0:00:17 > 0:00:21# My heart is taking lessons
0:00:21 > 0:00:24# And I notice too
0:00:24 > 0:00:27# It began to la-la-la-la-ta-ta-ta
0:00:27 > 0:00:29# When I looked at you. #
0:00:32 > 0:00:37I've seen people buy the newspaper, fill in the crossword and then chuck it away without even reading it.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40It's one of the most important parts of the paper.
0:00:40 > 0:00:43A slightly difficult cryptic crossword every day just keeps you going.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46What do other people say about their addiction to crosswords?
0:00:46 > 0:00:51I got the bug when I was at school and I just lived for Sundays.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54I think it's the pleasure of recognition.
0:00:54 > 0:00:56Wow, I should have got that.
0:00:56 > 0:01:00It does test the mind and a really good clue is a work of art.
0:01:00 > 0:01:04Presbyterians is an anagram of Britney Spears.
0:01:04 > 0:01:06Now that is cause for rejoicing.
0:01:06 > 0:01:09The important thing is to get rid of the idea that it somehow needs
0:01:09 > 0:01:12a special type of brain, because that's nonsense.
0:01:12 > 0:01:16No. Useless. Can't do a single one. Can't do a single one.
0:01:16 > 0:01:20Inside every single cryptic clue is a simple clue trying to get out.
0:01:20 > 0:01:22Oh, yes, look, I've done it.
0:01:22 > 0:01:23Hotelier, is that right?
0:01:39 > 0:01:42I sit in this study, quite a lot of the hours of the week
0:01:42 > 0:01:47making up crosswords for a lot of national newspapers...
0:01:47 > 0:01:52five different dailies and Sundays and a few others besides.
0:01:53 > 0:01:55Quixote.
0:01:55 > 0:01:57It's Don Manley.
0:01:57 > 0:01:59Don Manley's code names all have Don in it...
0:01:59 > 0:02:03He compiles as Duck as in Donald Duck, Pasquale, Giovanni...
0:02:06 > 0:02:09There's the puzzle that we set for this programme.
0:02:09 > 0:02:14I was asked to put in a lot of words for different types of clue,
0:02:14 > 0:02:20and to put in some words for specific people appearing in this programme.
0:02:23 > 0:02:28I think you've got to understand how a clue is made up in a cryptic crossword.
0:02:28 > 0:02:33I mean, for a start, you will always have a definition in a clue.
0:02:33 > 0:02:37You either make the definition a little bit more veiled,
0:02:37 > 0:02:43so you would have instead of "River in Paris" you might have "Parisian flower,"
0:02:43 > 0:02:46Parisian flow-er, something that flows for Seine, you see,
0:02:46 > 0:02:49so there's a little bit of sort of cryptic definition.
0:02:49 > 0:02:54The rest of the clue is something to do with messing around with the letters.
0:02:54 > 0:02:59Some people call this word-play, and at the same time when you read the clue as a whole
0:02:59 > 0:03:04it may make a very nice sentence but the sentence has nothing whatever
0:03:04 > 0:03:08to do with the actual working out of the clue.
0:03:10 > 0:03:14# You can get it if you really want
0:03:14 > 0:03:17# You can get it if you really want
0:03:17 > 0:03:20# You can get it if you really want
0:03:20 > 0:03:23# But you must try, try and try
0:03:23 > 0:03:27# Try and try
0:03:27 > 0:03:29# You'll succeed at last. #
0:03:29 > 0:03:32I think crosswords are for everybody at any time.
0:03:33 > 0:03:35Many people here don't appreciate
0:03:35 > 0:03:37the joys of a cryptic crossword.
0:03:37 > 0:03:39They think that they're not clever enough,
0:03:39 > 0:03:41but that is completely wrong thinking.
0:03:41 > 0:03:43It's not about cleverness...
0:03:43 > 0:03:46it's about the English language, it's about love of words,
0:03:46 > 0:03:50it's about manipulating words and it's about enjoying double meanings...
0:03:50 > 0:03:55puns and so on. If you can do those, you can do a crossword.
0:03:55 > 0:03:57# You'll succeed at last. #
0:03:57 > 0:04:01You would probably have a go at this easy one here, wouldn't you,
0:04:01 > 0:04:03- in the Evening Standard.- I'd have a go at the easy one, yeah.
0:04:03 > 0:04:06Definitions, but if you transfer a little bit to the left hand side
0:04:06 > 0:04:10you'll see some cryptic clues where the answers are to some extent easy.
0:04:10 > 0:04:14You've got two ways of getting to one, so have a look at that 19 for example,
0:04:14 > 0:04:17"A snack at Chelsea perhaps".
0:04:19 > 0:04:21- Chelsea bun.- Chelsea bun,
0:04:21 > 0:04:25- exactly, which is also a snack. - So that's a cake.
0:04:25 > 0:04:28So you've got two ways of getting at it whereas with these you've only got one way.
0:04:28 > 0:04:32- True.- Any other one that comes to mind?- "They've been very successful..."
0:04:32 > 0:04:33"They've been very successful with spice",
0:04:33 > 0:04:37- so that's probably about pop music. - Spice Girls.- And how many letters?
0:04:37 > 0:04:40- Five letters.- Girls is five letters, and you've got another one.
0:04:40 > 0:04:43- There's two.- That's unbelievable!
0:04:43 > 0:04:44TIM LAUGHS
0:04:50 > 0:04:55In double definition we bolt together two separate definitions.
0:04:55 > 0:04:59"Puzzles accounting for angry things said", well, "angry things said"
0:04:59 > 0:05:02are cross words.
0:05:02 > 0:05:04This is really an old joke, isn't it?
0:05:04 > 0:05:08Cross words, angry things said, and puzzles are crosswords
0:05:08 > 0:05:12so one definition accounts for another definition
0:05:12 > 0:05:14so this is what we call a "double definition" clue.
0:05:22 > 0:05:25The first thing that we call a crossword
0:05:25 > 0:05:30was written by a Liverpudlian who emigrated to America, Arthur Wynne,
0:05:30 > 0:05:34and he produced very straight definition puzzles.
0:05:34 > 0:05:38And they came over here and within three or four years they'd started
0:05:38 > 0:05:42being cryptic, because people were bored with the simple one.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45There used to be just a simple one word meaning another word,
0:05:45 > 0:05:51like state and condition, but we had a history of acrostics and riddles
0:05:51 > 0:05:56and conundrums so we brought that to the concept of the square grid
0:05:56 > 0:05:59with the words in and the clues so the two came together
0:05:59 > 0:06:02and we created the cryptic crossword.
0:06:02 > 0:06:08A man who is very much in the news at present is Dr Fisher, chosen as the new Archbishop of Canterbury.
0:06:08 > 0:06:11He likes nothing better than to relax with a crossword.
0:06:11 > 0:06:13The harder they are, the more he enjoys them.
0:06:13 > 0:06:17He never has to use any reference books... He calls that cheating.
0:06:17 > 0:06:21We started introducing our own culture into them...
0:06:21 > 0:06:26language about cricket and you have to sort of learn different abbreviations,
0:06:26 > 0:06:28army abbreviations and so on,
0:06:28 > 0:06:32so although the crossword originated in America,
0:06:32 > 0:06:35we took hold of it and put it into something a little bit different.
0:06:37 > 0:06:40# At breakfast each day in our house Battles rage
0:06:40 > 0:06:43# For I pick up The Times And turn to the back page
0:06:43 > 0:06:45# Ignoring the eggs that She scrambled for me
0:06:45 > 0:06:48# Hunt for words of six letters Which end Q blank V. #
0:06:48 > 0:06:52One of the reasons the British took in such a great way to crosswords
0:06:52 > 0:06:54was because of our English language.
0:06:54 > 0:06:58There is only one other language, which is French,
0:06:58 > 0:07:03that lends itself to double entendres, which is what we get from the French,
0:07:03 > 0:07:09so you can have words that sound the same that are spelt differently and mean different things.
