text: Albie Fiore's nom de plume Taupi, from a nickname given as a student in France, translates as 'Moley'
  Tue 18 Aug 2009 13.24 EDT
  Many will know Albie Fiore, who has died aged 63 from complications arising from a lung tumour, as Taupi, a compiler of the Guardian's cryptic crossword. Others will be familiar with his work through many of the quick crosswords that appear in this paper. Still others will have encountered him as Satori in the Financial Times.
  Yet more will, over the years, have known him through his work in the field of architecture, as a contributor to the television show The Crystal Maze, a production designer for Games Workshop, an antiques dealer specialising in slot machines, an adviser in the development of Erno Rubik's puzzles, the editor of the magazine Games & Puzzles, a writer of storylines for children's comic characters such as Scooby Doo and a chef on private yachts. Residents of the Bloomsbury area of central London, too, while not necessarily having known Albie, will have been familiar with the sight of the Tom-Baker-as-the Doctor-like figure cycling around on his butcher's bike on the way to and from various marketplaces.
  Albie was born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, and educated at Southend high school for boys, Southend School of Architecture, and the Architectural Association in London. Even in childhood he was fascinated by puzzles, whether literal, numerical, logical or mechanical, so it was no surprise that in the early 1960s a bank holiday double puzzle, almost certainly by Araucaria, spawned his interest in cryptic crosswords.
  In the 1970s, Albie was on the editorial team of Games & Puzzles, a magazine run from a small office near Tottenham Court Road in central London. While largely concerned with board games, the magazine offered the opportunity for specialist crosswords and articles about crosswords. At first, Albie oversaw the crossword pages, but in the late 1970s took over the editorship of the whole magazine.
  Albie later established himself as a setter of crosswords – a characteristic clue, of which he was justly proud, was "No can do (6,5)". He joined the Guardian team in 1992, adopting his nom de plume Taupi from a nickname he was given as a student working on a French farm, that translates as "Moley". His pseudonym in the Financial Times, Satori, in Zen Buddhism "sudden enlightenment", is based on the Basque word for "mole". Satori was first published in 2002. His puzzles for both papers were on the hard side, but always fair – the solution to "No can do" is "Bottle Party".
  He was a loving family man, a great organiser, charity worker, friend, witty raconteur, and all-round good bloke. He is survived by his wife, Sue, and three children, Iggy, Theo and Millie.