Crossword roundup: the problem with the trolley problem | 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

A puzzle by the setter known locally as Fed always feels topical, perhaps because of the repertoire of conventions and inventions he uses in wordplay. On the other hand, the clues often really are topical, so it’s just as likely to be that. As with his Bluth incarnation in the Independent …

17d Discovered Boris intended missing an opening (7)
[ wordplay: BORIS without first & last letters (‘discovered’) + synonym for ‘intended’ minus the letters AN (‘missing an’) ]
[ ORI + FIANCE – AN ]
[ definition: opening ]

… asking us for the unlovely word ORIFICE. And that unchastened prime minister’s successor – or was there someone else in between, I forget – may appear to be popping next door in Picaroon’s clue …

27a Quantities of drugs, say, Rishi smuggled into parties (7)
[ wordplay: synonym for ‘rishi’ inside (‘smuggled into’) informal term meaning ‘parties’ ]
[ SAGE in DOS ]
[ definition: quantities of drugs ]

… but as, of course, a rishi is unquestionably a sage, at least in Sanskrit, this rishi is simply a step on the road to our answer, DOSAGES.

Puzzling elsewhere

Today’s edition of Alex Bellos’s Monday puzzle uses the format of crossword clues. It is deeply satisfying to solve, in a way that’s similar to seeing a filled grid, but with no grid. Take note of the blank tiles!

Latter patter

Many thanks to Chameleon/Methuselah for pointing us at this piece of serendipity:

Here’s how Qaos’s clue is intended to be unpicked:

4d Was Keir wrong to steal Tory leader’s sports equipment? (5-3)
[ wordplay: anagram (‘wrong’) of WASKEIR containing (‘to steal’) first letter (‘leader’) of TORY ]
[ WAERSKI containing T ]
[ definition: sports equipment ]

I’m always delighted and fascinated by a clue that can be read more than one way: we’ve talked here about when it’s intentional but the unintentional parallel cluing universes are no less delightful or fascinating: I wonder whether they’re more prone to including such sporting kit as water skis and balls.

As it happens, a puzzle with three intentionally ambiguous clues that I failed to mention at the time was in the Independent, set by the same Methuselah. If you didn’t solve this then (the end of October 2021), there is still fun to be had by reading the corresponding Fifteensquared post, perhaps trying to anticipate the trick before you get to the comments.

Methuselah also offers a warning of sorts at one across: paired with two down, it gives SCHRODINGER’S CAT, which leads us to thought experiments and to the subject of our next challenge.

There is a philosophical dilemma, described here with reference to Helen Mirren, with a name that makes it harder to take seriously if you’re a speaker of British English. It is intended to make us imagine something that we would call a tram heading inevitably towards someone trapped on its tracks. But since we use the word “trolley” differently here, the danger appears to be coming either from a dainty means of transporting tea and coffee or, slightly more perilously, a hospital gurney with or without an inpatient on top.

Reader, how would you clue TROLLEY PROBLEM?

Cluing competition

Thanks for your clues for BUNDT CAKE. The audacity award goes to Chri5Miller for the charmingly daffy “Ring me for pudding” and congratulations to Porcia for attempting local colour; perhaps in the circumstances the capitalisation could have gone “One of Stuart Heritage’s treats on Holiday Cruise Ships?’; on reflection, perhaps not.

The runners-up are Dcusch, with the ends switched for “Last course – hole in one” and Albery’s “Broken bucket and sponge?”, which has gained a “?” because as far as I understand it, a Bundt might be – but is not obliged to be – a sponge; the winner is the sneaky double-barred “Enid regularly goes into bars for something to eat”.

Kludos to Phitonelly; 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 setting for this Times clue appears to be a windowless IT lab …

13d Digital file manager, frenzied and fastidious, blowing top (10)
[ wordplay: synonym for ‘frenzied’ + synonym for ‘fastidious’ without first letter (‘blowing top’) ]
[ MANIC + PURIST – P ]
[ definition: digital file manager ]

… but we are in fact in a relaxing day spa, albeit with a furious MANICURIST. High five.

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