My name is Ben Chenoweth, and I'm currently a teacher at Donvale Christian College, in Melbourne, Australia. I've worked overseas with Wycliffe Bible Translators, and in Australia as a secondary and tertiary teacher. (I was the Educational Designer / eLearning Coordinator at Melbourne School of Theology for four years, and taught at Eastern College for some of that time.)
My main interests are music, writing, theology and various combinations of those. I have a number of other interests, including reading, crosswords (especially cryptics and metas), and computer games. I also enjoy programming. My About Me website (https://www.ephesusscroll.com/about) was put together as an HTML/CSS demonstration for my Year 10 Computing class. Another interesting programming project is my EPUB Metadata Editor (an open-source project on GitHub).
When inspiration hits you just have to pursue it! Yes, this was the first day in months I had to work on my PhD. And yes, I did manage to get three articles read and a paragraph added to the thesis. But yes, I then got distracted by this meta. Ah…
Let's see if I can construct for you a nice "week 1" puzzle, with just the slightest extra twist! The answer to the meta is an 8-letter verb. Answer & explanation: https://www.xword-muggles.com/viewtopic.php?p=191347#p191347
It's time for another week 5 meta! Hopefully you've got a bit of leisure time to devote to this puzzle. This one has it all: a challenging grid (well, maybe only in places. I didn't want to make it too difficult!) and it's a pangram to boot. Then…
No one likes it when a holiday gets washed out. But when it leads to a new meta puzzle, that just goes to prove the truth in that old saying about clouds and silver linings. The answer to the meta is a song of the season. A doozy of an answer…
Sometimes you just have to drown your failure-to-solve-a-meta-sorrows by creating your own meta! After struggling with a supposed "week 2" Gaffney today (11/11/2023), I decided to try out an idea that was loosely based on a failed solving attempt…
I have a feeling I will need to explain the title of this puzzle in the comments! I woke up with this meta idea in my head, and I really couldn't wait to see if I could get it all into a grid. The answer to that is "yes", but it took a few different…
Well, this will be an interesting test. At time of construction the answer to this meta was still very much part of the zeitgeist. Will this be true in more than 12 months? Only time will tell! The answer to the meta is a 2-word phrase. Answer…
We're back into "week 1" territory here. I could have made this harder, but I've tried to put lots of hints in to dial down the difficulty. The answer to the meta is a well-known Australian band; but don't be put off by "Australian" - you will have…
This Thanksgiving meta was inspired by a solver's comment on last year's MOAT Thanksgiving meta. (Thanks, HeadinHome!) Oh, and don't, whatever you do, go back and look at that comment before solving this one, because you will very definitely spoil…
I think I was in a slightly silly mood tonight. Hopefully, the end result of that is the occasional clue that trends towards the funner side of the spectrum and a few less common references in the clues, ranging across some perhaps lesser-known pop…