The Great Crossword Challenge.

Ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you today a broken man. A man who has gazed into the abyss, and the abyss has gazed back and said: “Four letters, meaning ‘idiot.’” And I, with the courage of a true intellectual warrior, have whispered: “Me.”

Because I have attempted once again  The Crossword!

Not just any crossword. Not the cheerful, perky ones you find in airline magazines, where the clues are things like “Opposite of yes” and “A fruit that is also a colour.” No, I’m talking about the serious crossword. The kind printed in newspapers that still use words like “thrice” and “albeit,” and whose editors wear tweed unironically.

These crosswords are not puzzles. They are psychological operations designed to break the human spirit.

The first clue always lures you in. Something like:

1 Across: “Feline pet.” (3)

You think, Ah! A gift! You write “cat” with the confidence of a man who believes he is about to conquer the world. You feel powerful. You feel alive. You feel like the sort of person who might someday own a fountain pen.

But then you hit 7 Down, which says:

“Obscure 14th‑century Flemish theologian who once wrote a treatise on the spiritual symbolism of turnips.” (17)

And suddenly you realise: you are not doing a crossword. You are being hunted!

Crossword setters ... and I say this with respect ... are not normal people. They are individuals who wake up each morning and choose violence. They sit at their desks, cackling softly, thinking up clues like:

“A word meaning ‘to gently reprimand,’ but only used by Victorian chimney sweeps on alternate Thursdays.”

Meanwhile, I’m sitting there with a pencil, sweating like a man trying to defuse a bomb labelled “synonym for moist.”

And then there are the cryptic crosswords, which are not so much puzzles as they are escape rooms designed by someone who has read too much Lewis Carroll. A cryptic clue will say something like:

“Bird returns to upset poet (5)”

And the answer will be “raven,” because obviously if you take “never” (as in “nevermore”), reverse it, subtract the emotional trauma, and add a bird, you get “raven.” This is considered logical.

At this point, my family will wander in.

“Are you still doing that crossword?” they ask, in the same tone one might use for “Are you still trying to remove that wasp nest with a spoon?”

“Yes,” I say, in the voice of a man who has aged 40 years in 20 minutes.

They offer helpful suggestions like, “Have you tried Googling it?” which is like suggesting to a marathon runner that they simply take an Uber to the finish line!

No. This is a matter of honour. A battle between me and the crossword setter, who is probably named something like Crispin or Thaddeus and definitely owns a monocle.

Eventually, after an hour of intense mental labour, I triumphantly fill in a single additional square. It is the letter “E.” I have no idea if it is correct. It is simply the letter that felt spiritually right.

By the end, the crossword looks like a ransom note written by a squirrel. I have invented several new words, none of which will ever be accepted by the Oxford English Dictionary, although I maintain that “flarn” should be.

And yet  and this is the truly deranged part  I will do it again tomorrow. Because crosswords are like caffeine, or IKEA furniture: painful, confusing, and occasionally involving tears, but somehow we keep coming back.

So here’s to the Great Crossword Challenge. May we never solve them, but may we always pretend we’re close.