 Among the technical comments can sometimes be found glimpses into his private life – he is very interested in cricket and less so in football … he took part in a performance of Haydn's "Nelson Mass" at Radley College … one of his sons is a rock musician.Interesting in their own right, these snippets are seized on by the more cunning competitors as ways to make their clues more appealing to the judge and so increase their chances of success.Proudly Ximenean in his crossword philosophy, he favours puzzles whose setters have similar ideas (Dimitry, Duck and Phi, for example).