PUZZLED BY AN ANGRY CHAT?

A hundred years after the first crossword was published, a brilliant new book offers some clues as to why millions of us are addicted to these wonderful (and infuriating) puzzles

Some people can complete even the toughest crossword in a matter of minutes. The ghost-story writer MR James used to measure the boiling of his breakfast egg by the time it took him to finish The Times crossword, and he disliked his eggs hard-boiled.

The rest of us see a clue like ‘Two Girls, One On Each Knee (7)’ and simply feel dumb. To be honest, I carried on feeling dumb even after discovering the answer: PATELLA. Eh? Eh? For some reason, the news that ‘patella’ is the medical term for a kneecap has passed me by. So I am disqualified not only from tackling cryptic crosswords but from general knowledge crosswords too.

At least my incompetence finds me in good company. In the PG Wodehouse novel Hot Water, Mervyn Mullinger is baffled by the name for a large Australian bird beginning with E and ending with U, so he decides to ‘place the matter in the hands of the editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica’.

Victor Meldrew, hero of One Foot In The Grave, voices a thought that has occurred to many of us when faced with a cryptic clue. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t seem to be able to do the crossword today as I appear to be temporarily out of mindbending drugs.’

The clues that baffle him are wonderfully bonkers: ‘ Bag eggnog but get a tad bugged’ and ‘Elk’s ego gets my goat – head of M15 upset the French by reversing into Dad’s underpants – it’s a doddle’.

The first crossword was published 100 years ago this weekend in an American newspaper. Ever since then, an awful lot of people have never looked back, or at least up. The author of this very enjoyable celebration of the crossword claims that ‘three in ten British adults attempt a crossword at least once a week’, but to me this sounds most unlikely – the sort of dodgy statistic put about by the Crossword Marketing Board, or by a leading manufacturer of pencil sharpeners.

Still, there’s no denying the popularity of crosswords, nor their capacity to mesmerise even those of us who can’t do them. ‘This is a book about having fun with words’ begins the first paragraph, and it does indeed deliver fun galore, for doers and duffers alike.

Some clues and answers have the beauty and concision of haikus, or conjuring tricks. Take this one, for instance: ‘Cold display unit for seafood (11)’. The answer is ‘Standoffish’. If you are still looking blank, then divide the word in three – stand of fish – and then you too will probably find yourself breathing a little purr of delight.

Or how about ‘Natty, elegant and trim, primarily (4)’. Answer: ‘neat’ (formed from the first letter of the first four words). Or my own favourite, ‘Either way it is unacceptable (3,2)’. Answer: ‘not on’, which reads the same either way, forwards or backwards.

The father of the British crossword, Adrian Bell – who was also the father of Martin Bell, the white-suited crusader, and Anthea Bell, the brilliant translator of everyone from Asterix to Stefan Zweig – is credited with two of the most satisfying clues: ‘This cylinder is jammed (5,4)’ for ‘Swiss roll’ and ‘Die of cold (3,4)’ for ‘ice cube’.

Bell had a day job as a farmer. Compiling crosswords was, he said, ‘the ideal job for a chap with a vacant mind sit- ting on a tractor harrowing clods’.

Two Girls, One On Each Knee consists of a series of short, sparky chapters on topics as various as ‘Crosswords and detective fiction’, ‘Can machines do crosswords?’ and ‘The many ways of being rude in a crossword’.

I was particularly taken with a chapter devoted to the use of crosswords in the film Brief Encounter. Alan Connor points out that the crossword is the only true villain in the film, as it absorbs all the attention of Laura’s wellmeaning husband Fred whenever she is crying out for emotional contact.

At one point, Fred asks Laura to complete the Keats line ‘When I behold upon the night-starred face, huge cloudy symbols of a high...’ and Laura replies: ‘ROMANCE.’ Fred is delighted, because ROMANCE is a word that fits in with the entries DELIRIUM and BALUCHISTAN. It never occurs to him that his wife is

piningfortherealthing.

