Do you have any favourite crossword-related anecdotes, either gleaned from others or drawn from your own experience?
I’m partial to cruciverbiana in all its forms, one of my favourite stories in the former category being this letter to The Guardian written by the actor Michael Feast:
“Many years ago I played Ariel in The Tempest at the Old Vic with John Gielgud playing Prospero. Every day in the rehearsal room during tea breaks and idle moments Sir John would sit quietly doing the Times crossword. Sometimes he would complete it and put it aside within 20 minutes or so. Everyone was terribly impressed. The Times crossword was, in those days, the toughest nut in the bowl.
One afternoon after this had been going on for some weeks, one of the cast idly picked up the great man’s paper – he had finished for the day and had gone off to the Garrick Club or somewhere to meet Sir Ralph or someone. Suddenly the actor who had been looking at the paper gasped and showed us the crossword. It was indeed all filled in, but apart from one or two correct answers the rest were just words that happened to fit the spaces and had no bearing on the clues. Needless to say none of us confronted Sir John with the discovery and he continued to complete the Times crossword every day with consummate ease.”