0:07:09 > 0:07:13# "Tea, darling?" she asks And I say "doesn't fit"
0:07:13 > 0:07:16# No wonder the poor woman's Fed up with it
0:07:16 > 0:07:20# Until Friday when our Marriage blossomed anew
0:07:20 > 0:07:24# The reason is simple I haven't a clue... #
0:07:24 > 0:07:30English seems to be peculiarly susceptible to word fracture.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33You can take words apart,
0:07:33 > 0:07:38words that can be seen as from two words side by side
0:07:38 > 0:07:42or one word placed inside another one like a box,
0:07:42 > 0:07:46or another word with a bit chopped off either end or somewhere in the middle.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49# I never attended When buttering toast
0:07:49 > 0:07:51# Ignored her requests When she asked for the post
0:07:51 > 0:07:53# "How many letters today?" She would say
0:07:53 > 0:07:58# I'd say "four hyphen five And the second one's A". #
0:07:58 > 0:07:59If you take a word like "carpenter",
0:07:59 > 0:08:03you can have carer outside pent,
0:08:03 > 0:08:07you can have pen in carter.
0:08:07 > 0:08:12You can play with the word and a lot of English words are capable of doing that.
0:08:12 > 0:08:17# Now there's never a Cross word between us
0:08:17 > 0:08:22# And we smile at each other Once more
0:08:22 > 0:08:28# No more does she frown She's no longer one down
0:08:28 > 0:08:32# She's the one across The table I adore. #
0:08:38 > 0:08:41This sort of clue, we stick something inside something.
0:08:41 > 0:08:47"Cunning, getting round the market quickly".
0:08:47 > 0:08:51"Cunning" is sly...
0:08:51 > 0:08:55"getting round the market", a market is a mart;
0:08:55 > 0:09:01and if you put "sly" around "mart", you get smartly
0:09:01 > 0:09:04and if you do something smartly, you do it quickly.
0:09:07 > 0:09:11"Innovator - individual needing external support".
0:09:11 > 0:09:1712 across, "individual" is one, in the middle of the clue.
0:09:17 > 0:09:19The "external support" is a pier...
0:09:20 > 0:09:22"Pier end" or something like that.
0:09:24 > 0:09:26Oh, pioneer, of course.
0:09:34 > 0:09:37A newspaper is a ravenous organism
0:09:37 > 0:09:42that feeds on every single one of the 24 hours of the day.
0:09:43 > 0:09:47One of my grandfather's friends was Barrington-Ward, the Editor of The Times.
0:09:47 > 0:09:50Now The Times was losing circulation, hand over fist,
0:09:50 > 0:09:53to The Telegraph because The Telegraph had
0:09:53 > 0:09:56the new-fangled American fashion, the crossword,
0:09:56 > 0:09:59so The Times had to get one pretty sharpish
0:09:59 > 0:10:02and I know so many people who were really disapproving that The Times
0:10:02 > 0:10:05had really stooped lower than they ever thought possible
0:10:05 > 0:10:08and Barrington-Ward asked my grandfather, Robert Bell,
0:10:08 > 0:10:11if he knew anyone who could do it, and, "Yes, my son can," he said,
0:10:11 > 0:10:14and then he went down and talked to my dad and persuaded him to do it.
0:10:14 > 0:10:19So then my father came to me. We were sitting in the country,
0:10:19 > 0:10:21trying to farm with a pair of horses,
0:10:21 > 0:10:25and he said, "Look, my boy, you're going to make up crossword puzzles for The Times."
0:10:25 > 0:10:29"But Father," I said, "I haven't even solved a crossword puzzle".
0:10:29 > 0:10:32"Well," he said, "you've got just ten days to learn!"
0:10:32 > 0:10:35He knew absolutely nothing about it. He'd hardly seen one,
0:10:35 > 0:10:41but he had a lively mind and a vast amount of knowledge and so he wrote the first one in 1930
0:10:41 > 0:10:45and something like 3,000 of his crossword puzzles later -
0:10:45 > 0:10:49he wrote the 10,000th shortly before his death.
0:10:57 > 0:11:00HE HUMS
0:11:03 > 0:11:05What's this, "holiday"?
0:11:05 > 0:11:09"Holiday," oh, Lord, if we haven't had that word a hundred times.
0:11:10 > 0:11:14I think he did most of his best work in the morning.
0:11:14 > 0:11:19A glass of sherry or something would be brought into him at about half past 12.
0:11:19 > 0:11:23I do remember a lot of moaning and groaning from his study.
0:11:23 > 0:11:25He used to take a whole day to do one of these things
0:11:25 > 0:11:31and when he stopped farming, it was easier but he did thousands and thousands and thousands.
0:11:31 > 0:11:36His study was something into which we children would never venture, uninvited.
0:11:36 > 0:11:40He's not like one of these hands-on, modern, touchy-feely dads at all,
0:11:40 > 0:11:48but over the years, all the spines fell off the dictionaries because he used them so extensively.
0:11:50 > 0:11:54I think it helped him that he'd never been to a university.
0:11:54 > 0:11:59That is, he had a totally free, unchannelled mind with a lot of stuff in it
0:11:59 > 0:12:02and a lot of stuff is what he put in his puzzles.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07We had half the cabinet ministers writing to The Times
0:12:07 > 0:12:12and who was it? Josiah Stamp, he was very proud of his record
0:12:12 > 0:12:15of doing the crossword puzzle in 50 minutes
0:12:15 > 0:12:18whereupon Sir Austen Chamberlain wrote and said
0:12:18 > 0:12:21he could knock nine minutes off that himself
0:12:21 > 0:12:26and then he added that for real expertise,
0:12:26 > 0:12:34The Provost of Eton, M R James, he'd heard that he timed his breakfast egg
0:12:34 > 0:12:36by the time it took him to do the Times crossword puzzle
0:12:36 > 0:12:38and he did not like a hard boiled egg!
0:12:38 > 0:12:41What a lovely man, what a lovely man!
0:12:41 > 0:12:43I'd forgotten all those stories, you know.
0:12:48 > 0:12:51He got paid five guineas each for these crosswords,
0:12:51 > 0:12:55and it helped make ends meet and I sometimes wonder
0:12:55 > 0:13:00if he could have been paid a fraction of the gross national product
0:13:00 > 0:13:02wasted by people who were doing these crossword puzzles
0:13:02 > 0:13:05when they should have been working, we'd be extremely wealthy now!
0:13:05 > 0:13:09It made you wonder what they did in their cabinet meetings, to tell you the truth.
0:13:09 > 0:13:1116 across.
0:13:12 > 0:13:19"Advice telling someone not to waste bread and be common-sensical".
0:13:19 > 0:13:23Use your loaf.
0:13:26 > 0:13:30We're all trying to do proper crosswords here.
0:13:30 > 0:13:33Proper crosswords? What do you mean by that, proper crosswords?
0:13:33 > 0:13:36I'm trying to do the Mephistopheles in The Financial Times,
0:13:36 > 0:13:38a crossword which you wouldn't know where to start.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41As it happens, I can do any crossword put in front of me,
0:13:41 > 0:13:43including Messis-toto-toteles.
0:13:45 > 0:13:48There's The Times. Now The Times is pretty smart.
0:13:48 > 0:13:53It's fairly uniform in standard, it's quite difficult.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56You might have a job starting off with this one.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00Start with The Independent On Sunday, or The Daily Telegraph.
0:14:00 > 0:14:06I recommend The Guardian as well, of course, because I set for The Guardian as Pasquale.
0:14:06 > 0:14:13It just happens that I prefer the Sun Junior Coffee Time easy clues, that's all!
0:14:13 > 0:14:14It's just a matter of taste.
0:14:15 > 0:14:19If you like rude crosswords, you know, you can go out and buy Private Eye
0:14:19 > 0:14:25and you've got to learn a little bit of different vocabulary if you buy the Private Eye.
0:14:25 > 0:14:28You know that Brenda is the Queen, which is ER.
0:14:28 > 0:14:30Some of the clues are a bit near the bone.
0:14:30 > 0:14:34The Sun... People only buy that for one thing...
0:14:34 > 0:14:35or rather a couple of things.
0:14:35 > 0:14:37LAUGHTER
0:14:37 > 0:14:39- Two across.- There you are. See what I mean!
0:14:39 > 0:14:41LAUGHTER
0:14:41 > 0:14:46Most of the dailies tend to be on the polite side
0:14:46 > 0:14:51with perhaps some of them edging a little bit more into rudeness and impropriety than others.
0:14:51 > 0:14:52Four letters.
0:14:52 > 0:14:56"Often found in the bottom of a bird cage".
0:14:56 > 0:14:58LAUGHTER
0:15:00 > 0:15:03Something, something, I-T.
0:15:03 > 0:15:04LAUGHTER
0:15:11 > 0:15:15- Grit.- Excellent!
