HAIL Mary! Not to mention A N Other. Today the ten thousandth Simplex crossword is published in this paper, now compiled by Mary O'Brien and a partner who prefers to remain anonymous (and therefore escape interrogation over clues and solutions at bus stops, and in supermarket queues). Just as the ESB will confirm that the demand for electricity soars when the soaps finish on TV and kettles are plugged in, so might they ponder a twitch in demand at around 10 a.m. as photocopiers around the country hum to the copying of the Simplex of the day (cheapskates - Low life low cost winged-fish (11)). The interest in Simplex is confirmed as enormous: Mary O'Brien's Simplex books have sold 80,000 copies, and when The Irish Times runs a prize crossword competition, up to 4,000 entries can arrive.
Ten thousand crosswords take us back to 1951, when Simplex was published. The word Simplex is itself, of course, a sort of clue: simple cross(word). The original intention was to produce a puzzle that relied more on dictionary definitions than wordplay, that would take a few minutes to complete rather than an evening organised around plethora (A lot of the polar melting (8)) of dictionaries, encyclopaedias, atlases and dear old Roget's Thesaurus.
Basil Peterson was the man who started it all off, and he produced the Simplex for a remarkable 35 years until 1986. Since then, Mary O'Brien has shared the chores of compilation with One Who Prefers To Remain Nameless.
And what is it all about? Why do people take time out to solve crosswords? That there was a niche for such wordplay is obvious: the first modern crossword puzzle appeared on December 21st 1913, in the New York World's Sunday supplement, Fun. As the Encyclopaedia Brittanica puts it: "it struck the fancy of the public". It goes on to say: "advocates (Barristers say: "Funny cove, Sadat" (9)) claim the puzzles are both a pastime and an interesting means of improving the vocabulary". And that's certainly true. Where else would you come across the recondite Untie crone, tied in obscurity (9), the obscure, the downright peculiar of anoa (the Philippines wild ox), the nene (the Hawaiian goose), the obi (a Japanese sash) and the amah (an oriental nurse)? And all the other vowel-heavy words beloved of crossword compilers and Scrabble freaks (Monstrous fakers (6)).
THE crossword compiler must by definition love words, their roots and their usage. We will be seen with the works of Eric Partridge on slang, with our noses in maps looking at the names of Fermanagh townlands and Montana counties, we will see a poster or an advertisement and play anagrams.
The pleasure of the crossword for the compiler comes twice: in the filling in of the grid and in the writing of the clues. Simplex has a set number of grid shapes, as regular solvers will know. So the compiler starts off with a soft pencil, a soft eraser, and an empty mind. If there are longer words in the grid then they will be put in first.
Where do the words come from? From somewhere that Macbeth located, "this heat-oppressed brain". From a chance sight of a word in a book the previous day, from a newspaper headline, from a particular interest - local history, Irish rivers, signs of the Zodiac, car names.
Grid filled, the clues or lights are written, and here the second pleasure comes for the compiler: in pitting oneself against the feverishly alert brains of the readers. Simplex is as it proclaims itself - simple is the motto (Pithy maxim sent to mad Tom (5)), and the compilers stick quite closely to dictionary definitions.
It is a rule of thumb that if the word to be solved is obscure, then the clue all but spells it out without the reader having to speed to a dictionary. Last Thursday's Simplex had such a word: "collet", which is from the French and means a neckband, or a particular cut of diamond. When you are introduced to words like that you must murmur to yourself the great line from Proverbs, used on the endpapers of the Everyman's Library: "Give instruction to a wise man and he will be yet wiser".
But then if you look up "collet" in the dictionary you will of course do what you must always do and scan the other entries on the page, and in this case you will come across "Collery: the name of a Dravidian people inhabiting part of India east of Madura. Hence collery-stick, a boomerang used by the Colleries". Hands up who knew that.
Simplex is a great pleasure in itself, and a very good crossword to get started on. Where next to hone (Sharpen painterly Nathaniel (4)) your skills will mean stepping up into the world of the more complex clue - like the quirky Crosaire. Here only practice will bring facility, since each compiler has his or her own approach: doing Crosaire will not be much preparation for doing another cryptic crossword. Some compilers were obviously fiends Right (Quit pals for the devils (6)) for Latin and Greek in their schooldays, others are quite evidently fanatical about anagrams. ears ago I met the then editor of the London Times crosswords, an amiable fellow called Edmund Akenhead, and he looked exactly what he was: the spectacles, the leather patches at the elbows, the other-wordly air).
Having compiled crosswords for many years and tried crosswords in all the newspapers and magazines available here, I have my favourites. Yes, I do the Simplex every day, and a particular Saturday-pleasure is the New York Times crossword in the International Herald Tribune. The NYT is an acquired taste, and if you go in for it you'll need to bone up on your baseball and basketball references.
But try the NYT crossword own a Saturday: it is themed, has daft things going on like solutions missing similar letters or solutions going backwards, and is absolutely addictive (I've taken to shadowing heroin-user: it's habit forming (9)).
Simplex at 10,000 is a monument to a fine trio of wordsmiths, and you must now pick up your 3B pencil and attack it, mouthing the while your appreciation of Briony Mare, Barry Merino, Niobe Marry, Norma Byrie, Ron Braymie, Romy Braine, Robin Mayre Romany Brie, Romaine R. By, Rory Nambie - Mary O'Brien. Oh, and her Anto - A Another.