Cryptic Crosswords

[Smithy]

One of my small daily pleasures is doing the cryptic crossword in the daily newspaper and I was wondering whether any other Loungers enjoy the same.

They are certainly a "Golden Era" distraction and my grandmother was particularly adept at solving them.

Here in Australia, they are in every newspaper which exhibit varying degrees of difficulty. The Age paper here is a goodie, The Australian carries the devilishly mind-bending puzzle from The Times in the UK.

When I lived in Norway, I quite often got British dailies for the news - and the crossword! The Times as I have said is always a real bugger to solve for me (I think I've only ever completed The Times one twice, but the Telegraph and the Guardian were usually doable.

Since doing cryptics I virtually never look at the regular crosswords as the challenge is not the same. They are great mental gymnastics and sitting for a quiet half hour or so with a cup of tea and the crossword is a nice little distraction.

 

[Hercule]

Yes indeed, crossword puzzles are my non-reading diversion of choice. I prefer those by Merle Reage, who describes his puzzles as twisted but fair. I particularly love the fact that they are hard enough such that I can chew on them for days and sometimes weeks. I've finally gotten to the point where I actually complete more than I don't. I keep going back to the unfinished ones, and eventually make some headway. I've even finished ones I started years ago. I never got into the big time newspaper puzzles - Sunday Times et al. I just thought they were hard for the sake of being hard, and don't really understand what that proves. But to each his own.

 

[vitanola]

[video=youtube_share;UgyQkqr01wI]http://youtu.be/UgyQkqr01wI[/video]

It REALLY was a craze in the early 'Twenties, making it into the movies and even popular song.