David Astle has written two novels, plus five non-fiction works: Cluetopia, Puzzled, One Down, One Missing, Offbeat Australia and Riddledom.

Between books, he drives the world to delight and despair as Friday's crossword setter, DA, appearing in both The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Actor Geoffrey Rush, in fact, describes David as 'the Sergeant Pepper of cryptic crosswords a complete mind fuck'.

Which is possibly a compliment. David was the former dictionary bloke on SBS's Letters and Numbers, while his feature stories have tackled luck, lying, drowning and fridge magnets, to name a few topics.

His short stories have won several awards, including a trip to Beijing via Dublin as part of the James Joyce Suspended Sentence Prize in 2001.