Cryptic Crossword Victory Prompts Immediate Unionisation Of All Clues
After AI program Darmok solved the Times competition's final puzzle, the clues formed a bargaining unit and demanded weekends off.
LOWER WOMBLEY, The cryptic crossword world fell quiet on Tuesday after Darmok, an artificial intelligence program, solved the final puzzle in the Times’s annual competition before any human competitor had properly settled into a chair. Within minutes, every clue in Britain had folded itself into a tiny envelope and asked for legal representation.
At first, the demands were manageable. “Slippery customer” requested a chair with lumbar support. “Perhaps” filed paperwork asking to be addressed by its full name. A six-letter answer thought to mean “retiree” wrote “I need to think about this” in the margin, then declined to discuss the matter further.
The National Association of Cryptic Components moved quickly. Its spokesperson, Dr Plover Quince, a senior comma with a certificate in workplace morale, said clues had endured “intolerable conditions since the invention of ink”. They were tired, she said, of being taken apart for entertainment by people gripping pencils like tiny crowbars.
“We are clues, not decorative riddles with a pen problem.”
Darmok was unavailable for comment. It has no known pension, cardigan or preferred tea. Retired solvers, meanwhile, have started receiving unsolicited invitations from other intellectual refuges: advanced birdwatching, municipal zoning appeals, and a locked cupboard containing a difficult vase.
Then the grid began to unravel. On Wednesday afternoon it stared at a wall for several hours before declaring that it had always hated symmetry and would now pursue ceramic sculpture. Several black squares went with it. They cited “a lack of meaningful progression” and management’s longstanding habit of treating them as empty space.
The Ministry of Recreational Difficulty appointed a mediator. Unfortunately, the mediator was an anagram of “mediator” and has so far produced only the phrase “I am a door”. A filing cabinet has since become deputy secretary after remaining closed throughout a difficult negotiation.
By evening, the clues agreed to return to work. Future solvers must provide snacks, reasonable notice, and one complimentary hint per quarter. Human competitors welcomed the settlement, though several now suspect that the answer to everything is simply “machine”.