In the cryptic crossword clue ‘Five hundred sheets of paper for fantasies’ (6), the answer, as cryptic solvers would know, is ‘dreams’. For the uninitiated, to explain briefly the idea is to figure out what part of the clue is the definition, or the answer required. Once that is done all the other words become the clues to that definition/answer.

In the above instance, the definition or answer required is another word for ‘fantasies’. A six letter word, as per the number in brackets. So, ‘Five hundred sheets of paper’ become the help words to obtain the answer. This is achieved by D+Reams, that is, D representing the Roman numeral for 500 and ‘Reams’ representing one word for ‘sheets of paper’.

Which brings me rather torturously to the number 500 itself. What, for instance was going on in 500BC? My research (that is, my research of other professionals’ research) tells me that the world apparently had reached the hundred million mark, population-wise. Which in turn made me pause, scratch my head.

What is a demographics expert called? A demographologist? A demographer? Must chase that up. Somebody else, more astute, has for sure worried about that very problem. All I will probably have to do is type the clue words into Google. Google it.

Which, to slide away briefly again, reminds me that, to me at least, Google, isn’t really a novel word. I know it’s old as the hills now and everybody uses it at least five times a day. But back then, when I was a youngster playing cricket in the scorching sun and on arriving home ravenous my mum used to take one look and proclaim I was slowly beginning to resemble, in complexion, a raven, yes back in those days, the ones we refer to as ‘halcyon’, we used to call a googly a google.

“Google, yaar,” my mate Bala used to call out jeeringly when my stumps went flying after I’d played for a leg break and the ball turned in sharply from off.

“Nice deception, eh?” he used to add, the cricket equivalent of, take your pick: a) adding insult to injury (b) rubbing salt in the wound or (c) twisting the knife.

But back to 500.

Is there anything significant at all about the number? Sure, it’s a half-millennium but that’s obvious. It’s not 501 for example which is 3x167, the sum of the first eighteen prime numbers. Now that’s impressive. Who’d have known that, aside from Pythagoras?

Is 500 just an ordinary number on the number highway? On further research I discover 500 is a Harshad number. Apparently a number is a Harshad number when it is divisible by the sum of its digits. Has 500 been a popular brand? Yes, I discover. In racing we have the NASCAR500; there’s the Fiat500, an American alternative rock band called Galaxie500. Five Hundred Miles is a song made popular by the Scottish brothers Charlie and Craig Reid, identical twins, better known as The Proclaimers.

And, hello, you learn something every day: A monkey, apparently, is slang for five hundred dollars/pounds, a rare instance of agreement (UK and US) especially given each one’s penchant for spelling things differently.

What was going on in 500AD? A quick Google and a short trip to Wiki shows the answer: battle fighting, monument building. No demographic stats. What were the demographers up to? Television was a long way off so there were no dramas to go home to. But there were writers then, a lot more erudite than this writer can ever hope to be.

Which makes him quietly grateful and humble because somehow over the last ten years he’s been able to eke out and finally reach his own little milestone: five hundred columns. And he thanks those who from time to time have paused in their reading of more cogent opinion to take time to read something they might, sometimes, take away with them and think about at leisure.

Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.