GOING GREEN:

What is it about these silly games that compels us so? Why do I experience a little rush of joy, each day, when I remember there's still the Wordle to do? Alan Connor, author of Two Girls, One on Each Knee, a history of the crossword, notes that the pandemic has provided the perfect conditions for an upsurge of interest in word games of all kinds. "It's no surprise that those who have had more time alone should see the appeal in losing themselves in a puzzle for a spell, but it also works for those who've been run off their feet: a puzzle is, at least, something you can feel you've finished."

Connor sees Wordle as a "charming gateway" to the world of "moving letters around for the sheer pleasure of it", but it is far from the only distraction we have turned to. The crossword setters and puzzle compilers he knows report that they've never had so much interest. Publications from the Sun to the Telegraph to the New Yorker have upped their puzzle content in recent months - and this was from a position of strength. On the 100th anniversary of the crossword in 2013, Connor commissioned a YouGov survey on the popularity of the crossword and found that three in 10 British adults attempted a crossword each week and more than one in five made their decision to buy a newspaper based on the particular crossword culture of the publication. The solution to the clue that forms the title of his book is PATELLA, by the way.

Like so many word puzzles, Wordle is really a numbers game masquerading as a letters game, according to mathematician Alex Bellos, Guardian puzzle compiler and author of the Language Lover's Puzzle Book. "You'll find that the people who are really brilliant at word games are mathematical. It's quite often maths graduates who win the international Scrabble competitions and set cryptic crosswords."

The crucial strategy is that of "exhaustion", he says - which is maybe why I'm so good at it. No, not that sort of exhaustion: "You have a finite number of solutions and you have to exhaustively look at every permutation and combination. It's a natural instinct for mathematicians. You also have to be drawn to the non-human, a bit like a robot, working through letters in every different position."

Yet really successful puzzle games seem to share certain irresistible human elements, too - competition, status-seeking and superstition. Everyone Bellos knows has now arrived at a favourite first word, he says. "They are probably quite protective of them, too. They're almost like lucky charms."

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