Bitter Afterthoughts

People often say to me ‘In your profession you must know a lot’.

Then they get to know me.

Sometimes I am not the sharpest tool in the box.  Though I have claimed to be the sharpest tool when out of my box.

I used to like the occasional beer. I have to say, during those years, I can’t remember writing a single good clue while under the influence. I would always – and still do – carry a pen and paper in my pocket, for when inspiration might strike.  But then, fished from the depths of fluffy pockets the morning after, those ideas and half-ideas scrawled on scraps rarely failed to disappoint.

Looking back, I’m pretty sure at the time I chose to use more anagram indicators synonymous with sozzledom. And pubs provided comedy and tragicomedy in equal measure.

But I did need inspiration from somewhere.

I have also taken quite a few courses in life training. Life is transformed, much, much more fun, and I laugh more. I moan and wallow less, and have far less time for moaners, wallowers, and for those being a victims of their circumstances. All in all, I can be a right pain in the neck.

And my clues are less cynical. I’m far less likely to have a cheap dig at public figures.

Unless the opportunity is too good to miss.

Some news items should be, rightly, avoided. Writing a current clue to which the answer is ‘Houston, we have a problem’, for example. Unacceptable. And should a Russian aircraft, God forbid, come down, ‘What remains of Aeroflot’s ambitions (7)’ is an unacceptable reference to a potential airline disaster.

However, and this is just my opinion, and carries no more weight than any opinion may carry, especially mine:

Lord Archer now with New Labour (2-3)  answer: Ex-con…. is fair game.

Best wishes,

John (Paul)

PS: There will be another such public figure reference in The Guardian , on March 1. Have a lovely day!

 

 

Cryptic v Clarity

I’m waiting for a bus. The automated minute-by-minute information display is not working. Thankfully, there is clear help at hand:

A message inscribed into the bus stop sign, beneath a phone number, reads: ‘Text Bus 4 Times’

I do as instructed.

‘BUSBUSBUSBUS’

No response.

For a man whose very existence plays on the desire to bewilder and perplex, I do rather crave clarity. And here it wasn’t.

And it is the cryptic crossword setter’s very nature to direct the mind away from the truth for a brief instant.

Oh dear. Even as I write, I note I have written ‘brief instant’ – tautology at its worst. What else could an instant be? I did overhear recently a tourist at a wildlife park remarking ‘that’s a large elephant’.

I did once think I’d spotted a small elephant. That is, until a friend pointed out that it hadn’t a trunk. And that it squeaked. In my haste I had misidentified, as an elephant, a mouse. So, it was grey. How was I to know?

I digress… again.

I have been given a one-hour slot at the Guardian Open Weekend to talk cryptic crosswords.  March 24, 12.30-1.30 The Guardian offices, Kings Place, London. Do pop by. You can also meet the great Araucaria at the same weekend. He’s 91, extraordinary, fun and lovely, and has better hair than me too.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/open-weekend/buy-tickets?intcmp=239

See you all there I hope. Do come over and say hello.

Best wishes,

John (Paul)

 

Babie’s Bloomers

We are quick to find others wrong. As crossword pedants, doubly so.

Often I find myself ambling down a street suppressing the need to knock upon the doors of local retailers and question their eye-catching ‘Banana’s, Half Price’ chalkings. Perhaps this is a ploy to have middle-class snobs such as myself wander in off the street and correct them, rather than pass by. Perhaps.

Perhaps I should be more forgiving.

I do remember fairly recently seeing some footage of the Ku Klux Klan (for which clues are invited) in their cowardly and sinister white cloaks and inverted icing-sugar-bag-headgear get-ups.  They were wielding placards daubed with various hideous slogans, the details of which I have systematically erased from my pure-as-driven-snow mind. I forget the slogans, but I do remember being very impressed by the KKK’s consistently correct use of the apostrophe. For a fraction of a nanosecond I very nearly admired them, for their grammatical prowess, if not for their ghastly views and dress sense of Liberace on speed.

Perhaps I should not be so forgiving.

