Roddy's Crossword Memories

As if being a poet were not an unusual and dubious enough occupation, I have a parallel vocation in which I compose puzzles and quizzes and compile lists. To the inevitable question, how did you get into that? I describe a not unusual scene in my household in years past – my father busy with The Courier cryptic, my mother scratching her head over the last clues in one of those record-sleeve sized factual crosswords. Somewhere, my brother would be struggling with the bars and unches of Azed, the weekly Observer puzzle which is the crossword fans' crossword.

A teenage ritual for me was to push two armchairs together, so I could lounge, Pot Noodle in one hand (always Chicken and Mushroom variety), pen in the other, as I knocked off the puzzles in a book of plain cryptics (Sunday Times variety). These were the nursery slopes of cruciverbalism: I was aiming to follow my brother up the wild slopes of Azed, where words like euouae, nudicaudate and ylambu needed to be within reach. Some time during my first year at University, I finished my first Azed. Some years later, I finished an Azed in less than an hour. I have rarely solved one once, but now realise I miss it (note to self: buy The Observer on Sunday).

I have never set a crossword puzzle myself (being what is properly termed a puzzlist, one who sets word puzzles, connection conundrums, box puzzles etc). My brother had a few tries, even selecting a setter's pseudonym (Lumen; I fancied myself as Lumenella). It has been suggested that the business of pseudonyms came about since many of the early puzzle compilers were clergymen who wanted to keep such verbal frippery as a secret from their flock. More likely, the trend was started by my fellow poet / puzzle-maker Edward Powys Mathers who had styled himself Torquemada, inspiring his successor Derrick Somerset Macnutt (the big cheese of setters) to select Ximenes as his name (after Torquemada's successor as Grand Inquisitor).

For those keen to try the 'advanced cryptic' – no black squares, words from the dictionary's depths – Chambers published a nice volume of Jonathan Crowther's Azed puzzles two years ago. They have also just published a collection of puzzles from the Observer's other, more gentle series, Everyman. The back cover suggests that “Everyman is often recommended for those who are new to cryptic crosswords, who will find the explanation of cryptic clue types and solution notes invaluable”.

I decide to set myself the task of 'knocking off' one of the puzzles. I realise I haven't solved a puzzle in quite some time – will I be rusty? Can a poacher turn gamekeeper and turn poacher again? Is my anagram eye up to scratch? And do I have to have a Pot Noodle? I hope not and intend to start, as was my practice, by reading through the Across clues, filling in those which come easily, then repeating the strategy for the Downs. However, being a birdwatcher (another geeky hobby I ought not to admit to, though I am strictly a part-time amateur), 20 down catches my eye right away: Aquatic bird from Great Britain flying round about the East (5). It's evidently 'grebe', but it takes me a moment or two to register that the word about gives the RE in the answer: GB round RE, plus E. I am rusty. Oh dear.

I have chosen puzzle number 53 (which happens to be my lucky number – not much of a lucky number, but I once came second in a Happy Smile contest at Butlin's with that contestant number, and it has stuck!). After fourteen minutes, I have finished the puzzle – not bad at all, given there are 29 clues. Except that I have left one answer incomplete – I know I'm not going to get this one, even though I have B-U-O filled in. The clue is Boy, British and game. The answer is probably Bruno (it is) but I'm baffled – is 'uno' a card game? Yes, apparently.

Apart from that, I'm quite pleased with my outcome. Three of the fifteen letter answers fell in quick succession, giving me lots of checks (and unch is a letter which is unchecked and appears in only one answer). One of Everyman's features is fairly straightforward clueing, so hangman's halter does turn out to be 'noose', list of names is 'roster'. Three clues give me a bit of trouble: one answer is 'precast', a type of concrete, I assume. Similarly, 'saxhorn' is unfamiliar, but is clearly correct (AX – a kiss - in SHORN). The answer 'testament' is inferred from an anagram of 'meats' in TENT, clued as wine. I had forgotten that tent is an old word for Spanish red (from tinto). The best clue? Well done to the setter for spotting that Garibaldi contains 'ribald'. I have no idea if Garibaldi was ribald or not. I suspect not, even if he did give his name to such pleasant items as a blouse and a biscuit! But he lives on, alongside 'tea-kettle', 'bedridden' and 'noggins', thanks to this book.