0:15:24 > 0:15:32For me, doing crosswords is the most serene and satisfying
0:15:32 > 0:15:39and civilised way I have yet discovered of wasting my time in life.
0:15:40 > 0:15:4819 down, "Put off when tackling Times? He wouldn't be!"
0:15:49 > 0:15:55Well, my first thoughts would be that "tackling" probably means
0:15:55 > 0:15:58going round the outside of, all right?
0:15:59 > 0:16:05And "Times" very often is going to be in crosswords,
0:16:05 > 0:16:08a very common abbreviation would be "X".
0:16:09 > 0:16:12So I would say that you've got a six-letter word
0:16:12 > 0:16:15and in the middle somewhere is an "X".
0:16:17 > 0:16:21Oh, I see, yeah. And "deter" is put off, isn't it,
0:16:21 > 0:16:26so I rather think that this for me is not a terribly difficult one.
0:16:26 > 0:16:29It is the word "deter" around an "X"
0:16:29 > 0:16:34and I think that adds up to my name, doesn't it? Dexter, yes.
0:16:37 > 0:16:39When I started writing fiction,
0:16:39 > 0:16:44I knew that Morse was going to be besotted with crosswords.
0:16:44 > 0:16:50I think unfortunately he was very fond of doing the crossword when he got in first thing in the morning,
0:16:50 > 0:16:52before he started wondering how many corpses
0:16:52 > 0:16:57he was going to try to investigate.
0:16:58 > 0:17:00- You all right, sir?- Shoosh!
0:17:01 > 0:17:03He would say, "No, no, no, no.
0:17:03 > 0:17:07"Leave me alone for a couple of minutes, and don't interrupt me again.
0:17:07 > 0:17:09"I'm timing myself!"
0:17:09 > 0:17:1412 minutes. Not bad, not the record, but not bad.
0:17:14 > 0:17:19I think the whole idea of spotting clues and understanding clues
0:17:19 > 0:17:26which other people can't is at the heart, isn't it, of the whodunit crossword.
0:17:26 > 0:17:28I set crosswords.
0:17:28 > 0:17:31Do you! Which paper?
0:17:31 > 0:17:34Different papers, but always the same name.
0:17:34 > 0:17:38Daedalus. He built the Great Maze of Greek legend, you know.
0:17:38 > 0:17:41You're Daedalus! I've been wrestling with you for years!
0:17:41 > 0:17:48You know when someone like Morse or Poirot gets everybody in the library at the end of a case
0:17:48 > 0:17:55and he, the author, has been dangling half a dozen suspects in front of everybody
0:17:55 > 0:17:59in such a way that you're invariably going to guess the wrong person
0:17:59 > 0:18:04and then you say, "Aaagh, but you didn't follow this particular clue".
0:18:04 > 0:18:09I wanted to see who you were, if you were up to the job.
0:18:09 > 0:18:12Now that I know you do my crosswords, of course...
0:18:12 > 0:18:18Morse was doing The Times crossword, and he said, "Oh, that's a nice clue. Listen to this, Lewis."
0:18:18 > 0:18:20And he said, "The clue is...
0:18:20 > 0:18:28" 'Take in bachelor? This may do.' "
0:18:29 > 0:18:32Well, in this abbreviation business in crosswords,
0:18:32 > 0:18:38the letter "R" is very often used for recipe, recipe...
0:18:38 > 0:18:45Take two ounces of sugar, so "R" equals "take", all right?
0:18:45 > 0:18:50And a "bachelor", of course, is Bachelor of Arts, BA,
0:18:50 > 0:18:56so you stick "R" in the middle of B-A
0:18:56 > 0:19:01and you get an item of women's underclothing, do you not?
0:19:01 > 0:19:05I always try to make five down just a little tricky.
0:19:06 > 0:19:10And Morse tried very hard to interest Sergeant Lewis in this clue,
0:19:10 > 0:19:13but I'm afraid with little success.
0:19:16 > 0:19:18Now this is interesting.
0:19:22 > 0:19:25If you've ever played charades at Christmas parties,
0:19:25 > 0:19:29you know you introduce a word in act one which is "black", don't you,
0:19:29 > 0:19:32and then in act two you introduce "smith",
0:19:32 > 0:19:36and in the final denouement you introduce the word "blacksmith",
0:19:36 > 0:19:40so you have "black", plus "smith" equals "blacksmith", right,
0:19:40 > 0:19:43and charade clues work like that.
0:19:43 > 0:19:46"Sharp weapon wounded girl".
0:19:46 > 0:19:49A sharp weapon wounded a girl.
0:19:49 > 0:19:56Well, it "cut a lass," so, wounded girl, cutlass, sharp weapon, cutlass.
0:20:00 > 0:20:0518 down, "Commotion created by enthusiast taking someone in taxi".
0:20:05 > 0:20:08An "enthusiast" is a fan.
0:20:08 > 0:20:13Someone in a taxi is hopefully a fare, so the answer is "fanfare".
0:20:14 > 0:20:16Especially for me, wasn't that?
0:20:23 > 0:20:31I've been driving a taxi in the Borough of Trafford on the south side of Manchester now since 1994.
0:20:31 > 0:20:34Previously I was in IT for 25 years.
0:20:36 > 0:20:41I've managed to finish on one occasion third in the finals in the Times Crossword competition.
0:20:41 > 0:20:44I think maybe I was a little lucky on the day.
0:20:44 > 0:20:47It was a bit like an intellectual bingo session, actually.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51"Eyes down for seven across, five letters beginning with X," that sort of thing.
0:20:51 > 0:20:55To the uninitiated, a strange ritual, this puzzling of the champions,
0:20:55 > 0:20:58to the crossword buffs, the first chance of glory.
0:20:58 > 0:21:01If you simply look at the people who do The Times Crossword,
0:21:01 > 0:21:07I would say I'm regularly in the first ten of those people, which is, for me, a good place to be.
0:21:07 > 0:21:12Generally speaking, because I do a lot of crosswords in my working environment in the cab,
0:21:12 > 0:21:16it tends to be a ten-minute chunk where I fill half a puzzle in
0:21:16 > 0:21:19and then I'm picking at the rest in between jobs as the day goes on.
0:21:19 > 0:21:24I have a couple of colleagues who have seen me doing the crosswords and said,
0:21:24 > 0:21:28"I'd never be good enough to do that," and I said, "Well, you can if you start gently".
0:21:28 > 0:21:32Some of the tabloid papers in the morning will publish a crossword
0:21:32 > 0:21:36where you've got quick clues and cryptic clues leading to the same answer,
0:21:36 > 0:21:41and I say to the lads that do these, "Do the quick clues, fill it in,
0:21:41 > 0:21:45"then come back and look at the cryptic clues with your answers and see if you can translate it,"
0:21:45 > 0:21:51and I've got one of the lads already he's trying to do it as a cryptic, and only reverts to the quick clues
0:21:51 > 0:21:55when he gets stuck, and he says it's given him a lot of pleasure and I feel very good about that.
0:21:55 > 0:22:00But in the end, the puzzler who did it quicker and better emerged as a foreign office official,
0:22:00 > 0:22:02Roy Dean from Bromley in Kent.
0:22:02 > 0:22:06Isn't it very tiring, you know, you've been working hard today, you've had four crosswords to do?
0:22:06 > 0:22:12Yesterday was even worse because yesterday we had eight and one of those was a real stinker.
0:22:13 > 0:22:17I always try to start in the top left-hand corner, which is logical.
0:22:17 > 0:22:22I read an article some years ago by a guy called Dr John Sykes,
0:22:22 > 0:22:26the legendary guy who was so good in The Times Crossword Championships
0:22:26 > 0:22:28that he eventually only entered in alternate years
0:22:28 > 0:22:31to give other people a chance of winning it
0:22:31 > 0:22:35and his theory was that when a compiler fills a grid in,
0:22:35 > 0:22:38most of the clever words they thought of are across clues,
0:22:38 > 0:22:41and the down clues tend to be fillers which are easier,
0:22:41 > 0:22:44and I thought, "I don't know if I believe this,"
0:22:44 > 0:22:47until I tried it and found that nine times out of ten it worked.
