14:09, Sunday 26 Jan., 2003 Link

A pretty girl in crimson rose (eight letters). Good article on British cryptic crosswords and the people who set them. And which also takes me one step closer to being able to do the damn things.

It's similar to my obsession with Radio 4's Round Britain Quiz. It's team based, with cryptic questions based on general knowledge and the connections/associations between parts of the question. Every word counts. But it's structured as a guided conversation, and listening to it sounds like three people (the team plus the host) discussing in a language you can understand but with a structure and meaning you can't possibly follow. Intellectual Stanley Unwin. And at the end, after amiably chatting about cheese, New Zealand, bishops and mountain ranges, the host says "I'll give you 4 for that" and they move on. Wonderful like a sunny winter's day.