In the example clues below, I explain the two parts of each: the definition of the answer and the wordplay – the recipe for assembling its letters. In a genuine puzzle environment, of course, you also have the crossing letters, which greatly alleviate your solving load. The explanations contain links to previous entries in this series on such matters as spelling one word backwards to reveal another. And setters’ names tend to link to interviews, in case you feel like getting to know these people better.
The news in clues
How is our new prime minister settling in to the world of crosswords? Better, it seems, than his predecessor. Since our last roundup, we have seen in the Guardian alone as an anagram from Dynamo …
4d Part of a chair Starmer’s broken (7)
[ wordplay: anagram (“broken”) of STARMER ]
[ definition: part of a chair ]
… for an ARMREST, a longer anagram from Picaroon in our beginner-friendly quiptic …
14a Big shop possibly making Starmer puke (11)
[ wordplay: anagram of (“possibly making”) STARMERPUKE ]
[ definition: big shop ]
… for SUPERMARKET, and a Paul pun …
4d Yours truly, Labour leader voiced concern for homebuyers? (4)
[ wordplay: soundalike of (“voiced”) phrase meaning “yours truly, Labour leader” ]
[ soundalike of “I, Keir” ]
[ definition: concern for homebuyers? ]
… for Ikea. A promising start, then – and with the recent appointment of the net zero secretary, surely it is not too much to hope for a second golden age of Miliband clues?
(By the way, the first Starmer appearance was from Matilda in a quiptic of October 2020 that started with the double definition “Is Keir Starmer like a household appliance? (6-6)”; answer, if you need it, is in the puzzle.)
Latter patter
Please feel free to remind friends and family who are not yet cryptic solvers that there is an increasingly tall pile of quick cryptics, our puzzle even more suited to beginners than the quiptic, because the setters reveal which tricks they are using.
For example, Carpathian tells us that she will be putting one thing inside another then does just that in this clue …
21a Coerce mythical creature to consume first piece of orange (7)
[ wordplay: name of a mythical creature containing (‘to consume’) initial letter (“first piece”) of ORANGE ]
[ DRAGON containing O ]
[ definition: coerce ]
… for DRAGOON. As we ask so often in these pages: is there some link between the words “dragon” and “dragoon”, or is the apparent connection too good to be true?
The coercing that gave us this sense of the word was applied to French Protestants when Louis XIV was in charge there. Said coercion was carried out by the dragonades (or dragoonades); dragoons were a species of cavalry soldier named for their terrible muskets, which were thought to breathe fire. Link confirmed!
For our next challenge, a related term. Certainly, if I were ever press-ganged, the journey to the Yangtze estuary would be one of the last I would be happy to make. Reader, how would you clue SHANGHAI?
Cluing conference
Thanks for your clues for GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE. And how pleasing to see our practice of “shared honours and tweaking” giving us Croquem and Newlaplandes audacious “Landmark Gilbert and George works traded for Rubles”.
Something about a bridge seems to lend itself to the cryptic definition and Croquem gives us a corker in “This has been suspended by San Franciscan banks”.
The runners-up are AmusingJay’s plausible “Google and Reddit began letting out old abandoned San Francisco structure” and Wellywearer2’s giddying “Inter-bank transfer mechanism used by Californian high rollers”; the winner is the sly “Editor enabled 3G roaming to get connection in US”.
Kludos to Dunnart. Please leave entries for the current proposition – and especially non-print finds or picks that I might miss from broadsheet cryptics – in the comments.
Clue from elsewhere of the fortnight
Appropriate fodder for an anagram is a delight, of course. So is inappropriate fodder. Known locally as Maskarade, Gozo in the Financial Times asks …
16a Do big trees flourish here? Hardly (4,6)
[ wordplay: anagram (“flourish”) of DOBIGTREES ]
[ definition: the whole clue ]
… and answers a question about the GOBI DESERT. Cheers!