0:22:47 > 0:22:50Very occasionally I'll be stuck with a couple of clues
0:22:50 > 0:22:53and one of my colleagues will say, "Let me have a quick look,"
0:22:53 > 0:22:58and they'll take it on the basis that while I'm sat trying to break the clue down,
0:22:58 > 0:23:02they sometimes can see a word that will fit in the space in among the letters
0:23:02 > 0:23:04and say, "Could it be 'vehicle'?"
0:23:04 > 0:23:07and I'll look at it and say, "Yes, it is, because..."
0:23:07 > 0:23:12and it doesn't happen very often, but they go away with quite a sense of satisfaction because they feel
0:23:12 > 0:23:15that, like I've tried to beat the compiler, they've beaten me.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20# Anything you can do I can do better
0:23:20 > 0:23:23# I can do anything better than you
0:23:23 > 0:23:24- # No you can't - Yes I can
0:23:24 > 0:23:25- # No you can't - Yes I can
0:23:25 > 0:23:28- # No you can't - Yes I can, yes I can... #
0:23:28 > 0:23:30The whole business of solving crosswords,
0:23:30 > 0:23:34setting and solving crosswords, is it's a battle of minds.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37It is one-to-one combat.
0:23:37 > 0:23:41A tussle of wits... between the setter and the solver.
0:23:41 > 0:23:44Apart from anything else, if you manage to complete a fiendish crossword
0:23:44 > 0:23:46you'll feel quite pleased with yourself.
0:23:46 > 0:23:51Frankly, if ever I finish a crossword, that's an amazing achievement.
0:23:51 > 0:23:55You should win, but not without a bit of a struggle.
0:23:55 > 0:23:59Suddenly, five or six clues fall into place.
0:23:59 > 0:24:02- That's thrilling.- Yes, it is.
0:24:02 > 0:24:04Gosh, I enjoyed that!
0:24:11 > 0:24:15One of the features of crosswords is what we call "bits and pieces",
0:24:15 > 0:24:18and among these are the abbreviations...
0:24:18 > 0:24:23Roman numerals, "V" equals 5, "L" equals 50.
0:24:23 > 0:24:30Little foreign words like "the French" for "le", or "la", or "les".
0:24:30 > 0:24:36All sorts of little bits and pieces, things that aren't quite English words.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39Here's a clue that uses two abbreviations...
0:24:39 > 0:24:43"Story that is beginning with short line".
0:24:43 > 0:24:47Now "that is" is "i.e.", id est,
0:24:47 > 0:24:49we're all familiar with that.
0:24:49 > 0:24:55"Short line" is telling us that this is an abbreviation for a line.
0:24:55 > 0:25:01If you look at learned work, we'll say "p.64, l.3", meaning line 3.
0:25:01 > 0:25:06Put the "L" at the front because it begins with a short line...
0:25:06 > 0:25:09L-I-E gives you "lie"...
0:25:09 > 0:25:14and a lie is a story in the sense that stories are false, so it is a lie.
0:25:15 > 0:25:16One across.
0:25:16 > 0:25:20"Expert starts to give us real understanding".
0:25:20 > 0:25:23Well, it says "starts to" and it probably means
0:25:23 > 0:25:27it's the initial letters of the words that follow, and in this case it is...
0:25:27 > 0:25:32"expert" is "guru", which is the initial letters of "gives us real understanding".
0:25:32 > 0:25:36Oh, I've got it. G-U-R-U.
0:25:40 > 0:25:42I am Roger Squires.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45I'm known in most papers as Rufus.
0:25:47 > 0:25:52I'm not known for being difficult, in fact all the papers I seem to go for
0:25:52 > 0:25:56use me on Monday to get an easy start to the week.
0:25:56 > 0:25:59I'm used on Mondays in the Glasgow Herald, The Telegraph,
0:25:59 > 0:26:03The Guardian and The FT, most weeks
0:26:03 > 0:26:08and whenever I put a difficult word in, I get complaints!
0:26:08 > 0:26:13I was doing at one stage 40 a week and I've cut it down, actually.
0:26:13 > 0:26:16I've been in the Guinness Book of Records since 1978.
0:26:16 > 0:26:20Today's Monday crossword contains that record-breaking two millionth clue.
0:26:20 > 0:26:27The man who set it, 75-year-old Roger Squires, Crossword Editor of the Birmingham Post for 22 years,
0:26:27 > 0:26:34he's had his puzzles in 565 different publications and the answer to that two millionth clue,
0:26:34 > 0:26:35the girls on the knees,
0:26:35 > 0:26:39Pat and Ella make patella - a knee cap.
0:26:39 > 0:26:43I want to try and bring fun. As an ex-magician,
0:26:43 > 0:26:45I like to think it's the same thing...
0:26:45 > 0:26:48misleading to cause entertainment,
0:26:48 > 0:26:53but if I can have a bit of fun at the same time, I like to.
0:26:53 > 0:26:57The one I seem to be most known for is "a bar of soap"
0:26:57 > 0:27:01for the Rovers Return. Once you've realised "soap"
0:27:01 > 0:27:04is a soap opera, and the "bar" is a pub...
0:27:04 > 0:27:09a "bar of soap" is just a pub in a soap opera.
0:27:09 > 0:27:13It could have been in EastEnders, actually, The Victoria just as well.
0:27:13 > 0:27:15In fact, I might try that next week!
0:27:20 > 0:27:24I set crosswords for The Observer under the pseudonym Azed.
0:27:25 > 0:27:31I inherited the job from a setter who had the pseudonym of Ximines,
0:27:31 > 0:27:37and he in turn inherited it from a setter who had the pseudonym of Torquemada.
0:27:40 > 0:27:44Both Ximines and Torquemada were grand inquisitors in the Spanish Inquisition.
0:27:44 > 0:27:45When I got the job
0:27:45 > 0:27:47back in 1971,
0:27:47 > 0:27:53I looked around for something to continue the tradition
0:27:53 > 0:27:57and I couldn't find another inquisitor
0:27:57 > 0:28:01with a suitably impressive name
0:28:01 > 0:28:05but I did find one called Don Diego De Deza...
0:28:05 > 0:28:08D-E-Z-A, so I just reversed him,
0:28:08 > 0:28:13which also had a nice alphabetical ring to it,
0:28:13 > 0:28:15and that's how Azed came about.
0:28:15 > 0:28:20There are broadly speaking two main types of crossword.
0:28:20 > 0:28:24There are those with which most people are probably most familiar...
0:28:24 > 0:28:31my own use black bars instead of black squares to indicate where words end.
0:28:31 > 0:28:35It doesn't take too long making the pattern.
0:28:35 > 0:28:39Filling it with words takes somewhat longer, as you might imagine,
0:28:39 > 0:28:43but not until I've done that and the grid is complete do I start
0:28:43 > 0:28:46on the business of compiling the clues,
0:28:46 > 0:28:50and I always write the clues in the order in which they appear in the puzzle.
0:28:50 > 0:28:54I don't deliberately, I don't take what looked to me
0:28:54 > 0:28:57the most interesting words and clue those first,
0:28:57 > 0:29:02and get left with a sump of rather sort of drab four-letter words at the end
0:29:02 > 0:29:08because if you approach a clue saying this is a drab word, you'll probably end up with a drab clue.
0:29:09 > 0:29:13Any one of my puzzles may take me four or five hours,
0:29:13 > 0:29:19which might sound like a long time, but spread over a week, it's not too excessive.
0:29:25 > 0:29:28There's another type of clue called the "homophone",
0:29:28 > 0:29:30and this relies on the fact
0:29:30 > 0:29:36that words which are spelt differently sound the same,
0:29:36 > 0:29:44so F-A-R-E and F-A-I-R sound the same, "fare" and "fair",
0:29:44 > 0:29:46and there's an example in this puzzle,
0:29:46 > 0:29:52"Regret sneer being heard? Nonsense!"
0:29:52 > 0:29:57Now, "being heard" or "we hear"
0:29:57 > 0:29:58or "by the sound of it"
0:29:58 > 0:30:00or "in the auditorium" -
0:30:00 > 0:30:08all these things can tell the solver I want to say the answer
0:30:08 > 0:30:11and it will sound like something else.
0:30:11 > 0:30:14This is what I call the "sounds like" clue -
0:30:14 > 0:30:16there's probably a more technical word for it.
0:30:16 > 0:30:18Regret - rue,
0:30:18 > 0:30:20sneer - barb...
0:30:20 > 0:30:22"rhubarb".
0:30:22 > 0:30:24And what does rhubarb mean?
