Crossword roundup: cricket and the changing reputation of salmon | Crosswords

In the sample clues below, the links take you to explainers from our beginners series. The setter’s name often links to an interview with him or her, in case you feel like getting to know these people better.

The news in clues

Devotees of English cricket and crosswords might console themselves with the thought that this promises to be a golden age for crossword clues describing how this is not a golden age for English cricket. Example: this Telegraph clue …

22d It may bring tears to your eyes about India (cricket side) (5)
[ wordplay: synonym for “about” + India in Nato alphabet + cricket terminology for one of the sides ]
[ ON + I + ON ]
[ definition: it may bring tears to your eyes ]

… for ONION. And looking across the ocean, a staple of 2010s crosswords is making a return – perhaps briefly – as in Vlad’s clue …

2d ‘Enemies of Trump’ in retreat after revolution? Not your concern (5,4)
[ wordplay: term used by Trump inside (“in”) synonym for “retreat” backwards (“after revolution”) ]
[ VERMIN in reversed DEN ]
[ definition: “not your concern” ]

… for NEVER MIND.

Latter patter

A thing – a piece of language, a piece of food – might be thought of as fancy long into its life as something commonplace. Take the answer Imogen is looking for in this amusing clue:

21a Fish out of water, or one on the bed (6)
[ double definition ]

It’s a KIPPER, whichever way you look at it. The word “kipper”, not so long ago, might denote what we would now call smoked salmon. Nowadays, anything labelled “kipper” in a supermarket will be a cured herring. Salmon – aggressively farmed, often smoked – retains for now an air of exclusivity. Should it?

A Google search of the website of the UK’s biggest supermarket gives 22,900 hits for “salmon” and 16 for “kipper”, which suggests that one way to dine in style through a cost of living crisis is a herring kedgeree.

What a change kedgeree itself has seen. As “khichri” (the Hindi for mixture), it comprised mung beans or lentils cooked with rice and a spot of spice. It’s because of the pith-helmeted British that the dish was later presumed to include the flaked fish (haddock if the wallet allowed), the dried fruit, the eggs and so on. “E”s offer a handy way of making up a word, although not always for the crossword setter. Reader, how would you clue KEDGEREE?

Cluing competition

Many thanks for your clues for SANCTIONED. The title-holder, Croquem, returns with “Allowed condensation to form on shed”, which I highlight as an example of a smashing clue that nonetheless leaves some solvers anxious about what the surface suggests for the shed’s contents.

The runners-up are EleanorofAquitaine’s retro “Approved of Dirty Den’s action” and Chri5Miller’s puritan “Weird dance is not allowed”; the winner is the devious “Let’s turn over, Ant and Dec is on”.

Kludos to Nestingmachine. Please leave entries for the current competition – and especially non-print finds and picks that I may have missed from the broadsheet cryptics – in the comments.

Clue from elsewhere of the fortnight

The initialism TMI is a staple of American-style puzzles, often clued as something like “Response to oversharing”. Django (known locally as Fed) has spotted the potential for a (relatively rarely used) device in that word, deployed in this clue …

12a Turkey say Foreign Office is oversharing with member of parliament (4)
[ wordplay: abbreviation for Foreign Office overlapping with bird for which collective noun is said to be parliament ]
[ FO overlapping with OWL ]
[ definition: Turkey say ]

… for FOWL. Finger-lickin’ great.

The Shipping Forecast Puzzle Book by Alan Connor, which is partly but not predominantly cryptic, can be ordered from the Guardian Bookshop