John Galbraith Graham - Style

Style

Graham's clue-writing style has made him one of the best-loved of all setters. His style falls into a grouping sometimes referred to as "Araucarian" in which – to a degree – "anything goes" as long as the answer can be readily and unambiguously determined. This style, of which The Guardian's Bunthorne was another notable exponent, contrasts with the more rigid "Ximenean" style in which strict clue-writing rules must be adhered to.

Widely admired for his clever use of cross-references and special themes, he is usually called upon to produce the extra-large puzzles printed in the Guardian on bank holidays; these sometimes even include two grids, with complicated rules governing the placing of answers in each.

He is also credited with creating a new format of crossword, the "alphabetical jigsaw" in which the clues are labelled with letters rather than numbers, and the grid has no markers to indicate the placement of solutions. Instead the clues are arranged in alphabetical order of their answer — usually labelled with the beginning letter, with either one or two clues for each letter. The answers are to be placed "jigsaw-wise, however they may fit," though of course only one arrangement will work. In a few puzzles, an additional clue is given which describes a phrase or set of words placed around the edge of the grid (alternate squares of the perimeter being black) to give a starting point for placing some of the answers. Araucaria's clues to the alphabetical jigsaws are often in the form of rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter. His 'alphabetical jigsaw' puzzles have been christened - 'araubeticals' by fans on a crossword website - www.fifteensquared.net.

His clues often include long anagrams, with his favourite appearing in a Christmas puzzle:

O hark the herald angels sing the boy’s descent which lifted up the world,

an anagram of "While shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated on the ground".

Another much-quoted example of his brilliance in clue-setting is the following:

Poetical scene has surprisingly chaste Lord Archer vegetating (3, 3, 8, 12)

which yields "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester". This is the title of a poem by Rupert Brooke. The anagram was a topical reference to Jeffrey Archer who was the vicarage's current owner and was lying low there at the time following a sex scandal.