0:30:24 > 0:30:29Apart from noises of actors and so on, it means "nonsense"... rhubarb!
0:30:31 > 0:30:33Line given audibly, three letters.
0:30:36 > 0:30:40With a "C"...would be "cue",
0:30:40 > 0:30:43although I'm not sure whether that's quite correct, that clue.
0:30:43 > 0:30:45It's a theatrical clue.
0:30:47 > 0:30:50For some bizarre reason, a lot of actors do crosswords.
0:30:50 > 0:30:53It seems to be a particularly 'actory' thing to do.
0:30:53 > 0:30:57You know, in our job, there is a lot of hanging around.
0:30:57 > 0:31:00You can just let your mind half-drift onto the crossword.
0:31:02 > 0:31:06All the dressing rooms at the National look in on each other, which is lovely.
0:31:06 > 0:31:10This particular dressing room has a history behind it
0:31:10 > 0:31:13because I think this is where the sort of bosses used to...
0:31:13 > 0:31:17the boss actors used to be, ever since the National started.
0:31:17 > 0:31:19I don't know whether Olivier was here, I hope he was.
0:31:19 > 0:31:22To go to a theatre and shut myself up in a dressing room
0:31:22 > 0:31:27and come out as somebody else and live a mimicked life
0:31:27 > 0:31:31does give me pleasure, and I suppose always has done.
0:31:31 > 0:31:33Gielgud, apparently, was a crossworder,
0:31:33 > 0:31:36but I've heard this story that he used to just fill in the grid
0:31:36 > 0:31:38with any words he could make fit.
0:31:38 > 0:31:40I'm a terrible escapist in life.
0:31:40 > 0:31:43I can't believe he always did that. Perhaps in desperation he would.
0:31:43 > 0:31:47There's this story of him putting down a completed crossword and
0:31:47 > 0:31:50then saying, "That's absolute nonsense..."
0:31:50 > 0:31:52But I could be doing the man down.
0:31:52 > 0:31:58"The Loire is fantastic - I can offer you accommodation".
0:31:59 > 0:32:01Oh, yes, of course, I've done it.
0:32:01 > 0:32:04It's an anagram of The Loire and it's hotelier, is that right?
0:32:10 > 0:32:13Oh, it's a lovely part of the world, isn't it,
0:32:13 > 0:32:18all those beautiful trees and fields and variety of birds.
0:32:18 > 0:32:22I don't know what the anagrammatic misprints came from or what that was about.
0:32:22 > 0:32:26John and Connie, I don't think either of them were especially
0:32:26 > 0:32:28crossword freaks, you know.
0:32:28 > 0:32:33There was never anytime, anywhere on Fawlty Towers to do crosswords, no way, no way.
0:32:38 > 0:32:42Timothy, my husband, and I more or less met through crosswords, really.
0:32:42 > 0:32:45We were in television together, we both had quite small parts
0:32:45 > 0:32:49and we had what I can only describe as sort of polo mints
0:32:49 > 0:32:52and crosswords flirtation, if you know what I mean.
0:32:52 > 0:32:54He's a crossword freak, too.
0:32:54 > 0:32:56I get the Guardian and The Telegraph delivered
0:32:56 > 0:32:59because I like the range of opinion,
0:32:59 > 0:33:03but I move fairly quickly to The Guardian crossword
0:33:03 > 0:33:05with my cup of coffee and my bowl of muesli
0:33:05 > 0:33:08and I can sit there for a good hour and a half,
0:33:08 > 0:33:09cos I'm quite an early riser.
0:33:09 > 0:33:13I'm addicted to Araucaria - the setter in The Guardian.
0:33:13 > 0:33:16At last we have an opportunity to put faces to the names that
0:33:16 > 0:33:20have graced the pages of many broad sheets and periodicals.
0:33:22 > 0:33:25John Graham, Araucaria of the Guardian,
0:33:25 > 0:33:27and of the Financial Times,
0:33:27 > 0:33:29the "Doyen" of compilers and the inspiration
0:33:29 > 0:33:32to everyone who ever wanted to be or is a compiler.
0:33:34 > 0:33:37I wrote him a fan letter once saying, "you drive me madder than
0:33:37 > 0:33:40"any other person in the world I don't know and I love you".
0:33:40 > 0:33:44And he wrote back this very sweet letter saying he loved me too
0:33:44 > 0:33:46because he had seen me on the box, you see.
0:33:46 > 0:33:48I met Araucaria once,
0:33:48 > 0:33:50which was a thrill.
0:33:50 > 0:33:54I hope he'll forgive me for saying this but he was exactly what I hoped he would be.
0:33:54 > 0:33:56He had a bit of a wry smile the whole time.
0:33:56 > 0:33:59- British Library, Hogg.- Eros.
0:33:59 > 0:34:02Nope. Anyone want to buzz from the Crossword Compilers?
0:34:02 > 0:34:05- Graham.- Purpose.- Correct.
0:34:05 > 0:34:06APPLAUSE
0:34:06 > 0:34:11Why Araucaria is the best? I think it's his wit, really.
0:34:11 > 0:34:14He makes me laugh more than anyone else.
0:34:14 > 0:34:16He's cheeky, and occasionally,
0:34:16 > 0:34:19I think, he probably bends the rules a little bit.
0:34:19 > 0:34:22I'm quoted at the beginning of his book.
0:34:22 > 0:34:26"My constant bedtime companion, Prunella Scales."
0:34:35 > 0:34:37An anagram is a jumble of letters.
0:34:37 > 0:34:39"'Fatty is a dope' - that's cruel!"
0:34:39 > 0:34:43The clue will make you think of some Billy-Bunter-type figure
0:34:43 > 0:34:46being ragged and bullied by
0:34:46 > 0:34:51his thin colleagues in class and you'll start,
0:34:51 > 0:34:54you'll build up a little picture, almost a little cartoon picture.
0:34:54 > 0:34:58The cartoon picture is actually quite irrelevant to the clue.
0:34:58 > 0:35:00It's there to amuse you, to divert you,
0:35:00 > 0:35:05but when you analyse the clue, you find "fatty" for the definition.
0:35:05 > 0:35:10Something is cruel, something is being mangled in some way,
0:35:10 > 0:35:16and it happens to be "is a dope", and an anagram of "is a dope"
0:35:16 > 0:35:21is adipose, which means "fatty" - adipose tissue, fatty tissue.
0:35:25 > 0:35:30Ten across, "Those who have to put papers to bed can become so tired".
0:35:30 > 0:35:33Well, those who put papers to bed must be editors,
0:35:33 > 0:35:37because that's what they do and that is an anagram of "so tired",
0:35:37 > 0:35:39so that's "editors".
0:35:44 > 0:35:47I was working at The Telegraph and the editor
0:35:47 > 0:35:50called me and said, "Well, we like you,
0:35:50 > 0:35:52"we like the fact that you work,
0:35:52 > 0:35:55"which is not what everybody does,
0:35:55 > 0:36:00"and just keep coming in and we'll keep paying you, we'll
0:36:00 > 0:36:01"find something for you".
0:36:01 > 0:36:04Well, that's an offer you can't refuse, isn't it? You know,
0:36:04 > 0:36:06do nothing and we'll pay you...
0:36:06 > 0:36:09So I kept coming in and then about a month later he called me and
0:36:09 > 0:36:12he said, "Do you do crosswords?"
0:36:12 > 0:36:14and I said "Yes",
0:36:14 > 0:36:17and he said, "Would you like to be Crossword Editor?"
0:36:17 > 0:36:20and I said, "Yes", and he said, "Well, that's that, then".
0:36:22 > 0:36:27You are responsible for the crossword. You have a team of compilers who compile it.
0:36:27 > 0:36:32They send it into you and you endeavour to turn it round
0:36:32 > 0:36:38so it appears in the paper with the right pattern, the right clues and the right solution.
0:36:38 > 0:36:39Now that sounds incredibly easy.
0:36:39 > 0:36:40It isn't!
0:36:43 > 0:36:46The Crossword Editor checks everything and says,
0:36:46 > 0:36:47"No, you can't have that,
0:36:47 > 0:36:51"because we don't allow this or that", you know,
0:36:51 > 0:36:55or, "It's obscene" or, "It's too obscure", blah, blah, blah.
