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

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)

OMG 7d just UNLOCKS the entire thing

if anyone cares to explain

Quizmaster doctoring around hospital unknown (6)

go right ahead because i have the answer and absolutely no idea how it makes sense, none at all

Householder is French, carrying load (8)

^^THIS ONE'S GREAT

xp spin doctoring, h=hospital, x=unknown (algebra, y commonly used too)

First thought was 'doctor ring' ie anag of ring - that's a sneaky trick you see sometimes.

Except it would have to be 'doctor ing', ok, tired here.

rmde @ having to get "spin" from "doctoring"

in a bizarre twist I've worked out

Make a face and be sick — over here best? (3,4)

from the cryptic stuff but not the actual meaning - idgi. it MUST be this answer because i have all of the verticals...

I assume that (3,4) is the ----ing (4) on the --- (3) side of a boat (good for being seasick over) but it's not something that immediately came to mind until I had the letters

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cathys_photos/281097467/

Had not heard of the answer to "Beast (American) that doesn't go to sea (4)", I expect the pub quiz buffs know this stuff but I had to plug my guess into wikipedia

I assume that (3,4) is the ----ing (4) on the --- (3) side of a boat (good for being seasick over) but it's not something that immediately came to mind until I had the letters

FFS FFS FFS

right, i have come to some sort of impasse. i have the following yet to get:

6a, 17a, 20a, 40a, 46a, 47a, 49a
8d, 9d, 11d, 27d, 28d, 33d, 34d, 42d

HELLLPPPPP this is consuming me

oh yeah and 45a which i can't relate to the clue at all

8d comes is an old French phrase if that's any help

OK 45 across

"for good" = AY Retiring (going backwards) = YA

pupil = "L" for Learner

leaves English school = OUND(L)E

African capital = YAOUNDE

i got 46a by basically DESPERATELY READING A DICTIONARY and a few others fell into place after that - don't really understand 34d though

"for good" = AY

really?! i have never heard of "ay" being used like that. suspicious

never heard of oundle either

Oundle is a semi-famous public school

Ay = forever in Scots

cryptic crosswords giveth and taketh away. one minute you're feeling smug for having heard of lysistrata, the next it's all "i have never even HEARD OF that"

aha lysistrata, thanks

is "wick" some sort of obscure term for a thousand or something? wrt 6a

(yes i am still doing this goddamnit)

11d is one of those that makes perfect sense but i could have stared at that clue for a million years and never decoded it

Very little space for food — I thrash wildly about (5,7)

^^utterly baffled why this is what it has to be

I HAVE FINISHED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congrats!

indefinite number = n
repeated = twice
1000 = k
amateur = ham

other is anagram of "i thrash" with "bread" (food) in the middle

yeah i worked out the latter one, i'd got 30a slightly wrong. good clue! as opposed to "twickenham" which is just tortuous kmt

Both of the above are well into the "would never guess from the clue, can only find words that fit the letters and justify it from there" category for me. The anagram part of the bread one was obvious from the start but with 5 unknown letters missing I didn't get it until right near the end.

it was the second to last one i got - basically got it because the ___d_h ending is so rare, it pretty much had to be a t in there, and hey presto "breadth" and oh right HAIRS.

happy enough with brier but it's ye're language i spose

congrats lex, finishing a prize araucaria is not to be sniffed at. started this morning, did not shun the help of this thread and i've got three and a half of the bastards to go.

Increased production and went in to eat. (7)

I'll give you the checked letters, and see if you're as amused by their use of 'went' as I was!

S_E_D_P

haha, but how is that one word?

like i've never even seen it hyphenated

I've never seen it as one word either, but found it actually exists. A request to increase production (usually without an increase in pay) is a....

I quit experiment after difficult chores entailing many instruments (10)

Easy answer, but why am I not getting how 'I quit' works in this?

Tral = trial (experiment) minus I.

(the letter I has quit the word trial, in case that wasn't clear)

Ah, thanks! I think I suck the worst at the ones where I have to think of a synonym and then remove a letter. My mind doesn't work that way for some reason.