Sothecr osswordcanbe ar etreata wayfr omr eallife andintoabstr action;butit canalsoserv etodir ecty ourmindintoar easthatr eallife istoobusytocopewith.‘T otackleacrypticcr osswordistoenjoythee xperienceof yourbr ainw orkinginaw aythatev erydaylifer arelycalls for,’suggestsConnor.

Andthisisalsotheguid - ingprincipleofhisbook;it favourstheb ywayo verthe highway,andcanneversaynotoaredherring.Adullerpersonmightpassabuildingsite andthinktohimself‘Builder’sbottom’,butthecr osswordpuzzlerwillsetey esonthat builder’sbottomandcome upwiththeclue:‘ Crackconstructionworkershowsuponsite(8,6).’

JohnUpdikeoncesaidthat hiswritingisanattempt‘to givethemundaneitsbeauti - fuldue’;thesamemightbe saidofthecr ossword.‘ Gegs(9,4)’w asacluepopularised byDr opTheDeadDonk ey.Theansw eris‘ Scrambledeggs’.Whocouldden ythe beautyinthat?

Everynowandthen,cr osswordsha vebeenusedto conveysecr etmessagesthat mightotherwisebedisal - lowed.Oneofthemostrecentcasesofthiscameinthecluesforthecr osswordinthev erylasteditionoftheN ewsOf TheW orld,amongthem ‘catastrophe’,‘stink’,‘ criminalenterprise’and‘w omanstareswildlyatcalamity ’.Incidentally,itw asacr ossword-compilerwhomadethewelcomediscoverythatNewsOfTheWorldanagramsneatlyinto‘We’dnoself-worth’.

Amorepeculiarinstanceofcrosswordsbeingemploy edforcodedmessagescameon August17 ,19 42,whenthe wordDIEPPEappear edas anansw erintheT elegraphpuzzle:tw odayslaterther ewasadisastr ousr aidonthat verysameport.Anexhaustiveinquiryensued–conducted bythesonofThe39S tepsauthorJ ohnBuchan–and foundthatitwasnomorethana‘remarkablecoincidence’.

Twoyearslater,onMay22,1944,OMAHAw asoneof theanswersintheT elegraphcrosswordpuzzle:itw asalsothecodenameforthe Normandybeachwher ethe 1stU SAssaultDivisionw asduetoland.Bizarr ely,inthe previousmonths ,thecode - namesfortheotherD -Daybeaches–JUN O,GOLD ,UTAHandSW ORD–all appearedinthesamepuzzle ,andsohadMULBERR Y,the codenamefortheoper ation’sfloatingharbours,NEPTUNE,thena val-assaultstageand T OVERLORD,thecodename forD-Dayitself.woMI5agents i mmedi a t e l yd e s c e n d e dontheSurr eyhomeofthe crosswordsetter,Leonar dD awe.‘They turnedmeinsideout, ’he recalled.Theyalsomadehim burnallhisnotebooks ,but foundabsolutelynoevidence oftr eachery.E venso ,after theliber ationofP aris,newspapersw ereforbiddenfr ompublishingcrosswords.

Thestoryhasaninterestingtwist.ItturnsoutthatLeonardDawew asaheadmasteras wellasacr osswordsetter; 40y earslater ,in1984 , one ofhisformerpupilsclaimed thatAmericansoldierspostednearbyhadbeeno verheardchatteringaboutthev ariousoperations,andthat,almost

‘Gegs (9,4) – Scrambled eggs. Who could deny the beauty

in that?’

byanunconsciouspr ocessofosmosis,thepupilshadpassedstraywordsontoD awe,whohadthenincorpor atedthem intohiscrosswords.ButAlan Connorfindsthisexplanation‘alittletooneatanddecidedlytoocute’,andIaminclinedtoagreewithhim.

Worldswithinw ordsand wordswithinw orlds:cryp - ticcr osswordsar eallabout concealmentanduncovering.TwofinalcluesforChristmas:‘Cookingequipmenttak enbackfromheiressItormented’and‘U pinspar er oom,I’m editingactr essonfilm’.The answersar e,r espectively,‘Rotisserie’and‘DemiMoore’.Ify ouar estillbaffled,her e’sahint:lookforthoseansw erslurkingintheclues,writteninreverse.Heypresto!