0:36:57 > 0:37:00You know what the crossword ethos is of that paper,
0:37:00 > 0:37:04and you've got to make sure that your compilers stick with that,
0:37:04 > 0:37:08and sometimes they want to do the pyrotechnics and the clever stuff
0:37:08 > 0:37:12and you know what's gonna happen is the solvers are gonna phone in
0:37:12 > 0:37:15and say, "This is far too clever, this chap thinks he's too clever,
0:37:15 > 0:37:18"too much of himself, so sharp he'll cut himself",
0:37:18 > 0:37:20that's a phrase that is often used,
0:37:20 > 0:37:25so you just have to say whoa, no, no, no, just gently here.
0:37:25 > 0:37:27They are supposed to solve these things.
0:37:27 > 0:37:30"She may hope to succeed".
0:37:30 > 0:37:34Mainly it's male crossword editors, but on The Telegraph,
0:37:34 > 0:37:37it's always been a female Crossword Editor.
0:37:37 > 0:37:41Heiress, heiress. I never know how to pronounce that.
0:37:41 > 0:37:42Heiress.
0:37:45 > 0:37:48When I got this job, I was absolutely delighted
0:37:48 > 0:37:51and my sister looked at me askance and said, "What!"
0:37:51 > 0:37:54She said, "That's the squarest job I've ever heard of",
0:37:54 > 0:37:58she said, "and all you'll be doing all day is looking at squares!"
0:37:58 > 0:37:59But now I'm very fond of squares.
0:38:01 > 0:38:04Basically I have evil geniuses dotted around the world
0:38:04 > 0:38:07who send me their puzzles.
0:38:07 > 0:38:09I've got one in Oregon, one in France,
0:38:09 > 0:38:13one in the West Country, one in Oxford, so I rarely see my setters.
0:38:13 > 0:38:16They send me a text file, basically,
0:38:16 > 0:38:22with the number of the grid and then the clues, and with this
0:38:22 > 0:38:26clever bit of software, I build it into what you see in the paper.
0:38:28 > 0:38:29Now isn't that magic!
0:38:33 > 0:38:36And then I will take it into the kitchen with my cup of tea
0:38:36 > 0:38:40and have a go at it as if it had just arrived on my doorstep.
0:38:40 > 0:38:42Yes, of course I've got the answers,
0:38:42 > 0:38:45if I need them, and sometimes I do need them, you know.
0:38:45 > 0:38:48We don't all get every clue,
0:38:48 > 0:38:51but I try and do it first without them, so that's fair, I think.
0:38:55 > 0:38:57So you solve the crossword and make sure it
0:38:57 > 0:39:01gets into the paper the right way and you answer the letters.
0:39:01 > 0:39:04And there's a lot of letters.
0:39:04 > 0:39:08'Dear Editor, your clues are deteriorating...'
0:39:08 > 0:39:11'Recently it has not given either of us any pleasure...'
0:39:11 > 0:39:17- 'Five across...'- 'And later I am still gazing at...'
0:39:17 > 0:39:19'The clue has no bearing on the answer!'
0:39:19 > 0:39:22There was one reader who I do really remember because
0:39:22 > 0:39:24she complained about a clue.
0:39:24 > 0:39:29The clue was wrong and she was incandescent on the phone,
0:39:29 > 0:39:33and I said, "I'm very sorry, I do apologise, it was a mistake".
0:39:33 > 0:39:36She said, "That's not good enough!" and you think, well,
0:39:36 > 0:39:40what can I do? You can't undo the past, so I said,
0:39:40 > 0:39:43"Madam, I will get back to you."
0:39:43 > 0:39:46So I rang off and I thought what on earth am I going to do?
0:39:46 > 0:39:51I phoned her back and I said, "I have fired the compiler"
0:39:51 > 0:39:54and there was this deadly hush at the end of the phone,
0:39:54 > 0:39:57because she suddenly realised she had over-reacted.
0:39:57 > 0:40:00I hadn't actually fired the compiler but I thought this was a way...
0:40:00 > 0:40:07and she said, "Oh. Well...well, maybe I was a little hasty".
0:40:07 > 0:40:12I said "Well, we do take notice of our readers.
0:40:12 > 0:40:13"Thank you very much, madam."
0:40:13 > 0:40:16and I put down the phone and I gave her the fright of her life!
0:40:16 > 0:40:20'Twenty two across, answer "amateur". Please explain...'
0:40:20 > 0:40:24'I was politely told to buy myself a new Oxford dictionary...'
0:40:24 > 0:40:29If there has been a mistake, there will be lots of shouting and, "What are you? Dyslexic?"
0:40:29 > 0:40:32So I write back to everybody and if I've got something
0:40:32 > 0:40:36wrong, you can do nothing but put your hands up and say I'm sorry.
0:40:36 > 0:40:40But there was one... My favourite was something that actually wasn't my fault.
0:40:40 > 0:40:44The advert was printed on top of the grid, so people couldn't see
0:40:44 > 0:40:46the grid and they couldn't fill it in properly
0:40:46 > 0:40:48and I just had a letter in from someone,
0:40:48 > 0:40:51and it said on the top, "You made an arse of this!"
0:40:51 > 0:40:53Which is my favourite!
0:40:55 > 0:40:59People do take it very, very seriously and really over-seriously.
0:41:01 > 0:41:04I have a friend who is a pilot, and I used to get very agitated
0:41:04 > 0:41:07about this because people were quite abusive sometimes,
0:41:07 > 0:41:11and he'd say, "Don't worry, Val".
0:41:11 > 0:41:14He said, "Nobody dies, nobody dies.
0:41:14 > 0:41:16"I make a mistake, people die.
0:41:16 > 0:41:19"You make a mistake, it's a crossword puzzle!".
0:41:24 > 0:41:26Let's talk about reversals.
0:41:26 > 0:41:29This is a question of giving you the answer the wrong way round
0:41:29 > 0:41:33and telling you that we're giving it you the wrong way round.
0:41:34 > 0:41:36So, we all know that "pets"
0:41:36 > 0:41:39is "step" backwards...
0:41:42 > 0:41:46..and "reed" - R-E-E-D, is "deer" backwards,
0:41:46 > 0:41:50and that is something that I've used in one of my clues here...
0:41:50 > 0:41:53"Animal in grass rolling over".
0:41:54 > 0:41:57"Animal in grass rolling over".
0:41:57 > 0:41:59Actually, what's 'rolling over' isn't the animal,
0:41:59 > 0:42:04it's the grass that's 'rolling over' and the grass happens to be reed...
0:42:04 > 0:42:09R-E-E-D and if we roll that over, turn it around,
0:42:09 > 0:42:14in a cross clue, we've got deer, D-E-E-R.
0:42:20 > 0:42:22Paul, how often do you do the crossword?
0:42:22 > 0:42:25Friday I treat myself to some mind games.
0:42:25 > 0:42:29- And is it always The Telegraph? - It is.- That's a very good choice.
0:42:29 > 0:42:30It's just about my level.
0:42:30 > 0:42:35That's a good choice on Friday, because that's composed by the same man every Friday.
0:42:35 > 0:42:38- I'd rather gathered that, over the last four weeks.- Yes.
0:42:38 > 0:42:40He's called Don Manley on Friday.
0:42:40 > 0:42:44And you will get to read his mind, won't you, and work out his tricks and so on?
0:42:44 > 0:42:46- Yeah, indeed... - Work out his likes and dislikes.
0:42:46 > 0:42:48What interests me is two down.
0:42:48 > 0:42:54- On two down we've got "At last, restricting new spies in terms of resources".- Yes.
0:42:54 > 0:42:56"At last" is likely to be finally,
0:42:56 > 0:43:00and in the crossword world, "spies" is nearly always CIA.
0:43:00 > 0:43:03OK. Well, that's a new one for me, you know.
0:43:03 > 0:43:06Spies are always CIA, right.
0:43:06 > 0:43:10So if you put "CIA" inside "finally", you'll get financially.
0:43:10 > 0:43:13- Aah!- And that means "in terms of resources".
0:43:13 > 0:43:15Very good. It's easy when you know.
0:43:15 > 0:43:18But of course you had to know the code that spies
0:43:18 > 0:43:19equals CIA, didn't you?
0:43:19 > 0:43:22I did, but that's something I can keep with me.
0:43:22 > 0:43:23- Thank you.- OK.
0:43:25 > 0:43:29It is difficult. You do get coincidences in crosswords.
