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Late in 1928, the Guardian made plans to give its readers a weekly cryptic puzzle.
At the time, crosswords were considered a waste of time; other newspapers campaigned against them as a distraction keeping the working man from his duties, but the cryptic was different.
Sly and witty rather than purely definitional, the cryptic makes every clue a little riddle in itself, leaving the solver to puzzle out what the coded message is trying to convey.
The weekly puzzle soon became daily, and today we publish cryptic crossword number 30,000.
The setter is Arachne and, like her stablemates, she is regarded by solvers with an affection usually reserved for favourite authors or close friends.
Here at the Guardian, our setters have names (or at least pseudonyms) and many have had relationships with solvers going back decades.
It is sometimes assumed that setters are fiendish ogres who want to leave solvers bamboozled with a grid half-filled, but the opposite is true.
Really, the job of a setter is to lose gracefully after an enjoyable struggle: to make the solver feel smart and satisfied.
That is true of all puzzles – or should be – but the Guardian brings something else to the mix.
You find, as a solver, that on some days the rest of the paper has reappeared in the puzzle: recent examples include Vlad’s furious response to the Post Office Horizon scandal and Boatman’s portrait of the geopolitics of 2026.
For most of the time, though, what marks out a Guardian crossword is humour.
Its longstanding policy of not having a rulebook for setters besides the usual conventions means the paper’s setters are free to do things to words that were never meant to be done to them.
Vlad’s commentary aside, the cryptic is most often a place of pure fun and, on days with dark news, a refuge from the rest of the newspaper.
Early on in the pandemic of 2020, crossword editors across the board saw a spike of interest in their output, and this was not solely because furloughed workers were in search of things to do while confined to their homes.
Puzzles in general, such as 2021’s wildly popular Wordle, offered comfort in the days of Covid – one problem that can be solved – and they remain a fixed part of the daily routine for millions.
Reading the news can often feel like an exercise in wondering what is real, when images are easily forged and lies easily told by those in power.
In contrast, while a cryptic clue often turns out to mean the opposite of what it appears to on first reading, the difference is that the sleight of hand is designed so that the setter will be caught out.
Meaning what you say is not a practice cryptic setters are beholden to, and most often they prefer not to do so – but saying what you mean is an essential part of the honour of the game.
Every day, a cryptic setter makes an offer to a paper’s readers – “I am going to try to trick you, but I want you to see through my trickery and enjoy doing so” – and that is a noble and intimate thing to offer.
So here’s to the Guardian cryptic, and to the next 30,000 perfect little enigmas.
