Guardian setter Paul has been on tour, sharing the cryptic love. Alan Connor finds out more
The crossword is approaching its 100th birthday. I caught up with Guardian setter Paul, who has been touring the country that gave the world the cryptic.
Where have you visited and what have you done there?
We went to Bristol, Poole, Oxford, Shrewsbury, Liverpool, Manchester and London on consecutive nights.
At each venue, a fab group of crossword fans shouted out words that were important to them about their city or town and I used software to help fit as many as possible of the most important ones into puzzles.
We wrote around a third of the clues together as cryptics and the rest were straight. This was to create a puzzle we could publicise that would have a taste of cryptic in which the quick entries would help you solve – hopefully!
The puzzles were published in the Liverpool Echo, the Manchester Evening News and many other papers across the country and if you want to see your nearest city's puzzle, it's also published at the Crossword Centenary site.
How do you whittle down the longlists of grid entries for each city?
The louder the shout of support for a word, the more likely it was to go in. JUSTICE, for example, was an important word for Liverpudlians after the latest Hillsborough developments.
At what point does IT become part of the process? Do you assemble grids on a laptop there in the pubs and restaurants?
I did the final version on my laptop and guests had a printout of a grid in which they could scribble and start to enjoy the process of fitting words together.
Which parts of cryptic crosswords are easiest to demystify? And which are the hardest?
It's all dead easy. It really didn't matter on tour whether certain clues conformed to clear rules, as the main idea was just to get everyone having fun. And that they did!
Any favourite new clues from the city puzzles?
"Caribbean gent as strange chalk man in Dorset (5,5,5)" was my chickening-out version of a brilliant anagram shouted out in Poole: "big erect bananas". That got a big laugh, and I probably should have used it, but I was worried that the imagery might offend readers in Poole. Why was I worried? Me, of all people!
"Royal Mint (8)" for IMPERIAL was nice in London, as was "Ground I hated – as a Manchester United fan would! (6)" in Manchester for ETIHAD, and there were plenty of others.
What next for the Crossword Centenary?
We're setting up learn-to-solve classes in London and working to get them across the country. Oh, and a charity concert– but more of that later.
Intriguing. Many thanks, Paul and good luck with the continuing celebrations. And the big erect banana is, of course, the CERNE ABBAS GIANT.