0:43:29 > 0:43:31I very nearly got fired,
0:43:31 > 0:43:37because there was a clue which was "outcry at Tory assassination"
0:43:37 > 0:43:39and the solution was "blue murder".
0:43:39 > 0:43:41Perfect clue, nothing wrong with it,
0:43:41 > 0:43:45except it appeared on the day that a Tory was assassinated.
0:43:45 > 0:43:50'The Conservative MP, Ian Gow, is murdered at his home in East Sussex,
0:43:50 > 0:43:53killed by a bomb placed underneath his car.
0:43:53 > 0:43:55It looks as though it's deliberate...
0:43:55 > 0:43:57it's not deliberate.
0:43:57 > 0:44:01One day, a few weeks ago there were two Picasso paintings found,
0:44:01 > 0:44:02and the compiler of that day
0:44:02 > 0:44:08had a Picasso clue which was absolutely coincidental, but that was like a happy coincidence.
0:44:08 > 0:44:11I think what's sad is if something very bad has happened on the day
0:44:11 > 0:44:15and there's something gone in the crossword about a plane crash or something, then
0:44:15 > 0:44:19you don't want that to happen but it's inevitable, I think, sometimes.
0:44:19 > 0:44:22I can remember one compiler, who is sadly now dead,
0:44:22 > 0:44:26said that during 9/11, the Twin Towers,
0:44:26 > 0:44:32he had a crossword on-line which had "Pentagon"
0:44:32 > 0:44:35with "Jet" going through the first "E" in Pentagon,
0:44:35 > 0:44:39and that was the centre of the crossword on that day.
0:44:39 > 0:44:40It's coincidence...
0:44:40 > 0:44:43but it doesn't look like it.
0:44:43 > 0:44:48'Actress appearing with Frank Sinatra in 1954 -significant time'
0:44:48 > 0:44:50- could be Doris Day.
0:44:50 > 0:44:56That's quite cheeky. "F. Sinatra", so it will be D Day - wouldn't it?
0:45:05 > 0:45:06There is a tale,
0:45:06 > 0:45:12quite a well-known tale - the crossword, and D-Day.
0:45:14 > 0:45:18In The Telegraph crossword, sort of April, May and early June,
0:45:18 > 0:45:23several code words used in D-Day appeared in the crossword.
0:45:25 > 0:45:28This was brought to the attention of MI5 how, I don't know.
0:45:28 > 0:45:34I just have this lovely vision of MI5 sitting and solving their crosswords.
0:45:34 > 0:45:37They hauled in then-compiler, Mr Dawe.
0:45:37 > 0:45:42They gave him a good going-over and he just explained it was,
0:45:42 > 0:45:44you know, coincidence.
0:45:44 > 0:45:48He was a schoolmaster, as well as a compiler and his school
0:45:48 > 0:45:52was evacuated during the War down to the West Country,
0:45:52 > 0:45:59and one of the pupils, Ronald French was his name, he used to go to where
0:45:59 > 0:46:04his mother worked in the Canadian Forces canteen, and they mixed with
0:46:04 > 0:46:08the Canadian soldiers, and they banded around the code words
0:46:08 > 0:46:10for D-Day all the time.
0:46:12 > 0:46:16What had happened was that what Dawe used to do
0:46:16 > 0:46:21was he would get boys in to fill in the grid as part of detention.
0:46:23 > 0:46:28And one day Ronald, for some reason or other, put all these words in.
0:46:31 > 0:46:35We still don't know really about the code words.
0:46:35 > 0:46:38It probably was just coincidence,
0:46:38 > 0:46:41but it's a lovely story and it goes on and on and on.
0:46:54 > 0:46:58I'm an artist and I was commissioned by Art on the Underground to produce
0:46:58 > 0:47:00a project for Stanmore Station.
0:47:04 > 0:47:08The project I decided to create uses crosswords at the core to represent
0:47:08 > 0:47:10members of the community.
0:47:11 > 0:47:13When I was doing research for the project,
0:47:13 > 0:47:18I uncovered this really amazing poster in the archive of the
0:47:18 > 0:47:21Transport Museum and the poster had a crossword on it
0:47:21 > 0:47:24and it had a title that said "The Cockney Crossword".
0:47:24 > 0:47:28The leaflet that went with this poster was actually
0:47:28 > 0:47:31informing people how to behave in the tunnels during the Blitz.
0:47:37 > 0:47:39People went down into the platforms
0:47:39 > 0:47:42and actually would probably stay there most of the night
0:47:42 > 0:47:45while there was an air raid going on.
0:47:47 > 0:47:51But the crossword was being used, and it was something people could
0:47:51 > 0:47:54share and that's sort of partly what I was interested in.
0:47:55 > 0:47:57I used to go to school in Stanmore.
0:47:57 > 0:48:01I used to travel past what was then an army barracks
0:48:01 > 0:48:04and as I was doing research for the project I discovered that this army
0:48:04 > 0:48:08barracks was actually once an out-station to Bletchley Park.
0:48:09 > 0:48:15I suppose a piece of historical trivia that really grabbed my attention was that one of the main
0:48:15 > 0:48:19recruitment exercises for recruiting code-breakers
0:48:19 > 0:48:22was if you could complete the Daily Telegraph crossword
0:48:22 > 0:48:23in under twelve minutes,
0:48:23 > 0:48:26you had the potential to be a code-breaker,
0:48:26 > 0:48:30so that's the connection between crosswords, Stanmore and Bletchley Park.
0:48:35 > 0:48:38The commuter will be able to pick up a crossword booklet
0:48:38 > 0:48:41which contains all the crosswords in the series
0:48:41 > 0:48:45from any station along the Jubilee Line.
0:48:45 > 0:48:49The only way you'll get the solutions to the crosswords is by actually travelling
0:48:49 > 0:48:52to the end of the line and finding the solutions embedded in
0:48:52 > 0:48:54the artwork at Stanmore Station.
0:49:09 > 0:49:11Thanks all for coming here today.
0:49:11 > 0:49:15You've all really helped me to get to this point of the project and I
0:49:15 > 0:49:19just want to show you a piece of the work that will go up in the atrium
0:49:19 > 0:49:22space that we're standing below.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25All these puzzles we've created are really important,
0:49:25 > 0:49:28they're not just puzzles, they're portraits,
0:49:28 > 0:49:30so I wanted to put them into something grand
0:49:30 > 0:49:33and sort of elevate this everyday thing, a crossword puzzle,
0:49:33 > 0:49:36into something much more important.
0:49:36 > 0:49:39'My initial idea was that I wanted each crossword
0:49:39 > 0:49:43'that was produced to represent a group or a member of the community
0:49:43 > 0:49:45'that I'd had a conversation with.
0:49:45 > 0:49:48'A lot of my work stems from the conversation.'
0:49:49 > 0:49:51I think I'll reveal the artwork.
0:49:54 > 0:49:56Ooh! Isn't that beautiful!
0:49:58 > 0:50:02We'll have these up and they'll be about two metres by two metres,
0:50:02 > 0:50:05sort of squared, so they're gonna be pretty large, so
0:50:05 > 0:50:07you can sort of look up and be able
0:50:07 > 0:50:11to read the words, so it's the Sistine Chapel of Stanmore!
0:50:15 > 0:50:17I think it's beautiful,
0:50:17 > 0:50:21and I also feel like it's a bit like I've been let into a secret society,
0:50:21 > 0:50:24with the whole cryptic crossword thing because I thought
0:50:24 > 0:50:28originally I couldn't really get into them, but now I know the secrets.
0:50:28 > 0:50:31I feel slightly...I feel good about it now... slightly.
0:50:36 > 0:50:40One of the easiest types of clue to spot is the hidden clue.
0:50:42 > 0:50:44Hidden ones are quite easy, usually,
0:50:44 > 0:50:47because you've got all the letters in front of you.
0:50:47 > 0:50:51The setter is actually saying 'hey, the needle might be in the haystack,
0:50:51 > 0:50:53'but it's there, just find it'.
0:50:53 > 0:50:58"Member of an ancient people in epic tale".
0:50:58 > 0:51:00That little word "in"
0:51:00 > 0:51:02is the secret here.
0:51:02 > 0:51:09That tells you in this particular clue to look inside "epic tale"
0:51:09 > 0:51:17and if you look in "epic tale", you see P-I-C-T, and you pick out
0:51:17 > 0:51:19the P-I-C-T and you've got Pict,
0:51:19 > 0:51:22who's a member of an ancient people.
