The official bored-at-work cryptic crossword pass it on thread.

inst/ult still v much a thing ime

One from the observer, will give you one letter which is more of a help than it might seem:

In which every second one is a starter (12)

-a----------

ok, got that. needed a couple of other letters though.

lots of "a"s in the solution?

there's a clue in the clue 8)

The puzzle I just completed has typos in the solution. Their answer is TAISG.

Not a thick string, but only one with an obsession has it. (5)

I got the answer, but how are they getting G from string? I know G is where one of 6 strings is tuned on a guitar, but...

G-string as in underwear?

Oh, jeez, yeah probably. My mind never went there.

Still kinda clumsy, I think.

Sales decoration of old? (John's country relative had one, in other words.) (7)

Editor's note: If you "get" the first part, please write... we don't!

This was difficult but clever (starts with L if you want a hint) and I don't know what's up with the first part either.

(taramasalata btw)

^^^ ah, awesome! Glanced at that, but never would have gotten it w/o research.

nice, taramasalata is awesome too

Here's one I just made up myself!

Nigel crazy, but retains marbles? (5)

That's a good one but quite easy.

yeah I thought it was easy but quite elegant!

"thanks, man, for the mexican food" (6, wotd)

RE The puzzle I just had to look at the solution to complete: Anyone who can look at "My USA and Upstage" and come up with Guy De Maupassant is better at anagrams and knows more about literature than I do.

Did the crossword for the first time in ages the other week. Flew through it - Araucaria's recent Greek tragedy one. Proceeded to call myself a Titan of Crosswords despite knowing that it was, had to be, staggeringly easy. Oh, there was a great one for Agamemnon tho - First among men.

One of the funnier surface readings I've seen in a while:

Your pipe isn't quite full, so how about a little cheese? (4)

i've recently started getting into cryptic crosswords and have got to the stage where i'm pretty much solving them by guessing which bit of the clue means the answer and going by, idk, general knowledge and knowledge of etymology etc. it's satisfying when i can actually use the crypticness of the clue to work it out but too often i find that i guess correctly but i have NO IDEA how it pertains to the clue (and by implication, if i hadn't guessed i wouldn't have had a chance of getting it). this is a bit frustrating. do people usually get past it?

eg in today's grau crossword:

drink served up after Greek character's eaten ham (7)

I have the answer because it was a word that fit but I have no idea! at all! how it relates to that clue

i'd be lying if i said this still isn't at least partly how i solve a lot of clues, but i can usually work backwards to get the rest of it

I'm still getting the hang of all of this, but I think it's all about recognising which devices are being used, or might be being used, in a particular clue, and then playing with them... The Guardian had a useful series on lots of these devices here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/series/cryptic-crosswords-for-beginners

Every cryptic clue should have a definition in it, and in this case it is "ham" (so the solution will be either a synonym or a word that is closely related to this - and often not in the most obvious sense, or the one suggested by the surface meaning of the clue). The rest of the clue is the cryptic part, and one of the devices being used is highlighted by the phrase "served up" - as this is a down clue, it means that this part of the clue will be backwards, or literally written upwards. "Greek character" refers to a letter from the Greek alphabet - in this case "eta" which has been "eaten" (or swallowed up) by the drink. The letter "a" from the start of the clue kicks it off, so the solution is (I think) A + (RU(ETA)M) backwards...

OHHHHH. I

a) didn't make the link between "up" and "backwards"
b) the initial "a" threw me off completely (I find that cryptic setters often just add a letter in randomly? like there's often one letter that you're SURE has nothing to do with anything in the clue)*
c) dunno if i'd have remembered "eta", i was kind of stuck on the greek letter being alpha as in the a at the start

*like:

Utter contempt, say, in poor Sir Alec's case (9)

where "ge" somehow relates to "case"? really?

"God has never-ending position within the big leagues (6)" eludes me as well (the meaning, again, the solution was easy)

imo a really good setter should add nothing to the clue that isn't clue or definition, but obviously a lot of setters fall below this ideal.

guessing what the solution is and then figuring out why is still the way i solve at least half the clues i read and i'd imagine that's true for a lot of us, deciphering the clue is like a confirmation that you've guessed the correct word.

the conventions really do get more obvious with practice.

i think redudant letters are pretty rare, very occasionally someone will play a bit fast n loose for the sake of a witty reading. connectors between wordplay and definition are allowed (is, becomes, for, from, to, many many others). the 'ge' there does elude me. ok http://www.fifteensquared.net/ says it's 'e.g.' ('say') in 'sir alec', still not sure what the 'case' is doing.

god=mars, position=job without the b (never ending).

