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).
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…
Here's another puzzle I constructed last year but didn't bother to write an introduction for at the time. Talk about lying down on the job! No matter. I'm sure my being wide of the mark then won't prevent you from having a whale of a time with this…
This one might be slightly harder than my usual "week 1" puzzles. But I'm hopeful that you will follow the path and make it to the meta answer, which is an apt 4-letter word. Answer & explanation: https://www.xword-muggles.com/viewtopic.php?p=184586…
Well, here's another "week 5" for you! This is a bit of an unusual grid for me: it's relatively low on the word count (72 in total), and there's less 3-letter words than usual. So yes, it might be more of a challenge to fill in the grid. But at least…
Well, I know I've bitten off slightly more than I can chew with this one, which is why I'm running it as a "week 4". But I think I've left you enough to find your way to the meta answer, which is a movie. And let's do the prize thing again! If you…