

Quotations help us to retain a link with the past.  There are many historical figures whose words continue to inspire us today – Sir Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison,  Abraham Lincoln, Mother Teresa,  Mark Twain, Martin Luther King Jnr. and many many more.

But not all quotes are related to history – many of our favourite quotes come from literature, movies and songs, even business and provide a wealth of useful material for crossword puzzles.

Crosswords for Fun have now set up an Interesting Quotations Bank where we periodically add inspiring quotes that we come across.  We also welcome your contributions.  If you have a favourite quote that has inspired you in some way, and would like to share it with other Crosswords for Fun solvers, please let us know.

Book Review: Chambers Crossword Manual

Acknowledged to be the definitive work on crosswords,  Chambers Crossword Manual by top setter and authority Don Manley is a must for all crossword lovers.

This fourth edition has been substantially revised and updated. It covers the history and development of crosswords, different setters' styles, the language of crossword clues, clue types, tips on solving and other essential information for both solvers and setters.

This is a book that all crossword solvers should have in their collection.