Crosswords again this week, because even I, a non-solver, thought this an interesting query with implications for the rest of the newspaper too, and I know how close to the hearts of the rest of you our crosswords are.

Richard Joyner writes: “My wife and I took up The Times crossword when we retired together four years ago. It gives us great pleasure, as it is always challenging and often witty. One thing irritates me, however, which is illustrated by a clue in Times Crossword Book 11: ‘Surprise vampish actress with boyfriend (4,3)'.

“The vampish actress is Clara Bow, who made her last film in 1932. My parents' generation were probably familiar with her work, but most of them, sadly, are dead. It seems that when a popular culture reference is required in a clue, it has to be one familiar only to a generation that is now aged over 80.

“Thus a sex symbol will be Bow or Jean Harlow, not Monroe or Ursula Andress, Bo Derek or Jennifer Lopez. If you need a band leader it will probably be Ambrose or Al Bowlly, again of a generation at the peak of their fame in the Thirties. If you feature the title of a novel, it is much more likely to be by Somerset Maugham than Salman Rushdie, Monica Ali or Vikram Seth. Film references seem inevitably to be to The Wizard of Oz.

“I know that you have a relatively large team of compilers, and it seems inconceivable that their knowledge of film, literature, music and the arts ends around 1950. I suggest that the crossword would be even better if you allow its cultural references to reach the Sixties, Seventies, or possibly even the present day.”

Over to the Crossword Editor, Richard Browne: “We have a team of over a dozen compilers, who cover a wide age range. Each member puts the contents of their various well-stocked minds into their puzzles, their minds of course having been stocked at different times.

“As our readership covers a similar age range, this doesn't seem to me in principle to be a problem. Actually, I try to discourage too much popular culture of whatever vintage from entering the puzzle, simply because it is so ephemeral - names that one person may remember from 20 or even ten years ago may have passed into oblivion for the majority of solvers, and it is better to err on the safe side.

“Older names that have survived the passing of fashion, and been deemed worthy to be immortalised in the dictionary, can seem a safer bet for general recognition, although I don't hesitate to strike them out if I think them forgotten.

“One policy we do have, which has been followed for longer than I can remember, is not to include the names of living people directly in the crossword. I think there may have been an incident long ago when a rather poor-taste joke was made about someone who died the day before the puzzle appeared, the editor of the day having prepared the puzzle long in advance and forgotten about it.

“But in general, I would say that we are gradually using fewer references than before to general or cultural knowledge, and instead using more, certainly more ingenious, wordplay. This reflects partly the fact that in our modern world culture is more fragmented and there is less of a common pool of knowledge that we can expect of solvers, and partly simply that that is what our setters choose, unbidden, to do.

“As to the balance between the modern and the moth-eaten, I have looked back over recent puzzles, and I see that as well as the classic cultural references (Whistler's Mother, John of Gaunt, Wildfell Hall, Swan Lake) and calls on the sort of general knowledge that all our educated readers will recognise (the satellites of Saturn, Indian deities, the periodic table, Greek mythology, the Plantagenets and the structure of the large intestine) we did, despite our living-persons ban, manage to work in references to Homer Simpson, Kermit the Frog, Harry Potter, Abba, James Bond (a whole puzzle dedicated to his creator's centenary), the Calendar Girls, the Rolling Stones, and Samantha from I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. So we do have something for everyone, I hope.”

Flight of fancy

Your faith in the power of The Times is positively touching. This week a Hampshire reader wrote to me in huge detail about an alleged design flaw in a travelator at Terminal 5, Heathrow, which, he says, ends in a downwards slope steep enough to deposit him on the floor as he endeavoured to step off it, and would The Times please do something about it.

Given that I was powerless to do anything about easyJet losing my luggage for 48 hours on a recent trip to Sicily, it's highly unlikely that we can fix a travelator, I'm afraid.

Strict ruling

Who would have thought that the Max Mosley affair would find its way into this column, or that it would give rise to a style question beyond that of what the well-undressed sado-masochist is wearing this season? For those of you who missed Thursday's Diary item, which posed but didn't answer it, the question is: what is the correct plural of dominatrix?

Apparently in court this week, Mr Mosley's QC favoured dominatrixes, while The News of the World's QC's classical education led him via indices and appendices to dominatrices. In advance of Mr Justice Eady's verdict I consulted a much higher authority, the chief revise editor of this newspaper, who handed down his judgment that it is the latter. Case closed, and not a double entendre or cod German phrase in sight; I deserve a medal.

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