Anyhow, thankfully I have learnt never to mix with such people, in much the same way that I have learnt never to challenge a man in a silk shirt to a game of darts. Sort of.

Moving on from the oche to another expert at his game, it is Rufus’ 80^th birthday this month, and rightly he is being honoured at The Guardian offices with a party, to be hosted by Alan Rusbridger, the editor.

Rufus provides a much-needed way in for cryptic crossword solvers. Indeed, my first completed puzzle was one of his. He has been the master of the play on words for many years, the creation of which has to be clutched from thin air. For me, there is no methodology – a play on words clue just comes to you, and is therefore not an easy clue to write. I pen few puns.

Rufus is perhaps most famous for ‘Stiff examination (4,6)’ but his clues translate really well to the novice, and prove memorable. Long live the prolific and incredible Magic Circle member and word magician Roger Squires (for he has a real name). He’s a top bloke to boot.

Best wishes,

John (Paul)

Roger Squires – Rufus

A request – thank you in advance!

Ladies and gentlemen,

In a 2012 government survey it was shown that cryptic crossword solvers are 86% more generous and gorgeous than normal people.

And who wants to be normal anyway?

Please do take a few moments to sponsor myself for The London Marathon 2012, in aid of Sense, or my wife Taline and myself for the Brighton Half Marathon, in aid of Pass It On Africa which builds schools across the poorest parts of the continent.

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=JohnHalpern

Thank you! You’re amazing, and I love you for your cryptic gorgeousness.

Best wishes,

John (Paul)

Crossword Intentionality

Just returning from Geneva, a city of the bespectacled and the bescarfed walkers of small dogs, to Brighton, a city of the befrocked and the defrocked walkers of small dogs.

Toured the Palais Des Nations, Geneva HQ to the UN on Friday. Trod the hallowed turf of conference halls in which 51 nations speak the universal language of fraternity, forsaking their national interests for the good of humanity (I liked to think).

We were told observers from Non-UN members Palestine and the Vatican City would be the regular couple at the back, sitting in on debates, perhaps taking jovial bets on how long it would be would be before their respective domains became of equal acreage.

And although the corridors and halls of power that day appeared empty, I did spot a lone photocopier in the foyer, so something obviously was being done.

My mind had already strayed though. I had progressed from the art deco style of the palace to its anagram, redcoat, and Butlin’s.

Word association is a killer for us setters. Being able to concentrate for more than a few seconds at a time is a problem. Even many of my sentences are commuted, and.

 

Which reminds me of my favourite limerick.

There was an old man from the sticks,

Who like to compose limericks,

But he failed at the sport,

For he wrote them too short.

Anyhow.

I’m penning this from a café in Geneva Airport. Hope everything’s ok at home. I did switch off all the lights before leaving, didn’t I? And I hope I didn’t leave the ….. “garcon…..?”

Going Loco

I’m on a train.

I’m told train journeys are very good for creative thinking.

‘Thinking’ – unlike Henry VIII, who was a fat one.

Getting back on track (thank you for noticing my train journey punning), I’m off to Heathrow. Actually, I once knew a chap who spent 3 years at Heathrow. Or was that on Death Row? What a difference a letter makes. At least that’s what I’ve come to learn, for I used to write to him.

Not sure the letters ever reached him though, as I sent them to Heathrow.

Anyhow, I’m visiting my very good friend Vince, in Ibiza, who has recently moved there from Hackney.

Actually, moving ‘from Hackney to Ibiza’ gives you ’I’m nth fairycake bozo’. Does this matter to him?

Not a jot. I have tried to get him into cryptic crosswords. And failed. I have tried to get every person I’ve ever met into cryptic crosswords. And – usually – failed.

Here is my technique:

‘Oh my god, you must get into cryptics . They’re really brilliant. Wow, they’re  good. Hey, here’s a really great clue for you: ‘Huge deficit in fuel  – eight letters’.

It’s simple. You have to find a word that means ‘deficit’ and place it in a word that means ‘fuel’ to make a word that means ‘huge’.  LOSS in COAL. COLOSSAL! It’s so much fun!

Then:

1/ My grin and a pause.

