Sir, – In the 1970s I played in the Gaiety Theatre pit orchestra. Between playing we’d read books. Gaiety management asked us to desist as we looked bored. So we twiddled our thumbs for a couple of nights until one of the musicians, also a cruciverbalist, put The Irish Times crosswords in among the music on his stand.
I’d never tried a crossword but I followed suit, completing the Simplex but being utterly baffled by the cryptic. The cruciverbalist advised putting yesterday’s crossword and today’s solution side by side. Thus I learned. A year later I could complete both crosswords in under 20 minutes.
Then came Crosheir 10 years ago and I had to revert to clues beside solutions to figure him out.
Now you’ve gone too far. Sometimes it’s so bad that even today’s solutions shed no light on yesterday’s clues.
Marty Morrissey gets an A+ in new football rules, even if some pundits aren’t yet sold
Breda O’Brien: Nicole Kidman’s Babygirl isn’t the ‘hottest film this year’. It might be among the most depressing
High noon for developer Paddy Kelly, who faces run-in with the sheriff over unpaid rent arrears
Pat Leahy: Angry Dáil scenes were partly the result of Sinn Féin’s determination to be a more aggressive Opposition
I am defeated and dejected.
– Yours, etc,
KEITH DONALD,
Rockbrook,
Dublin 16.
