[2] After completing a puzzle for the first time, he set about creating two of his own to send to his hero John Galbraith Graham, known as "Araucaria", and accomplished this two and a half years later.

[3] Having studied music and maths, Halpern became a local reporter, barman, warehouse packer, bank clerk and lab technician.

He taught English in Rome, but found that hands-on examples of the present continuous kept causing him to lead his students out of the classroom, on to the street and into bars where he would put their understanding of his lesson to the test: ‘You are buying me a drink’.

[1] His father Tony would make wordplay jokes at the dinner table every night, where meals would include toad-in-the-hole, renamed 'frog-in-the-bog', and a strawberry mousse dubbed 'pinky stuff', which became 'stinky puff'.

Not particularly academic, and often panicking in exams, Halpern failed to achieve the grades he wanted to study music or biology, and took a few menial jobs before reapplying for universities soon after his brother's death.

At Canterbury Christ Church College he took a BSc in maths and music, though he very soon abandoned his lectures, instead devoting himself to practising writing cryptic clues.

Halpern felt that The Times published elegant puzzles, whereas The Guardian crosswords contained more humour (especially those by his hero, John Graham, with the pseudonym Araucaria).