It is about 55 years since I did my
first crossword. I blame dad. He had a passion for crosswords which
infected me. His special joy was the Daily Express (Mail?) Skeleton.
Not only were the clues cryptic but the grid was incomplete. You had
to fill in not only the lights but the blanks!
Anyway I had a try at slightly less
challenging examples and that was it. Since then I have solved, or
attempted to solve, thousands of puzzles, all of the cryptic nature.
I graduated to the Telegraph, the Guardian and, back in the day, EVEN
the Times.
I sometimes shared the task with others
but not often. Jeremy Deedes (yep, that one) taught me a trick with
anagrams (write the given letters in a circle to break the pattern)
and Ernie Metcalf (no not that one) showed me a trick with long
solutions – use word knowledge to settle on bits before attempting
the whole.
But back then and until about 10 years
ago one thing was always true – when I failed and looked the
following day at the solution my response only fitted one of three
forms. The first was the inward groan which said loudly “what a
fool for missing that”. Then there was the outright guffaw – that
showed just how clever and witty the compiler had been.
And then there was the snort – that
revealed a clue so impenetrable that I had to check out the sections
to be convinced it was correct - even when it was blindingly obvious
from the puzzle pattern.
But now there is a new response and I
do not like it one bit. It is a gasp of sheer derision at the cheek
of the compiler. For a while I thought it was just me being wildly
older than the young breed of compilers coming through. Then I took
a longer look at some puzzles and figured it out – and it is not
nice. And it certainly isn't fair (if such a concept exists today).
You see before the arrival of the
computer the compiler depended on their word knowledge and perhaps a
dictionary or thesauraus. And if they had a set of letters that left
them stuck with a letter sequences that defeated them they would
adjust the existing clues and solutions to produce a credible
alternative. Given even the best compiler was unlikely to have a
vocab beyond twice mine I was still in with a chance.
Not any more. Now they just pump the
letters and spaces into their PC and lo – a deeply obscure word
pops out. Maybe its from a forgotten language. Or an era so long ago
the word has fallen into disuse. Or it is a 'jargon' word from some
ancient artisan skill that has no relevance today.
These are Scrabble words and they have
wrecked Scrabble for us ordinary folks. There are even words in which
Q is NOT followed by a U. That's not English and it certainly isn't
cricket! There have been a couple of rotten examples recently (ninon
serves to make the point – look it up; it was N-blank-N-blank-N
easy peasy in a PC).
Thing is that when we started playing
Scrabble in the late 50s (oh yes, a gift from Canada) we followed a
common practice among crossword compilers – agreeing on the
dictionary. A one volume Chambers or Oxford sufficed. I have a big
two volume Shorter Oxford which would probably suit a crossword
compiler. But the word being used require a multi volume Complete OU
- and even then I am not wholly convinced.
So I am coming to hate crosswords and
the compilers. Bring back Lavengro I say, and those two brilliant
ladies on the Telegraph Oh yes and Alan Cash, who I think was dad's
favourite man with the skeleton!
