sawyl | Araucarian style

Here's Simon Hoggart marking John Graham's 90th with a quick overview of the wit and verve of the Araucarian style:

It's not just the playful wit that delights the fans. He is also astoundingly inventive, as the special double holiday crosswords in this paper demonstrate. A crossword based on famous novelists? Or heroes of the South African liberation struggle? (John remains leftwing, and will never work for a Murdoch paper.) He invented the alphabetical crossword: clues for every letter of the alphabet, to be slotted in where by cunning deduction. Or the perimetrical: a long clue gives a 28-letter quote that goes around the edge. As he himself says, you have to have a certain type of mind to create such a thing. But not to solve it: once you have acquired the knack, you can generally manage.

And yes, for the record, I did attempt today's birthday puzzle. Long may the Great Man continue.