The cryptic crossword, says Barney, is making an inexplicable comeback. Like vinyl. More people are printing off an online cryptic and using travel time on trains to pick their brains. It’s a lot easier than buying a whole newspaper to read the news that one already has on one’s iPad app.

At least this is what Barney has come to conclude. Barney, in his semi-retired state, uses his retirement perk of discounted travel fare (Aus $2.50 or Dh8.59 to travel anywhere in the state all day) to make little trips that involve a fair bit of observation and ‘research’. It is in this way, he says, that he has noticed the comeback made by the cryptic crossword.

“Back in the day, I used to do the Times, Kev,” he tells me. “But what with work and family demands, those skills have gone a bit rusty,” he adds.

If one knows Barney (and I do well enough) one holds one’s counsel when he makes statements like that. It is indeed likely that he has been a one-time crossword connoisseur; it is more probable, however, that he has never been proximate with a Times crossword. Ever.

“You, on the other hand, Kev, you’re quite the slave to them, aren’t you?” he says. Wordlessly, I cast a passing glance at my print out of the Guardian on the table beside the coffee mug. I was getting on rather nicely with it before Barney showed up. It takes a little while getting into the mind of the setter and the Guardian uses a different one every day. Today’s is one set by Arachne, who, true to her name, can be craftily spiderlike with silken surfaces for clues.

It is this — the art of the smooth surface — we have been talking about in fact. Barney points to my already-filled in answer to 20 down.

“Explain how you worked that out,” he urges.

The clue reads, ‘Diplomat’s encouragement of revolutionary’. The answer has seven letters. I tell him, as he probably knows, that every clue carries one definition either at the beginning or at the end and it’s for the reader to figure out which that is ... all the other words then become the cryptic guide to that answer.

“In this case, I figured the definition was ‘diplomat’... So I used all the other words to try and work to find a synonym for diplomat ... and so arrived at ‘ATTACHE’,” I tell him briefly. Barney shakes his head saying: “I still don’t get it.”

“ATTA is a word of encouragement. And CHE Guevara was a revolutionary ... Join the two together and there you have it!”

I’m happy to be able to parse the clue, but Barney appears unimpressed or even engaged with other thoughts. It’s like he asked for an explanation, but wasn’t bothered listening.

“Right,” he says, as soon as I’ve paused to draw breath, work this one out.”

He fishes in his wallet for a scrap of paper, unfolds it and smoothes it on the table before reading: “Lennon’s intro in Let It Be unfortunately is rubbish.” The answer has eight letters, he says.

“Work on it, Kev, I’ll back in ten minutes,” he calls out before hurrying off.

“Cracked it?” he asks, when he returns. I nod. His face lights up. “Really? Jeez, I just couldn’t get past the surface reading all morning,” he admits, in a rare display of humility. “Explain,” he orders, so I tell him that ‘Lennon’s intro’ implies the letter ‘L’ and unfortunately after the words ‘let it be’ means those letters are jumbled and must be unscrambled, and when added with the L from Lennon, give the word ‘belittle’ which means ‘rubbish’ or ‘to rubbish someone.’

Two days later I’m treated to a free coffee. Barney, it appears, won a jolly decent prize at the local inn.

“Was it with ‘belittle’?” I ask.

Watching Barney’s face is like Lennon’s Watching the Wheels. A half smile crosses his lips before he says: “Not really, just got lucky.”

Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.