Last NotW Crossword Takes Parting Shot at Former Editor

The final edition of News of the World contains a secret message to News International CEO and former NotW editor Rebekah Brooks—and it’s not a nice message. Staff members found a way around orders from News International to “ensure there were no libels or any hidden mocking messages of the chief executive”: They hid their mockery in the crossword puzzle, the Telegraph reports.

Clues included “Brook,” “stink,” “catastrophe,” “digital protection,” “criminal enterprise,” “mix in prison,” “string of recordings,” and “woman stares wildly at calamity,” while answers included “disaster,” “stench,” “racket,” “tart,” “deplored,” and “menace.” A source at the now-defunct paper tells the Daily Mail that Brooks had two senior Sun journalists looking for just such hidden messages, “but they failed and we’ve had the last laugh.” The Atlantic has a shot of the crosswords. (More Rebekah Brooks stories.)