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

unusually I was able to do some of Arachne yesterday. I enjoyed this clue:

Spooner's to kill writer and collect £200! (4, 2)

that was the one i felt most close to getting, but...nope, no idea

already got about a third of today's araucaria though :)

think of a certain board game

spoilers (written backwards)

(eoP saG)

I got that one! Unlike all others posted here recently :(

Todays newbie report:

Can't tell you how long it took me to understand "If this place grew corn, it might be a good sign" (5) even after I had the answer. Way too long. Sometimes punny/jokey solutions just lose me. Alas and alack.

Also, the only way I have ever heard that phrase is as I just typed it. "Alack and alas" is not a thing, is it?

google says "alack and alas" is more popular, which confirms what i kind of felt

Following the recent Beyonce ref, another one for Lex in today's Guardian (took a while to realise how good this one is):

In foyer, a chair - American diva's reclining, is she? (6,5)

that's gotta take some chutzpah to even think about trying to make any kind of hidden word out of such a combination of letters.

got it but not sure I get it completely

'In'=hidden word, 'reclining'=backwards, 'she'=definition (ie american diva).

Cheers

Oh, that's nice.

heh, i got that one immediately. it perfectly captures her essence, too <3

Her essence is a person who LOVES dolphins iirc, don't see that in the clue...

may have back-combed hair and love for american diva (6,5)

yeah yeah 'have' should be 'has' for the clue reading to work, just messin' here.

american diva might be full of love after back-combing hair

not a patch on 'foyer a chair american' i know.

that's all-time

this was in the grauniad the other day, there are (at least) two answers that work perfectly, we put the wrong one in.

Stick that's split (6)

that one fucked up our solving process for the longest time because the answer was so obviously BRANCH except it wasn't >:(

cleave?

wd be my first thought because it's one of those words with oppositional meanings

yeah it was extra-annoying when we realised because cleave is one of my all-time fav words for that exact reason

yeah it's an old chestnut, but obv when we thought 'branch' we didn't think on it any further.

so which meaning does 'cleavage' come from?

"split", obv

yeah it's an old chestnut, but obv when we thought 'branch' we didn't think on it any further

but if you're stuck on the connecting words b/c you can't make the letters fit then you should always revisit the one you think you've got right.

A few I've come up with that probably break some setters' rules or other but they make sense to me:

masturbate, half-mad for goddess (6)
no more cold (6)
lower ground for one such as Merkel (9)

need help

in the meantime

Hear cry of admonishment after paedo Jimmy exposes sausage (7)

A+

I don't really know how to help! I'll put up the answers in a bit.

just give us some letters

"i'll have a P please bob"

Oh yeah, haha. It's early. Here goes:
1. _ RI _ _ _
2. _ U _ _ _ _
3. _ A _ _ _ _ _ E _

the first one's Frigga i guess. had it when you posted it but not sure why

obv i get the "frig" part

"GA" half of GAGA?

Exactly.

Is the third one "Hamburger" (ground-up cow, i.e. something that lows)?

oh man that is evil!

vg

Haha, was completely thinking Una Merkel!

BTW, I encountered this recently:

Use and reuse pieces of souvenir, eating deer perhaps? (14) Although I eventually solved what appeared to be a made-up word, this was my first experience with a "letter-bank" clue. More below:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/172926/going-bank#

"hamburger" is tremendous, kudos.

i do not think i like the letter-bank, but i am wildly conservative so

Take it to the politics thread sonny

> Use and reuse pieces of souvenir, eating deer perhaps? (14)

venison... and a bit more?

Yep. It was the bit more that threw me for the longest time as I tried to have venison eat, or surround, another word, which wasn't right. Answer is in that Nation hyperlink.

Woah. Never seen a letter-bank clue before ot a fan on the whole but this is brilliant: Snatch, using every element as needed in whatever way possible (5-2-5-3)

*and not

remaining clue of mine:

_ U _ _ E _

Summer?

_ UM _ E _

can I apologise in advance for this one btw