2 down, but not too often.

"If youngsters are not taught how to spell, how will they ever enjoy the pleasure of doing a crossword puzzle?" writes R A Francis of Wimborne , Dorset in the Times of last week.

I have been to Dorset and it is a fine county, with a dramatic coast showing grand geological features like Chesil beach and Durdle Door. It has my favourite seaside town in Swanage. It has an air of mystery with modern military camps, ancient hill forts, and old place names with the word Magna attached to many places. The county gives off an air of old England and has strong literary associations with Thomas Hardy.

Wimbourne is a small market town dominated by the twin towers of the imposing Minster church, but offering a whole lot more. The Minster (mainly Norman and up to l5th century), includes the famous Quarterjack clock, 14th century astronomical clock, tablet recording King Ethelred's burial in 871 and a chained library. The houses are, to the main, thatched and of a style I call English rural desire, of the type featured in competitions to enable the winner to have slice of old England.

The town's shops include many for antiques and curios as well as a modern centre. There is an antiques market on Friday, a flea market on Saturday and a huge combination of the two on Sunday. Its all very racy...what better place to be the home of a crossword enthusiast.

Racy enough for crosswords ? Nothing else beyond the antiques to amuse the correct spellers of Wimborne? A little unfair, but is not quite the real, modern urban Britain, where possible crossword solvers are obviously being lost and un-nurtured in the urban sprawl and what are we going to do about it?

The crossword has been around less than 100 years. It might be a passing fancy. All this is not to slight Wimborne or R A Francis. I agree with him in as far as crosswords are fun. I think he misses the point. Crosswords are fun because they play with the language which I like to do. Spelling is important to enter a correct solution to a clue, but a good use of a dictionary of word checker will help with this. People will discover crosswords and the fun they can provide. I don't think you can force the fun on to people. I wonder how far R A Francis has got on Mass Effect on his x box. What fun!

I am pleased to say that I have found crosswords at times delightful, but not all of them. Naturally, there are a whole range of these puzzles from the simple word for word substitution, often called 'quick' to those found in the broadsheet papers. These are anything but quick. Their creators take names such as Ximenes and Torquemada. It does not need any more clue to their difficulty when you realise these names are those of inquisitors of the Spanish Inquisition. To me, they might as well be written in Albanian.

The pleasure for me is finding your style of setter, the setter who makes you smile and occasionally groan and who allows you sometimes to complete the entire puzzle. If it involves the help of someone else then that too can be pleasurable.

What is a good clue to me is this example. "It looks like the campanologist is late" (4,6). The solution is dead ringer. Now I think that is neat. It is clever word play. It made me smile when the answer flew to the front of my mind. It gave me pleasure to print the answer, in pencil, placing each letter, in upper case, in the white empty squares. "Fruit and nuts"? Seven letters. Yes. Bananas. Bring it on.

As Forrest Gump might say, unfortunately, clues, like a box of chocolates, come in a variety. Easy and soft to hard and chewy to the ones you want to spit out immediately. And, like chocolates, they are created by many manufacturers.

Its all a matter of finding who makes the best selection.

"Bar of soap" (3,6,6)? The Rover's Return. Lovely stuff.
(With acknowledgments to Rufus)