Mercifully, it happens only once a month. But when it does - it can be the harbinger of hostilities, even atrocities, between otherwise sanguine and harmonious staff members. It would surprise more than a few that the author of such discord is the monthly Journal. But this seemingly innocuous issue from `Head Office' contains within it a venomous little pod which, when opened, can leave a staff riven in a matter of moments. That pod is the crossword.
On arrival day, the excited Head-Crypto will photocopy the puzzle and will deal out the sheets, croupier-style, to the expectant lesser-Cryptos. They peer into the unknown, a blur of biros drumbeat the table and - they're off.
Silence. Then, sucking noises, more tapping, the occasional incredulous whistle.
Head-Crypto intones: "Begin with the southern floozy . . . five letters." The others, in their turn, drawl out a repetition of this, as if it were some newlyuncovered and particularly potent educational mantra.
Meanwhile, the philistines arrive in and straight away are berating the fact that parking spaces reserved for their sandwiches are being hogged by the Cryptos. And the teapot, normally the focal point of lunchtimes, is relegated to the drainingboard where it lists rakishly to starboard.
"Start!", a Crypto cries in triumph. Start, they concur, it is. And they do.
Smugly along the wall sit the Serious Crossword Buffs, the Crypto-Cryptos, if you like. They who would not besmirch their cerebella with anything less than a Crosaire gently gibe at the young guns.
It's amazing really how these Crypto-Cryptos have monopolised almost singlehandedly the modernday usage of the transferred epithet. "Smote the Telegraph heavily on Saturday," one will incant on a Monday morning. "Cracked the Times myself, nearly, down to the last two". "Crosaire?"
"No, London . . ." And, on it goes.
A sandwich sizzles seriously in the machine. Shards of human wants, various subcutaneous exigencies, are by now whirring around the staffroom as though it were a centrifuge.
"Rancour makes ten men rest uneasily . . . 10 letters," the youngest Crypto muses. Rancour now rests triumphantly atop this lot, and no mistake. Diners, diviners and even ditherers are by now at daggers drawn. But normality, whatever that is, will swirl back in tomorrow as the frame is carefully completed and dispatched.
It's said that there is a school where the crossword causes absolutely no frisson at all. It's a picturesque oneteacher unit, far out on the western seaboard. But whether there's a vestige of truth in that - sure, you wouldn't have a clue.
