Within the pattern clues beneath, the hyperlinks take you to explainers from our learners collection. The setter’s title typically hyperlinks to an interview with her or him, in case you are feeling like attending to know these individuals higher.
The information in clues
From time to time, there's a puzzle so topical that somebody shares it with their colossal following, attractive non-solvers to attempt our interest. So it was with Vlad final week …
Is the guardian cryptic crossword making an attempt to inform us one thing? Hats off to Vlad! pic.twitter.com/dr3Pz5ptcj
… in a, nicely, spirited response to occasions that prompted such clues as this one …
2ndIn a diary recalled work assembly one afternoon – this justifies conduct? (8)
[definition: this justifies conduct?]
[wordplay: backwards (“recalled”) musical abbreviation for “work” inside (“in”) synonym for “a diary”, then Roman numeral for “one” + abbreviation for “afternoon”]
[OP, backwards, inside A LOG, then I + A]
… for APOLOGIA. There was additionally this one …
6dHave faith over investigator (feminine) – by no means good to indicate disloyalty (8)
[definition: disloyalty]
[wordplay:synonym for “have confidence” + name of an investigator & slangy term for “female”, both without (“never”) abbreviation for “good”]
[BET + GRAY and GAL without both Gs]
for BETRAYAL.
One other puzzle that caught the attention of non-solvers was from Stephen McCarthy within the New York Instances. The solutions included varied names from sci-fi. 4 adjoining down clues had been ambiguous:
71d “It’s a ____!” [WRAP or TRAP]
67d Physique half that precedes “band” [WAIST or WRIST]
47d Ones concerned in a transaction [PAYERS or PAYEES]
55dLet out, in a approach [LEASED or LEAKED]
The reply crossing these – clued “The higher of two main sci-fi movie franchises?” – might equally validly be stuffed as STAR WARS or STAR TREK. Once more, non-solvers have been sharing their wonderment and the excellent news is that this type of ambiguity may be present in cryptics, akin to Boatman’s referendum puzzle, the barred weekend challenges and past.
Latter patter
Again within the day, we're instructed, Echo’s daughter tried to seduce Zeus. Hera, understandably, turned her right into a chicken. The chicken started to appear on trinkets in outdated erotic magic and its title got here to imply a attraction, a spell – and a curse. The unfortunate daughter lives on in a pleasingly temporary clue from Carpathian within the quiptic, the Guardian’s stepping-stone puzzle “for learners and people in a rush”:
12aJuliet in kiss curse (4)
[definition: curse]
[wordplay: letter represented by “Juliet” in Nato alphabet + IN (“in”) + letter denoting a kiss]
[J + IN + X]
Echo’s daughter was Iynx; once I see a JINX as a solution, I take into account that the setter may need determined to incorporate each letter of the alphabet, handily contemplating Qs and Zs once I go on to the later clues. Carpathian was additionally on the lookout for QUIZ and BANK, so it paid off.
An alternate spelling of the chicken, jynx, options in one of many few 26-letter pangrams, “Veldt jynx grimps waqf zho buck”. Like virtually all quick pangrams, what it beneficial properties in brevity it loses in needing an evidence that it's in truth a significant sentence, until you perceive that it means “wryneck chicken from the grasslands causes the mounting of hybrid cattle buck from land given to a non secular establishment for charitable functions in Islamic international locations”.
When the paraphrase is barely extra intelligible than the pangram, I persist with the short brown fox, however I do like the texture of one of many phrases, the admittedly obscure topic of our subsequent problem. Reader, how would you clue GRIMP?
Puzzling elsewhere
For the second 12 months in a row, the January occasion often called the MIT Thriller Hunt has been an internet affair, a side-effect being that these of us on this aspect of the Atlantic can get a style. Beneath is an introductory video, however check out this one, too.
Cluing competitors
Many thanks for your clues for DOUGLAS-HOME. The audacity award goes to Jdthndr for the “culpa” in “PM ought to go in shame with mea culpa”. After all, I loved all of the clues evaluating the outdated Previous Etonian with the present outdated one.
The runners-up are Porcia’s “Occasion laughs off outdated setter changing into PM” and Newlaplandes’s “Occasion broken laughsome PM”; the winner is PugliaForever’s devious “Head of presidency overtaken by Labour supporters’ gaining the home”.
Kludos to Puglia. Please depart entries for this fortnight’s competitors – in addition to your non-print finds and picks from the broadsheet cryptics – beneath.
The most recent in our collaborative playlist Therapeutic Music Recorded in 2020-22 to Accompany a Resolve or Even Hearken to is from Melissa Etheridge:
Clue of the fortnight
It takes an distinctive clue these days for me to forgive an allusion to something greater than a cough or a sniffle …
11d Hawking lecture’s viewers will achieve this upon arrival (13)
[definition: hawking (ignoring the capital)]
[wordplay: two words describing what an audience at a lecture does]
… and this from the Instances for EXPECTORATION is phenomenal. Your good well being!
Discover a assortment of explainers, interviews and different useful ins and outs at alanconnor.com
The Delivery Forecast Puzzle E-book by Alan Connor, which is partly however not predominantly cryptic, may be ordered from the Guardian Bookshop
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