When Paul died at the age of 27, Halpern was 21. Student years (1990–94) and learning to become a cryptic crossword setter In his honour, John felt he must do everything he could to fulfil his own dreams as well as help others along the way. Paul had been John's best friend and he was saddened he never got the chance to fulfil his dreams. The second event of Halpern's early adulthood was the death of his only brother, Paul, in a car accident. His father died suddenly at the age of 53, when John was eighteen. Two major events were to shape Halpern's early adulthood. An avid reader of nonsense poetry, and a fan of Monty Python, as a boy Halpern would write poems, stories and songs – and was a member of a band at school named Xerox, where lyrics were often chosen randomly by opening a dictionary while blindfolded and choosing random words.ĭeath of Halpern's father and brother His father Tony would make wordplay jokes at the dinner table every night, where meals would include toad-in-the-hole, renamed 'frog-in-the-bog', and a strawberry mousse dubbed 'pinky stuff', which became 'stinky puff'. He was inspired by the surrounding countryside, and by his parents' love of wordplay they both solved cryptic crosswords regularly. Halpern grew up in a house in the woods in Sussex. He is working on a film and follow-up tour. In March 2012, Halpern and Graham hosted a crossword show at The Guardian offices. The first clue he ever wrote for the Guardian was "Name sewn into footballers' underwear (8)" (answer: KNICKERS – N for name, in KICKERS). Halpern’s favourite clue of his own is "To make cheese, how do you milk a Welsh hedgehog? (10)" (answer: CAERPHILLY). He taught English in Rome, but found that hands-on examples of the present continuous kept causing him to lead his students out of the classroom, on to the street and into bars where he would put their understanding of his lesson to the test: ‘You are buying me a drink’. Having studied music and maths, Halpern became a local reporter, barman, warehouse packer, bank clerk and lab technician. He now writes three or four a week for a variety of publications. After completing a puzzle for the first time, he set about creating two of his own to send to his hero John Galbraith Graham, known as "Araucaria", and accomplished this two and a half years later. Halpern's interest in The Guardian cryptic crossword puzzle began when he was a student in Canterbury, and he wondered if the compilers could possibly be human beings. John Halpern (born Cuckfield, Sussex, 1967) is a cryptic crossword compiler for newspapers including The Guardian (as Paul), The Independent (as Punk), The Times, the Daily Telegraph (as Dada) and The Financial Times (as Mudd). John Halpern writing cryptic crossword clues.
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