Alan Connor wonders if there could ever be a better workplace for a palindrome competition than Bletchley Park
Following its best screenplay Oscar win, The Imitation Game is getting a second theatrical wind. A few months ago, we reminded ourselves that Alan Turing was not, in fact, a crossword fiend.
Of course, we have nothing against the sculpting of fact into biopic here at the crossword blog; it’s unquestionably interesting, though, that crosswording was not among Turing’s many intellectual pursuits. And a recent piece in Visual Thesaurus’s Word Count blog gives a fascinating contrast concerning one particular type of wordplay – and concerning not Turing, but Peter Hilton, played in the movie by Matthew Beard.
There is this enormous excitement in codebreaking that what appears to be utter gibberish really makes sense only if you have the key, and I could do that sort of thing for 30 hours at a stretch and never feel tired.
Incredibly, the young codebreaker did not use paper or pencil while composing his epic palindrome. He simply lay on his bed, eyes closed, and assembled it in his mind over one long night. It took him five hours.
Doc, note: I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod.
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