Within the pattern clues beneath, the hyperlinks take you to explainers from our learners sequence. The setter’s identify typically hyperlinks to an interview with her or him, in case you're feeling like attending to know these folks higher.
The information in clues
We seem to have a brand new face making common appearances in clues. The individual in query is in Vlad’s clue …
1d I’m stunned, upset and sad over Carrie’s final social gathering (7)
[ wordplay: backward (“upset”) utterance meaning “I’m surprised” + synonym for “unhappy”, containing (“over”) final letter of CARRIE (“Carrie’s last”) ]
[ backwards OH + DOWN, containing E ]
[ definition: party ]
… for HOEDOWN and Bluth’s clue …
6d Social climber Carrie’s infinite battle to cover Boris’s temperament, conclusively (9)
[ wordplay: all but first and last letters of (“endless”) CARRIE + synonym for “struggle” containing (“to hide”) last letters of (“conclusively”) BORISS and TEMPERAMENT ]
[ ARRI + VIE containing ST ]
[ definition: social climber ]
… for ARRIVISTE. Will the pattern proceed? That depends upon how lengthy the brand new face, her husband, their inside designer and the remainder of the gang stay within the public eye.
Latter patter
As common with Qaos, there’s a “ghost theme” in his newest puzzle, although I don’t imagine the primary throughout clue is likely one of the references to Tom Stoppard:
8a Unfastened cash spoil her plans (8)
[ wordplay: anagram of (“ruin”) HERPLANS ]
[ definition: loose coins ]
Using SHRAPNEL to imply small change began a few century in the past in, as with a lot pleasing slang, Australasia. Earlier than that, in fact, shrapnel was a group of bomb fragments, and it could be affordable to imagine the identify was onomatopoeic, or derived from a German phrase which means “particles of disagreeable sharpness”, or each.
The disagreeable sharpness, although, is as British as they arrive, having been invented by Henry Shrapnel, an officer within the British military, within the 1790s. (Considered one of his descendants, the actor John Shrapnel, who died in 2020, was in Tom Stoppard’s TV play Skilled Foul, so we would depend the entry as fortuitously and nearly invisibly thematic.)
These of us who cherish phrases that appear to have an apparent etymology however which develop into eponymous are keen on bloomers (popularised by the Nineteenth-century US feminist Amelia Bloomer), gardenias (in honour of the fittingly named botanist Alexander Backyard) – and the topic of our subsequent problem.
It’s one other plant and one with a reputation that, Oxford Vegetation 400 tells us …
… commemorates the late eighteenth-century, North American anatomist Caspar Wistar. Sadly, when he named the genus, Thomas Nuttall misspelled Wistar’s identify. The worldwide guidelines of botanical nomenclature imply Nuttall’s orthographic error will probably be with us for ever.
Reader, how would you clue WISTERIA?
Cluing competitors
Many thanks for your clues for NEW, that are nicely price a go to for those who haven’t popped in lately. The audacity award goes to Schroduck for the soundalike “‘That is how one feels after a tonic and any double,’ you pronounced” and I very a lot appreciated the dialogue of factors of the compass following TonyCollman’s “Rising in all instructions however one”.
The runners-up are Thepoisonedgift’s artful “What comes in the beginning of Regular, England, and World?” and Wellywearer2’s ingenious “It’s three factors for inexperienced” (from which I’ve imperiously eliminated the phrase “a”); the winner is Smallboat01’s concise “Novel penned by Irvine Welsh”.
Kludos to Smallboat. Please depart entries for this fortnight’s competitors – in addition to your non-print finds and picks from the broadsheet cryptics – within the feedback, beneath.
Clue of the fortnight
The annotated answer is out for Brendan’s weekend puzzle. Right here’s a clue …
14aFlip away as international, subsequent to European (8)
[ wordplay: synonyms for “foreign” and “next to” + abbrev. for “European” ]
[ ALIEN + AT + E ]
[ definition: turn away ]
… for ALIENATE, although you’d be inside your rights to suppose it could be a clue for one thing else. The primary and final throughout entries are totally different phrases, however every has the identical clue. The identical goes for the second and the penultimate throughout entries … and so forth. So once we get to twenty throughout, we discover …
20aSimilar clue as 14 (8)
[ wordplay: synonym for “foreign”, after (“next to”) abbrev. for “European” ]
[ STRANGE after E ]
… that it’s additionally a clue for ESTRANGE. Brendan’s creativeness has been put to all kinds of makes use of; we’re fortunate that they embrace crosswords.
Discover a assortment of explainers, interviews and different useful fine details at alanconnor.com
The Delivery Forecast Puzzle E book by Alan Connor, which is partly however not predominantly cryptic, could be ordered from the Guardian Bookshop
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