A POPULAR pastime (9 letters). That clue will cause no difficulty to crossword fans, particularly fans of the Simplex puzzle in The Irish Times.
And they will have 300 crosswords to choose from after last night's launching of the first Bumper Book of Simplex Crosswords from The Irish Times.
The book was compiled by Mary O'Brien, who has been setting the newspaper's Simplex crosswords for 22 years.
Simplex first appeared in The Irish Timeson May 21st 1951 "in answer to impassioned pleas from readers who found the Crosaire too difficult", Ms O'Brien says.
Crosaire involves complex wordplay, but the idea behind Simplex was to produce a puzzle which relied more on dictionary definitions and took a few minutes to complete. Some readers would beg to differ on the latter claim.
Appropriately, the word Simplex is itself a sort of clue, meaning simple cross(word).
Basil Peterson produced the first Simplex and continued to do so for 35 years. It was initially published on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays but pressure from readers ensured that it became a daily feature.
"The format has changed little over the years, offering today what it has always offered, a mild degree of mental stimulation, a gentle challenge and a most enjoyable break from the stresses and strains of daily life," Ms O'Brien said. "We know how popular it is and how important it is to readers from the number of calls we get when there is a mistake - for example if the wrong grid is published."
Ms O'Brien joined The Irish Timesin 1970, having returned from working with Timein Amsterdam. She began setting the Simplex crossword in 1986 and continues to do so, despite her departure from the newspaper in 2002.
