Crosswords

In which the author, anxious for his faculties, puts a stopwatch on his breakfast crossword and volunteers for the coming war against the machines.

In which the author, defeated by a fifteen-letter anagram, builds a solver that is fast, plain and deliberately unhelpful, and then discovers that zip is cleverer than he is.

In which the daily cryptic crossword becomes a source of frustration, and a solution is fashioned from an old Elm project dusted off.