"John Halpern" a.k.a. 'Paul' from The Guardian, Punk and Mudd, was born in Cuckfield, Sussex, UK in 1967, and is a cryptic crossword compiler for newspapers including The Guardian, The Independent, The Times and The Financial Times.

Halpern's interest in The Guardian cryptic crossword puzzle began when he was a student in Canterbury, and he wondered if the compilers could possibly be human beings. After completing a puzzle for the first time, he set about creating two of his own to send to his hero John Galbraith Graham, also known as "Araucaria", and accomplished this two and a half years later. He now writes three or four a week for a variety of publications.

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 continuously 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’.

Halpern’s favourite clue of his own is:

To make cheese, how do you milk a Welsh hedgehog? (10)

Answer: Caerphilly.

The first clue he ever wrote for the Guardian was:

"Name" sewn into footballers’ underwear (8)

Answer: k"N"ickers.

More John Halpern on Wikipedia.

There are no studies that have generated any data on the outcome of the human consumption of peyote for religious purposes or for illegal purposes.

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I really took it quite seriously about making sure that no reservation drive-by was done by us, ... I wanted to show that I had completed what I promised I would do, and that they would be the first to get to hear about it, which has happened.

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If they are faithful to the church, they don't ingest any illicit substances ever, ... They may have taken peyote in a religious context hundreds or thousands of times, and have never abused alcohol or cocaine. It's a distinctly pure population.

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It never would have happened if I hadn't done that. It's one of the ways they take the measure of a man.

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