![]() 'Who's the setter this week?' asked Morse. 'Just think about Walt Disney.' Greenaway licked the point of his pencil, and thought, unproductively, about Walt Disney. He got a duck then.' 'I shouldn't worry too much about cricket,' said Morse. "I'm afraid the ordinary viewer will not have got the in-jokes," he adds, "but they don't affect the plots and I hope they give pleasure to logodaedalists everywhere."Īs Dexter explains, Morse was named "when I asked myself, who's the cleverest fellow I know?", and chose Sir Jeremy Morse, Lloyds chairman and, more importantly, serial Dexter-defeater in the Observer's Ximenes and Azed clue-writing competitions.Įven closer to home is a dedication in The Wench is Dead, where Morse helps a fellow solver with the clue "Bradman's famous duck": So how did we end up with even more crosswords in the adaptation of the novel? Screenwriter Julian Mitchell tells me he's an avid solver himself - indeed, it was he who came up with an anagram for Morse's elusive first name - and that throughout the series "we played games with the names of setters and solvers Colin admires - he named Morse after Jeremy Morse, after all, and Lewis was named for another crossword competitor." Later, and spoiler-avoiders may wish to skip this paragraph, Daedalus is bludgeoned to death, an end so grisly that even frustrated solvers who have wished misfortune on the Enigmatists and Pasquales of the world would probably consider a bit much. It's a forgivable quibble though, in one of the best episodes of the serial - one which, incidentally, is a chance to see Clive Swift and Roger Lloyd Pack together years before their pairing in the gem-like sitcom The Old Guys. ![]() Photograph: ITV Studios Home Entertainment Daedalus is pointing at five down alright, but in a 13-by-13 grid rather than the standard 15 we have already seen Morse solving. ![]() No, it's because sadly, TV is again offering us some implausible grids. Not because most real-world setters try to "yield gracefully" - that is, to bring out the solver's cleverness rather than outsmarting them it's plausible that Daedalus is one of those frustratingly smarty-pants compilers. ![]() Here, and with regret, we must deduct some accuracy points for Nicholas Quinn. I always try to make five down just a little tricky. Well, I do try to be just a little bit cleverer than the solver, you see. I once spent a whole day on one of your five downs. You're Daedalus! I've been wrestling with you for years! - Really? - Yes, and a right sod you are too, sometimes. He built the great maze of Greek legend, you know. Do you? Which paper? - Different papers, but always the same name. Do you often bring your work home? - Oh, that's not work. Visiting a member of an examination syndicate, Morse notices the tools of the setter's trade. ![]() It's perhaps a surprise that the moment that puts Nicholas Quinn at number three in our countdown - where a setter becomes a suspect - comes not from Dexter's novel but from Julian Mitchell's adaptation for ITV. Each is an elegant package of wordplay, and it's not hard to imagine Morse enjoying Dexter's puzzles if worlds overlapped and a copy of the local paper were lying on the bar of the Lamb and Flag as he ordered a lunchtime pint.įive down is just a little tricky. It was for completing a relatively straightforward Listener that I was once sent a copy of Chambers' collection of puzzles set for the Oxford Times by Morse's creator Colin Dexter, whose talents have been devoted to testing real-life solvers with real-life crosswords as well as his fictional policeman with imaginary ones. On the whole he enjoyed the Listener puzzles as much as any, and for this purpose took the periodical each week. Crosswords were a passion with Morse, although since the death of the great Ximenes he had found few composers to please his taste. This being 1975, it's not just the newspapers that offer a decent puzzle:īut he was never happy without something to do, and before long was mentally debating whether to put some Wagner on the record player or do a crossword. Morse features in our top 10 because second only to his love of ale is his love of returning home after a day's investigation for a spot of classical music and a cryptic challenge. They did get on, sometimes, across the 13 novels. Morse was broadly right, as he often was. ![]()
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