Reverend John Galbraith Graham MBE (born February 16, 1921) is a British crossword compiler, best known as Araucaria of The Guardian. He is also a Church of England priest. February 16 is the 47th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1921 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... The crossword is the most common variety of word puzzle in the world. ... The Guardian is a British newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. ... The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and acts as the mother and senior branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion as well as a founding member of the Porvoo Communion. ... Roman Catholic priest LCDR Allen R. Kuss (USN) aboard USS Enterprise A priest or priestess is a holy man or woman who takes an officiating role in worship of any religion, with the distinguishing characteristic of offering sacrifices. ...

Beside's Araucaria's cryptic crosswords in the Guardian, he also sets quick crosswords for the Guardian, cryptic crosswords as Cinephile in the Financial Times and puzzles for other publications. He took to compiling crosswords full-time when his divorce lost him his living as a clergyman (he was reinstated after the death of his first wife). Cryptic crosswords are a particular type of crossword which have become widely popular in the UK, and several other Commonwealth nations such as Australia, New Zealand and India. ... The Financial Times (FT) is an international business newspaper printed on distinctive salmon pink broadsheet paper. ...

He takes his pseudonym from the monkey-puzzle tree, whose Latin name is Araucaria. Another name for this tree is the "Chile Pine", of which "Cinephile" is an anagram. Species See text Araucaria is a genus of coniferous trees in the family Araucariaceae. ... Latin is an Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ...

The much-quoted example of his brilliance in clue-setting is the following:

Poetical scene has surprisingly chaste Lord Archer vegetating (3, 3, 8, 12)

which yields "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester". This is the title of a poem by Rupert Brooke. The anagram wittily includes a topical reference to Lord Archer who was the vicarage's current owner and was lying low there at the time following a sex scandal. Grantchester is a village on the River Cam or Granta in Cambridgeshire, England. ... A statue of Rupert Brooke in Rugby Rupert Brooke (August 3, 1887 – April 23, 1915) was a British poet best known for his idealistic War Sonnets written during the First World War. ... The Right Honourable Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (born 15 April 1940) is the author of a number of books, has raised considerable sums for charities, is a former MP and was Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party, and was later convicted of perjury. ...

Widely admired for his clever use of cross-references and special themes, he is usually called upon to produce the extra-large puzzles printed in the Guardian on bank holidays; these sometimes even include two grids, with complicated rules governing the placing of answers in each. He is also credited with creating a new format of crossword, the "alphabetical jigsaw" in which the clues are labelled with letters rather than numbers, and the grid has no markers to indicate which answer should be placed where. Instead the clues are arranged in alphabetical order of their answer — usually labelled with the beginning letter, with either one or two clues for each letter. The answers are to be placed "jigsaw-wise, however they may fit," though of course only one arrangement will work. In a few puzzles, an additional clue is given which describes a phrase or set of words going around the edge of the grid (every other square of the perimeter being black) to give a starting point for placing some of the answers. Araucaria's clues to the alphabetical jigsaws are often in the form of rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter. A Bank Holiday is a public holiday in the United Kingdom and also in the Republic of Ireland. ... A rhyme is a repetition of identical or similar sounds in two or more different words and is most often used in poetry. ... Iambic pentameter is a meter in poetry, consisting of lines with five feet (hence pentameter) in which the iamb (or iambus) is the dominant foot (hence Iambic). Iambic rhythms are quite easy to write in English and iambic pentameter is among the most common metrical forms in English poetry. ...

He was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2005 New Year's Honours, for services to the newspaper industry. Commanders Badge of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions, in decreasing order of seniority: Knight or Dame Grand...

Two collections of his crosswords have been published under the titles of Monkey Puzzles (2002) and Monkey Puzzles volume 2 (2004).

External link

• "The Monkey Puzzler" - 80th birthday tribute from The Guardian.