The best known New York Times crossword fanatic however is Bill Clinton the man who bested

The best known New York Times crossword fanatic however is Bill Clinton, the man who bested Dole in the election a decade ago. Bob Dole, one-time Republican presidential candidate, is another devotee, who in the movie dryly comments that “the whole 1996 campaign was a puzzle”. We see Mike Mussina, starting pitcher for the New York Yankees, poring over a puzzle in the dug-out (Mussina, it should be said, is an economics graduate from Stanford). Highlights from their debut album, Waterloo to Anywhere, were allowed to shine, notably the measured “Blood Thirsty Bastards”, with its contrasting languid verse and rousing chorus.

You could also make out Bar?s snide put-down on “The Enemy”: “Wash your face/ It looks like a burnt-out fireplace.”Jack White was on impressive form with The Raconteurs. The band are merely a side-project for the White Stripes front man, and accordingly he dressed down in a scruffy T-shirt Still, he applied himself with elan. On their record, Broken Boy Soldiers, the group maintain a balanced division of labours between White and the power-pop doyen Brendan Benson, an old friend of his, but on stage it was White’s solos that seared the hotter. His vocals out-muscled those of the tremulous Benson, too, in a dizzying spin through country ballads, dirty blues jams and proggish displays that bewildered the ever-growing audience.Belle and Sebastian were in danger of being blown away by the gusty breeze. By Saturday they are monsters of opacity, ellipsis and multiple meaning Early in the week, Shortz heavily flags his puns.

By Saturday, they pop up anywhere.The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and even The Wall Street Journal all have their own puzzles, but The New York Times’ is the gold standard. Shortz – brainy but delightfully approachable for a crossword king – has been at it since he was nine years old. He found a university accommodating enough to allow him to take a degree in enigmatology, or the science of puzzles, and eventually became crossword editor at the Gray Lady, quickly imbuing his section with a wit and slyness for which the paper is not generally noted.He now has followers in every walk of life. In Wordplay, Jon Stewart, the hugely popular anchor of the fake news Daily Show and 2006 Oscars host, refers to Shortz as the “Errol Flynn” of the crossword universe. Devotees will know that the soul of a puzzle lies not in the answers but in the clues On Monday these are straightforward. Another puzzle I well remember depended on repetition of letters. Thus the answer to the clue “the world’s oceans” was CCCCCCC.Unlike the puzzles in British newspapers, the crossword in The New York Times grows harder as the week progresses.