An Irishman's Diary

MY RECENT visit to New York coincided with the annual American Crossword Competition in Brooklyn. I didn’t attend, but followed the event with some interest because, as often happens these days, it had a sub-plot pitting humankind against artificial intelligence. To wit: one of those taking part (unofficially) was a computer program called “Dr Fill”.

Computers have been beating humans at chess for years now. So you might expect crossword-solving to be well within their comfort zone. Happily, it’s not. The computer in Brooklyn finished a mediocre 141st vis-a-vis the 600 participants: a resounding victory for humanity (insofar as crossword puzzlers can be said to represent the species).

Dr Fill’s problem is summed up in his name. It is of course a joke, of the punning variety, and as such was devised by the machine’s human creator, Matthew Ginsberg. Dr Fill himself would not have got it. And this is why computers still struggle with crosswords, especially the cryptic kind, where wordplays and other witticisms are part of the challenge.

No such problem in chess, even at grand master level. True, chess columnists, summarising the moves from interesting games, will sometimes imply a level of wit (or occasionally witlessness) on the part of the players. They do this by adding certain punctuation marks after the annotated moves, eg: “23. Kxb6? Qd4! 24. Bxc7!?!” And so on.

But as far as I know, you cannot make an actual joke on a chessboard: apart perhaps from Vladimir Kramnik’s infamous mate-in-one blunder during his 2006 series against the Deep Fritz computer programme, which is still regarded with some hilarity (“Qh7ch!!!!!!!!!!”) in the sport.

Back to Brooklyn, meanwhile, where the competition’s setter – New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz – denied any deliberate attempts to thwart Dr Fill. Mind you, he was reported to have smiled while doing so. Any irony here would also have been lost on the computer. But the human competitors did consider the puzzles “particularly innovative” this year. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, etc.

BACK IN THE 1980s, this newspaper had an annual crossword competition.

Not being an employee – or even a journalist – at the time, I entered two years running. Both times I reached the final, held in a Dublin hotel. And in both finals I finished in the top 15, or thereabouts. Not that I was one of the top 15, necessarily. No, I use the term “finished” advisedly. The problem was that the final involved completing four crosswords, all devised specially for the occasion and of more-than-usually-fiendish difficulty.

A maximum two hours were allotted. But in my experience, there came a time before the end when four, or five, or six answers remained stubbornly elusive, and beyond the reach of any likely breakthrough. By then too, at least a dozen competitors would already have finished: leaving the hall at intervals, looking smug.

So even allowing that a few of these were bluffers, or that their confidence was misguided, or that in their eagerness to finish, they had misspelled a word, I knew by this point that the prizes were almost certainly gone. There was nothing to lose, therefore – and a certain vainglorious gratification to gain – by filling in the rest of the clues with wild guesswork and then sauntering out past the still-suffering masses hunched over their tables.

I’m not proud of the stunt. But at least it derived from the sort of human intuition that would have been beyond Dr Fill. And I suspect Myles na gCopaleen would have appreciated it too.

I know it, in fact, because in honour of tomorrow’s second annual Mylesday, I hereby remind (human) readers of the column in which he described, with only slight exaggeration, the lengths to which some human crossword solvers will go for glory.

Cruiskeen Lawn:

June 16th, 1944:

Time: Friday night. Sets alarm for 3am. Wakes up Saturday morning, dresses hastily and cycles into town. Dismounts at Irish Times office, drenched to the skin. Obtains first copy of paper to come off press.

Cycles home, pulls wife out of bed to make breakfast, then disappears into back room to study crossword puzzle. Thumbs dictionaries, almanacs, anthologies, thesauri. Begins to get odd words out one by one. Has breakfast. Goes back to work on puzzle. Is still working as day wears on. Claws at stubbly face, stares, lies back, grunts, walks to window and looks out. Gives sharp cry and writes down word. Paces room, hunches shoulders, has both cigarette and pipe going simultaneously. Dog yawns noisily, is kicked savagely in ribs. Another word comes. Rolls up trousers and examines knee. Lolls, protrudes denture on tip of tongue, rubs palms together violently. Cracks finger joints. Gives pop-eyed stare at wall, writes down another word. Pares finger nails. Removes slippers and socks and starts doctoring corn.

Whistles The Lanty Girl. Writes down further word. Has lunch on tray, cannot leave room to have it properly. Sharpens pencil. Gets two words simultaneously. Keeps on and on and on.

Time: Saturday night. Arrives at golf club clean, freshly shaved, with five half ones on board. Is approached by studious confrere.

– Did you see the Times crossword today? – No. I didn’t see a paper all day. What about it? – Well, it’s pretty stiff this week. (Produces paper). I’ve spent hours on it and I can’t get it out at all. Wasted a whole morning on it. I think some of the clues must be wrong.

– I thought last week’s was easy enough.

– You did? Well, look at this one. “Exhausted at reports”, 9 letters.

What could that be? (Very slight pause) – Um . . . PROSTRATE, I suppose.

– Ohhh! (Sensation.) Begob, you’re quick at it. And 2 down here, five letters . . .