Famous Last Words (6,4,5)
Eerie to solve a post-humous crossword. Almost a month since Albie Fiore, the artful dodger dubbed as Taupi, clued his last puzzle, and yet more recently the Financial Times threw the solving public into mass nostalgia. The crossword’s byline was Satori – the man’s other alias – and the clues displayed his signature elegance. From the racy:
Savage cry a hooker stifled = YAHOO
To the succinct:
Lacier confection? = ECLAIR
The spooky too, which only the setter’s death had seemed to bring on. All of a sudden, the obituary ink still damp, a word like RADIOS received the ominous clue:
Run farewell broadcasts
Was Albie trying to intimate his chronic lung condition with AERATE at 14-across:
Broadcast deteriorated for a long time
We’ll never know. Nor will any setter know for certain his or her last clue on this green earth, unless they synchronise their demise with publication day, no other puzzles on the conveyor belt. Lindsey Browne, the evergreen LB, left behind a year’s worth of crosswords once he’d put down his pen in 2003. I must admit, I’d be tempted to try something like:
This setter quits race, cruelly (6) = DAGOES
(If only to evade the clutches of the PC police for certain.) As for Signore Fiore, his sign-off clue was less spectacular than spectral:
Ghost might look for a possessed = HAUNT