In the tradition of the late, great Mungo MacCallum, LR tries to infuse his puzzles with humour, wordplay and poetry to give readers plenty of “Aha!” moments. They will be accessible, but always with a handful of curly ones deliberately thrown into the mix.

The mere mention of “cryptic” crossword clues can be enough to put an amateur puzzler off their game before pencil has hit paper. As The Telegraph celebrates its crossword centenary, is it time for you to finally learn how to decode our compiler’s ...

When Rosamund Crowther Mathers went through her husband’s papers after he died in 1939, she found mementoes of couples who had met through his crossword puzzles. Edward Powys Mathers, better known to readers of The Observer as Torquemada, had treasured them.

He was the main whiz behind a crossword variation for The Times, whose readers delighted in his anagrams and sometimes groan-inducing wordplay. (Try one yourself.)

Neville Fogarty is a crossword constructor who has been making puzzles for the last 17 years. He joined PEOPLE in 2025. His puzzles have also appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today, among many other venues.

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FAMILY are gathering in the Highland capital this weekend to remember a much-loved woman from Applecross. Anna Gilroy died on August 21 at the age of 69. She will be fondly remembered for her tenacity towards crosswords and Scrabble, and her love of flora and fauna.

Tennis champ Serena Williams shared that she had a “difficult August” and had to “pause” and “reconnect with myself.”

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