Did I mention I enjoy cryptic crosswords? It’s true, I’m a crossword nut. Nothing sets me up for the day better than the two-dozen tiny dopamine hits I get from solving the cryptic crossword over breakfast.
They’ve kept me sane too. Like a lot of people I worry about cognitive decline as I age but if I can still do the crossword every day, I reason, I’m still in the race.
Whenever I’m asked how to do cryptic crosswords I always say “it’s just practice.” And I’m sure that’s true, despite the actual science that says otherwise. You get the odd clue at first, then a couple, then a whole corner. You will not forget the first time you complete the whole grid. It won’t take long – a decade or so should do it. My advice: print them out so you can’t cheat with that awful “reveal word” button…
Crosswords are the stuff of spies and detectives. Alec Guinness’s Smiley raising an eyebrow at Connie Sachs’s inky finished Times crossword. Or Benedict Cumberbatch – a name that might well be a fiendish anagram – vetting code-breakers for Bletchley. Or the mythos about the D-Day plans leaking by way of the Torygraph. Even Inspector Morse with his crosswords, opera and real ale pretentiousness.
Sometimes, though, I’m less George Smiley and more Victor Meldrew: “I can’t do it today, I appear to be out of mind-altering drugs.”
A week or so ago, I added a timer to my crossword app. I can’t decide if it spoils the experience but I’m pretty pleased with my average solve times this last week or so. At the very least it puts numbers on my fear of cognitive decline. Is that good or bad?
As an aside, I was wondering this week where are all the songs about crosswords. Turns out there are few – mostly out of the crossword craze in 1920s America. Great titles like “Crossword Mama, You Puzzle Me (But Papa’s Gonna Figure You Out)” and “Cross-Words (Between Sweetie and Me)”. I don’t know if it’s notable that the ones I found were about women obsessed by the hobby and their befuddled men. One can only hope that Taylor Swift’s next era will be puzzle-based.
AIs are still terrible at cryptics. I think it’s to do with their token-based thinking – the same thing that prevents them telling you how many es are in seventeen. But maybe it’s a biology thing – they don’t get anything like the dopamine hit we get from doing them. So I can see why they might not care.
Maybe doing crosswords will become the essential human skill in the oncoming AI war. I hope I will have the courage and the cognitive ability to step forward: “I’ve prepared my whole life for this. Give me a clue.”