2/ A mutual pause

3/  His ‘do you write su doku too?’

4/ My ‘no, they’re written by a computer, and are humourless.

5/ His ‘oh, oh dear’.

END.

Perhaps I am a better setter than I am a teacher. I really do hope so.

Best wishes,

John (Paul)

Chocolates, Crosswords and Reality

So I am sitting in a deckchair inside the half-built Wembley Stadium, in Geneva, with two hazelnut whirls atop my bare knees, carolling ‘Chocolate, chocolate, you can make cakes from it; chocolate, chocolate, might this make you vomit?’ – when I wake.

And yesterday, during my early morning constitution, I spent a worryingly long time considering whether or not someone out there had been christened Lou Paper, and if so, what life was like for the poor soul.

I have a cold. Maybe that’s it.

Or could it just be that I’m a crossword setter, and this is the sort of thinking crossword setters do. Is there anyone else out there like this? Thankfully I only have my own head in which to meander. And numbering one head, that’s odd enough.

But I seem to have found a (fairly) normal wife, so I must be doing something right. And speaking of right… I recently undertook an online test to ascertain which part of my brain is more active. Apparently I am 62% left-hemisphere dominant. But surely that could only mean one thing – that I am a ‘reasoning’ and ‘reasonable’ man.

But if I have these (some might say) alarming thoughts and images in my noddle, and if I’m reasonable, then… what sort of animal might I be sitting next to on the Tube?

For the sake of my sanity, I have it like this:

Chocolate poetry: NORMAL

Lou Paper thinking: NORMAL

New-build box-dwelling suburbic sudoku-loving amateur dramatics aficionado accountancy gym bunnies: ABNORMAL

So, back to my own reality. This afternoon I attended a children’s birthday party, and sought solace from the mayhem in the host’s kitchen. I encountered a fellow setter ( a jelly) – geddit ? Jellies set? – upon the kitchen table. I found myself talking to it, confiding in the strawberry confection. I was not feeling well.

He replied… – dear readers, I should point out that of course all jellies are of the male gender – ‘actually, I’m feeling a bit wobbly myself’.

NORMAL.

(I think)

Best wishes,

John (Paul)

Infinite tangents

So, a very happy new year to you all.

Spot the cryptic crossword setter among these names:

John Smith, Bruno Wizard, Paul Bringloe.

Paul Bringloe, aka Neo of the the Financial Times, is an old pal with whom I have just shared a couple of pleasant hours at The Amex stadium, Brighton – and a pint of John Smith’s.

But you’d think of the three names Bruno Wizard could only be a crossword setter… or perhaps a punk legend.

Last week I was fortunate to spend some time with Mr Wizard, as he enters his seventh decade. The former front man with punk band The Rejects, he tells me he is shortly to wed to a 22-year old. He also has a ‘condition’ called synesthesia, which means he can ‘taste’ colours. And he informed me that a circle is comprised of infinite tangents. I think I know what he means. I think.

And while I may have an alias as Punk, Bruno has more inspiring things to do than simply torture cruciverbophiles – I may just have made that word up, by the way – as he represents an organisation called Skylight.

Let me elucidate.

My wife Taline and have been privileged this holiday season to spend two gorgeous days as volunteers for Crisis at Christmas in London.

Our remit was to provide some recreational fun within a warm and safe environment, in which guests could get access to much-needed services such as dentistry, and to medical care.

We decided we would talk puzzles. Thank you so much to Puzzler Media Ltd for kindly donating to the centre a large quantity of varied and entertaining puzzle-based magazines.

Those guests at the Crisis centre who were already into their puzzles were delighted to have access to their favourite and rather marvellous escapist world, while other rookie solvers found themselves gaining confidence by solving their first sudoku completely, or perhaps by learning new vocabulary via a quick crossword.

One gentleman, a dab hand at killer sudoku, had been so encouraged by his solving ability, and ability to teach us all further solving tricks, that before leaving once more for his cold and unwelcoming unfixed abode he pasted the following message onto the Crisis ‘Dream Board’ – ‘this time next year I will be a maths teacher’.