Your pipe isn't quite full, so how about a little cheese? (4)

OK STILL CAN'T GET THIS ONE

god=mars, position=job without the b (never ending).

duhhhhhh. these are things i know!

h8 h8 h8 the 4-letter answers, there always seems to be way too much info packed into the clue for too short a word - almost always get them last (by which point they're (mostly) obvious)

i'm always impressed by the huge clues for short words. as a crap amateur clue writer there's a knack to the long ones that eludes me.

Your pipe isn't quite full, so how about a little cheese? (4)

OK STILL CAN'T GET THIS ONE

Four letter word for a kind of cheese, ending in E.

I didn't get it either, needed the answer key because the first and third letters were unchecked, and the second linked to a phrase I had never heard of (Breeches Buoy) so I didn't get that either.

can think of a cheese but not the pipe connection. there's a briar pipe, not brier...

That's it, but I assumed brier was an alternate British spelling!

briar [entry 2] | brier | briar pipe
a tobacco pipe made from woody nodules borne at ground level by a large woody plant of the heather family. | the tree heath, which bears the nodules ... (27 of 55 words, 2 definitions,

ok i should rely on proper dictionaries not just google searches

Sir Alec, above, I think case is just an extra indicator that 'eg' is being contained.

Guardian/Al has good list of irritations this week.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/crossword-blog/2012/dec/20/crossword-roundup-clues-you-hate
Think we've covered most of them (cricket), but cosign on boy/girl especially.

Lex, I looked at The Guardian. The "ham" clue actually starts "A drink served..." That A is there for a reason.

Your pipe isn't quite full, so how about a little cheese? (4)

lol i went for a run (going for a run with a fiendish cryptic crossword makes you run really fast! who knew) and all i came up with in that hour was the very tenuous THAT, which i justified along the lines of

cheese = old rubbish = tat (I KNOW it's tenuous)
how = h
put THAT in your pipe and smoke it

completely fucking wrong obviously

weirdly the very first cheese i thought of was BRIE but i couldn't see any link to the rest of the clue so i dismissed it. i've never heard of this "brie/ar pipe" thing

i thought long and hard about "brier" and nothing i've found indicates it's an acceptable variant for "briar" so clue guy can get tae fuck tbh

The OED lists "brier" as the main spelling even though most of the citations are for "briar".

Lex, you may not know the "rules" of crosswords but you are clearly a hell of a lot better at them than me and I do know some of the rules. Well, the ones which don't involve cricket or antiquated abbreviations never seen outside crosswords, which isn't very many of them.

i've got the hang of some rules but knowing the rules doesn't necessarily mean you get the answers :(

pretty proud of myself for completing about a third of today's grau prize crossword (so far) ON MY OWN!!! without the bf. i have literally no idea how 45a pertains to the clue though (only got it cuz i know my capitals).

Lex, you may not know the "rules" of crosswords but you are clearly a hell of a lot better at them than me

^

brier is some bullshit btw.

for real

god i desperately need to know whether am on completely wrong track w/r/t 14a

i like this clue!

Greek play, sly one, exposed layers of feminism (10)

I like it but at first I thought "play" was doing double duty because I hadn't seen "exposed" as an anagram indicator before, though I guess it works, etymologically.

Dunno if I'm on the right track with 14A as I haven't got anything crossing it, but I've got an opening letter from one word, 3 letters I haven't quite accounted for but might be a synonym of "with", a French translation for one of the words in the clue, and a colour, all meaning "smoothed over"

(Araucaria tends to play a bit fast and loose with accounting for all the bits in my experience so it's not always worth fussing over the smaller details for his crosswords. This is where I note for like the 60th time on this thread that I don't like his style as much as apparently everyone else does)

oh your 14a sounds MUCH more plausible than mine. why am i such an idiot, fixating on something obviously wrong for so long.

6a is doing my head in, i have an answer which is so plausible but it CAN'T end in that letter, it just can't!

(my 14a was SUPERFICIAL, i had no idea what the -FICIAL bit could possibly relate to, and i got the colour but couldn't think of a way to fit it in and oh god i am STUPID at these)