Cruciverbalism is daily occupation of mine; it somehow keeps me sane, engages my brain in way nothing else does, deletes bad thoughts, gives me a way of judging the state of my mental powers and pushes my word knowledge along. You could say i indulge in epeolatry. It is claimed or was, if it has finally been corrected, on this page http://www.bhcr.org.uk/crew/ (get that crazy spelling) that i can do a cryptic crossword in 5 minutes. This is erroneous; look to Peter Biddlecombe, Mark Goodcliff and Helen Ougham for those kinds of times. I managed a Daily Telegraph once in 8 minutes but the measure of all things is The Times and my personal best is no less than ten minutes. In truth i expect to achieve satisfaction in the space of half an hour that is completing, bar new obscurities, in relaxed manner allowing for tangental daydreams and meditations.
I have been entering the Times Crossword Championship, see http://www.biddlecombe.demon.co.uk/timescmp.html , in recent years (not 2010) without any real hope of getting into the top fifty but it did sharpen up my abilities first off back 1996 though now i fear i am hitting an asymptote. Such is life.
ajcauk 