Puzzles can make a real difference to people’s confidence. Sharing a conversation with the guy who had just completed his first sudoku, through the process he realised that he’d got into the habit of getting things started, but not finishing them.

This had been a real breakthrough, to get the job done. He promised us he would persevere more in 2012.We could see in his eyes that he meant it.

Bruno Wizard may not have been a crossword setter, but as a volunteer for Skylight, a fantastic organisation providing free services such as language skills classes, skills training and medical care for the homeless and those recovering from drug and alcohol-dependent lifestyles, he makes more of a difference than a humble cruciverbalist like me can ever do.

And at Crisis we met so many intelligent, extraordinary, talented and delightful people who’ve just had a bad break or two. It could happen to all of us. Do let your friends know about Skylight. And support them. Oh, and perhaps you’d like to volunteer for Crisis next Christmas. We might just see you there.

Once again, happy new year! I’ll be talking crosswords again next week.

http://www.crisis.org.uk/pages/what-we-do-crisis-skylight-centres-61897.html

Love and respect,

John (Paul)

Currant Affairs

Given everyone in Brussels seems to be nuts, creating a parliament of fruit and vegetable ministers seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

But sometimes ideas prove slow burners.

Many years ago, the seeds of wordplay within me were sewn by way of a series of adolescent forays into the lexicographical, anarchical cacophony that was Xerox, our ‘musical’ band.

Chris, Steve and myself, as band members, distinctly remember the hordes of young girls hysterically rattling the gates of our homes at all hours of the night, trying to get out. It certainly could only have been the quality of our Xerox albums that came to inspire some of the great rock legends of our age – to quit music.

But for all our success, our real passion was for writing, and wordplay.

And so it was that the fruit and vegetable parliament was born. We were to create an illustrated series of prime minister’s questions from a fictional House of Commons in which such parliamentary luminaries as Tom Mato and Amanda Rinn (check out both names on Facebook, these people are real) debated the key-wi issues of the day. Nana Split the pensions minister, among others, featured. Stories of these ministers’ inflated celeries were leeked to the gutter cress.

But we’d missed a trick.

We’d never found the name for our prime minister. Until recently.

Something had evidently stirred. At 2am I was to awake, and there was the name, clear as day in my mind, in all its glory.

When the chips are down in Europe, step forward our glorious leader – Dick Tater.

Best wishes,

John (Paul)

 

 

A/ X-Factor B/ Chaucer C/Football

You pays your money, you takes your choice.

I have not yet tackled A, nor have I taken on the might of B. There are those of you I’m sure who would shudder at the thought of either.

Perhaps I shouldn’t even have taken on option C.

On the opening day of this football season, I chose to give a nod to the opening of ‘the new stadium’ (an anagram of West Ham United, incidentally) in Brighton with a couple of Brighton and Hove Albion-related football clues.

In the puzzle, one of the solutions was a  former Brighton FC great from the seventies, the stalwart defender Mark Lawrenson, now turned TV football pundit. I forget the clue, but I dd purposefully neglect to use an anagram of his name, that which I shall refrain from spelling out to you, only heavily disguised, as : normal wnkarse.

A couple of years back, I heard the aforementioned Mr Lawrenson would be hosting a ‘live’ Q & A session online, so took the opportunity to inquire if he had been aware of the anagram.

No reply.

I also took the opportunity to point out that his ‘best ever goal scored’ described in Match Weekly, a magazine to which I subscribed as a boy, did not – as I recall, for I was there – involve ‘leaving four players bamboozled’, nor did it ‘scream into the roof of the net from thirty yards’, more that it ‘trickled over the line courtesy of a deflection off my kneecap’ . I requested he consulted the other 25,000 witnesses that January night in 1979 in order to revisualise his moment of glory.

No reply.

In retrospect, because I am an expert in Brighton and Hove Albion players since 1975, this does not give me the right to impart my worrying obsession on the crossword solving public.

However, dear readers, I always do get tempted. There is a  great two-word anagram of former Newcastle United and Spurs midfield maestro ‘David Ginola’  (6,5). Perhaps next time…

Have a great week,

Best wishes,

John (Paul)