0:51:25 > 0:51:26Language always changes.
0:51:26 > 0:51:29If it stayed the same, we'd be as dead as dodos.
0:51:29 > 0:51:33I was Crossword Editor for a long time on The Telegraph, thirty years,
0:51:33 > 0:51:37and in that time, the word changed so much.
0:51:37 > 0:51:41I knocked out a few phrases that modern youth would never have heard
0:51:41 > 0:51:46of and I was hard pushed at and I gradually brought in things like
0:51:46 > 0:51:50bits and bites and RAMS and computer language,
0:51:50 > 0:51:53but you do it very, very gradually and you change the meaning
0:51:53 > 0:51:56of words very, very gradually and you cheat with the dictionary,
0:51:56 > 0:51:57but that's half the fun -
0:51:57 > 0:52:01finding words that do mean different things, like RAMS, they can be sheep
0:52:01 > 0:52:05or things in computers, and that's the fun of it.
0:52:10 > 0:52:13Phrases creep into everyday use
0:52:13 > 0:52:17and when they're new, a crossword compiler will seize on them
0:52:17 > 0:52:23and I'd a complaint from a couple of older guys one day who got in touch
0:52:23 > 0:52:27with me and said, "Can you solve fifteen across in today's paper?"
0:52:27 > 0:52:31and it was a clue about music and the answer was "gangsta rap"...
0:52:31 > 0:52:34"gangsta" spelt with the "A" on the end in the correct way,
0:52:34 > 0:52:37and these two guys had just never heard of it because they were
0:52:37 > 0:52:39Radio 3 merchants, if you like!
0:52:39 > 0:52:42Clues can become a little bit more modern.
0:52:42 > 0:52:46I know my compilers are very fond of drug references, often have letters
0:52:46 > 0:52:48in from people saying, "are they all addicts?",
0:52:48 > 0:52:51but things like the fact that you can have an "E"
0:52:51 > 0:52:53now has really helped them,
0:52:53 > 0:52:57so Ecstasy has come into The Telegraph crossword society.
0:53:00 > 0:53:06There was a gentleman called Dean Inge the compilers were very, very fond of in the '70s and '80s
0:53:06 > 0:53:07and he was from Victorian times
0:53:07 > 0:53:13and he was synonymous with gloom, so if you said, you know, "gloomy Dean"
0:53:13 > 0:53:16the solution would be "Inge". Most people, you know, had not
0:53:16 > 0:53:20a notion who this chap was, so I said "no more Dean Inge".
0:53:24 > 0:53:30The daily newspapers tend to concentrate on relatively straightforward clues,
0:53:30 > 0:53:34but they can get very sophisticated indeed.
0:53:39 > 0:53:44Every now and again you can do a very special clue called the "& lit"
0:53:44 > 0:53:48and literally, where the definition
0:53:48 > 0:53:55and the anagram of whatever it is, cover the whole length of the clue
0:53:55 > 0:54:01and the whole clue can be read in two different ways.
0:54:01 > 0:54:03Here's a hidden "& lit".
0:54:03 > 0:54:09"Part of it'it"...now that's now it's an apostrophe I-T,
0:54:09 > 0:54:11"..an iceberg".
0:54:11 > 0:54:14Seven letters, and we all know what hit an iceberg, don't we?
0:54:14 > 0:54:18The Titanic, right? Now look at the clue.
0:54:18 > 0:54:20It's a hidden clue, isn't it?
0:54:20 > 0:54:23"Part of it 'it an iceberg".
0:54:23 > 0:54:25"Part of it 'it an iceberg" gives you "T",
0:54:25 > 0:54:28then the "I-T", from apostrophe "I-T"...
0:54:28 > 0:54:31we've cheated there, obviously, "an" - A-N,
0:54:31 > 0:54:33I-C from "iceberg"
0:54:33 > 0:54:35so the whole clue
0:54:35 > 0:54:39is doing the thing in two different ways,
0:54:39 > 0:54:43and that's a very special clue that we all try to strive for.
0:54:44 > 0:54:51"Some in Commons term Mrs T one, abusively".
0:54:51 > 0:54:54This is in the days when Margaret Thatcher
0:54:54 > 0:54:58was still playing Mrs and it refers to her.
0:54:59 > 0:55:03You may notice that "Some in Commons term" part of
0:55:03 > 0:55:06the two word phrase "Commons term"
0:55:06 > 0:55:11is M-O-N-S-T-E-R, but...
0:55:11 > 0:55:13there's more to it than that.
0:55:13 > 0:55:16"Mrs T one abusively"
0:55:16 > 0:55:20suggests an anagram of "Mrs T One"
0:55:20 > 0:55:25and an anagram of Mrs T One is "monster".
0:55:25 > 0:55:29It's a multi-layered clue which is, I think, quite brilliant.
0:55:30 > 0:55:34Now then for some reason, Wagner has been one of my
0:55:34 > 0:55:39greatest heroes in life and therefore, Morse's great hero.
0:55:40 > 0:55:42No woman would put up with me...
0:55:42 > 0:55:44I play my records too loud.
0:55:44 > 0:55:47You could get her ear plugs.
0:55:49 > 0:55:54And he once told, and it's at the top of one of the chapters,
0:55:54 > 0:55:57"We'll get excited with ring seat"
0:55:57 > 0:55:59and the "ring seat", of course,
0:55:59 > 0:56:05is a seat - a jolly good seat, going to see the Ring Of The Nibelung.
0:56:05 > 0:56:09What we've got is W-E
0:56:09 > 0:56:11"with ring seat"
0:56:11 > 0:56:13and then "get excited".
0:56:13 > 0:56:17The letters get jumbled around, moved around, "excited",
0:56:17 > 0:56:19with "ring",
0:56:19 > 0:56:22and that is Wagnerites.
0:56:31 > 0:56:34Can you solve the first ever crossword clue
0:56:34 > 0:56:37- that I wrote as a child?- Go on, then.- At 14 years old.
0:56:37 > 0:56:40- And what's the clue? - "Imperative he fetch his fruit".
0:56:40 > 0:56:43- Imperative what? - "Imperative he fetch his fruit".
0:56:43 > 0:56:46- Imperative he fetch his fruit?". - Yeah. Five letters.
0:56:46 > 0:56:48- Yeah. First letter is?- M.
0:56:48 > 0:56:49M? Melon.
0:56:49 > 0:56:51How would that be, "Imperative he fetch his fruit"?
0:56:51 > 0:56:55- I know!- You're a crossword doctor! - I know I am.- I'm a simple man.
0:56:55 > 0:56:56I'm a writer. I'm a simple man.
0:56:56 > 0:56:59- "Imperative he fetch his fruit?". - Yeah.
0:56:59 > 0:57:02- It may not be a very sound clue, is it?- It's a very sound clue.
0:57:02 > 0:57:05Oh, God, yes, absolutely entomologically the most sound...
0:57:05 > 0:57:07it's all sewn up, baby!
0:57:07 > 0:57:10- It ends in "O", the last letter is "O".- It ends in O? Mango. Mango.
0:57:10 > 0:57:15There you go. Man-go. "Imperative he fetch his fruit"... Man go, that's an imperative.
0:57:15 > 0:57:18Crossword doctor, crossword schmoctor!
0:57:35 > 0:57:38There it is. That's our puzzle
0:57:38 > 0:57:40and I hope you've enjoyed looking at it.
0:57:43 > 0:57:48Going from this simple definition in the foothills
0:57:48 > 0:57:51of these rather tedious mountains up to the top of Everest,
0:57:51 > 0:57:56it's analogous to opening the doors of delight, isn't it?
0:58:02 > 0:58:05Fashions change, intellectuals' fashions change,
0:58:05 > 0:58:08but you know, I'm quite sure that the crossword will still be with us
0:58:08 > 0:58:10when my grandson is an old man.
0:58:10 > 0:58:14There's something about it, and I know so many people who
0:58:14 > 0:58:15just turn straight to the back page
0:58:15 > 0:58:19and I understand that, as a former journalist why they might.
0:58:20 > 0:58:24I meet university students doing it and I think,
0:58:24 > 0:58:27oh, they've just started doing the crossword! Yes!
0:58:27 > 0:58:30Which is really, really exciting...for me, anyway.
0:58:48 > 0:58:51Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:51 > 0:58:54E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk