Hip to be square: the unlikely survival of the crossword

“YOU HAVE the most peculiar ideas of relaxation,” Laura Jesson tells her aloof husband in the film “Brief Encounter”, when he suggests that she unwind with a cryptic crossword. Some of the contestants at the annual Times Crossword Championship, held on November 3rd, might agree that crosswording can be anything but relaxing. Neil Talbott, a programmer, was among many to fall by misspelling iguanodon (the clue: “Old animal droppings gathered by a single lecturer”). “It can be savage,” he says.

Cryptic crosswording was developed in Britain in the 1920s. It has become a staple of British culture, celebrating the messy ambiguities of English with its complex riddles and wordplay. Agatha Christie was a fan. Crosswords were used to recruit codebreakers in the second world war. But some fear for the puzzle’s survival. Newspapers, where most crosswords are printed, are in decline. And a younger audience is put off by the puzzle’s impenetrable rules.