Don Manley (born 2 June 1945) is a long-serving compiler of crosswords in the UK.

He has supplied puzzles for the Glasgow Herald, Radio Times, The Spectator,

The Independent, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and the Financial Times among others. He is crossword editor of Church Times.

He writes under the pseudonyms Duck, Pasquale, Quixote, Bradman, and Giovanni (all punningly connected with the name Don or Donald). He has also written a book on devising and solving crosswords, Chambers Crossword Manual (1986, 4th edition October 2006).

He has appeared on the BBC Radio 4 panel game, Puzzle Panel, and anchored the BBC4 documentary "How to Solve a Cryptic Crossword".

Don Manley was brought up in Cullompton, Devon, attending local state schools and Blundell's School, Tiverton as a Foundation Scholar. He read physics at Bristol University. After a short spell in a telecommunications laboratory he worked in academic and educational publishing at The Institute of Physics, Stanley Thornes, Basil Blackwell, and Oxford University Press, which he left in 2002, when crosswords took over as his sole paid occupation. He is married to Dr Susan Manley, a clinical biochemist. They have two married children and one grandson.

and literally so...

"& lit."

A rare clue type is the "& lit." clue, standing for "and literally so". In this case, the entire clue is both a definition and a cryptic clue. In some publications this is always indicated by an exclamation mark at the end of the clue. For example:

God incarnate, essentially! (4)

The answer is ODIN. The Norse god Odin is hidden in "god incarnate", as clued by "essentially", but the definition of Odin is also the whole clue, as Odin is essentially a God incarnate.

This satisfies the "& lit." clue definition but as read is clearly a cryptic clue. Another example:

Spoil vote! (4)

would give the answer VETO; in the cryptic sense, spoil works as an anagram indicator for vote, while the whole clue is, with a certain amount of licence allowed to crossword setters, a definition.

Another example:

e.g., Origin of goose (3)

gives the answer EGG. Geese find their origins in eggs, so the whole clue gives "egg", but the clue can also be broken down: e.g., loses its full stops to give eg, followed by the first letter (i.e., the "origin") of the word goose--g--to make egg.

TRIVIA

The daily crosswords made their appearance in The Hindu in the early 1970s. (For some time, when there was a shortage of newsprint, the crosswords appeared thrice a week.) The paper had the distinction of being the first to have crosswords compiled by an Indian six days a week. Some other newspapers also had Indian-origin puzzles, but only once a week. The first setter was Admiral R.D. Katari, who took up this task after he retired as the first Indian Chief of the Indian Navy. His creations were admired for excellent craftsmanship; but the composer remained anonymous. It was only in the obituary notice for the Admiral that this role found mention.

TRIVIA

Anax made his debut, as LOROSO, as a setter in the Financial Times (FT).

The puzzle number is 13,364.

An interesting clue in this puzzle: On / off? (7)

Solution: Running (DD)

Exact - exacting clues.

We have two types of crosswords: Easy and cryptic.

Consider this clue:

Grammar has past, present and future ------ (6)

Now see the same clue in a different vein:

One of these may be in the present (6)

The latter is a cryptic clue and the former could be found in an easy (or straight) crossword.

ANAGRAMS

I read somewhere that a crossword software has more than 14,000 anagram indicators. Yes, 14,000! But despite knowing about indicators, one can be fooled by the deftness of the setter.

Eg.1: Final move of vice-consul (10)

2: Replace points in a car engine (6)

CROSSWORD CONVENTIONS

There are several conventions in the crossword world which we come

across and have to remember to arrive at solutions quickly.

Eg. (1) REVOLUTIONARY: CHE

(2) GENERAL: LEE

I believe there is yet another convention: No reference to any living person is made.

But in THC we occasionally come across: POLITICIAN: CHO

A reference to the political observer "Cho" S. RAMASWAMY, who was my senior in Vivekananda College, Chennai.

Comments, anyone?

TRIVIA

LEGEND HAS it that Indira Gandhi could complete The Timescrossword in two minutes flat.

Khushwant Singh is a great crossword buff, and a good many bureaucrats whom one doesn't associate with such an absorbing pastime are anything but clueless about how to clear this maze of little black and white squares.