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

Ha. I put it in anyway with the 'a', even though it didn't show up as an alternate spelling anywhere. Got about halfway through before losing steam, can't be arsed to go looking up obscure [redacted theme spoiler].

I'm determined but yeah, I keep working out the themed ones & going "is that a thing?" & having to check. One of them doesn't even show up on the 1st page of google, so I thought I'd got it wrong!

gonna put this one to bed

fuckboys incapacitated as per Spooner (8)

― sexpost TMIing! (wins), Wednesday, 18 March 2015 23:48 (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

-a--e-e-

If you want to share the F: "Sweet donkey (4)" answer should you have it I wd be very grateful...

all I could come up with for that was "fool", which is unsatisfactory. Still struggling with the grid, I've started filling in a couple of places but it's like pulling teeth

yeah not perfect though it could well be. If that's right I will have all the 4 letter words, which is a big help, so thanks!

it's weak but satisfactory, both clue words are definitions if it's correct

M: Two months acting (7) I think I have, but can't see why. It's a thematic answer. Wins? Anyone?

we finished the easter crossword though I can't parse the D or G themed answers for the life of me. had a better time with it than some others of late. I'm rarely motivated to fit the answers into the grid, luckily my bf cares about that sort of thing.

Neil - that M is one of the annoying ones where one of the words in the clue is randomly abbreviated to its initial

"fool" seemed pretty obvious to me? donkey/idiot, dessert/fool

yeah it's two months plus "a" - I assume that this is from abbreviated job titles, eg "AD" for "acting director"? Seems tenuous to me. My rule of thumb w/abbrevs is that they should be in the dictionary, like if you look up a (abbrev.) in a decent dictionary & it says acting then fair enough. I'd also make exceptions for commonly used internet slang abbrevs & the like

I don't really like this puzzle at all tbh, might give up

fuckboys incapacitated as per Spooner (8)

― sexpost TMIing! (wins), Wednesday, 18 March 2015 23:48 (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

-a-teme-

[Paxman "come on!"]

the G one is pretty neat I think [SPOILERS] think Hunter S Thompson. The D is very confused I, unhelpfully over-clued.

so many are tortuously constructed, not elegant at all. The J one makes a mockery of "not further defined"!

Like don't do double-definition clues for this type of clueset, that's just stupid

Yeah given up on this bollocks, doing today's Paul instead & will be petitioning for the immediate dismissal of "maskerade"

Mine was "wastemen" btw

thanks i was too hungover to get that

am too hungover rather

"mays twen"? Am I being thick here or what.

Maced when

yes, iow.

I didn't think that was that difficult but I am very smug at how I took advantage of the "as" in "as per" being redundant

back to my usual level post-bank hol: on the paul crossword full of the mysterious affairs/places i managed to get a meagre seven clues and have literally no ideas about any of the rest :((((

then again i've ONLY JUST got "maced when" despite having actually read that post yesterday

Mysterious affair, yeti? Mysterious place (4,5-3)

This is out and out cheating, imo.

Rot13 nern svsgl bar if you can't be bothered.

Yeah, that's too clever by half.

yeah that's a foul imo

Happy to give a pass sometimes e.g. for the ungrammatical solution to araucaria's "a y is one also" (axis) because lol cuet. But not here.

groan

21 US president, a two-dimensional pussy (8)

a couple of nice ones in today's Graun:

Stage a coup? Balls might (9)
Tree-hugger repeatedly getting Sturgeon's vote? (3-3)

more cheating for ledge to enjoy:

December 25th but not April 5th or July 3rd? (4)

it's taken me two days to think of two four letter words for christmas, one of them is more promising than the other but i can't justify it, cheating or otherwise.

Noel. No-el.

Don't fight it.

Shoots self

Right? That question mark is being made to work overtime. "L" rendered as a word is "ell"! Any dictionary will tell you that.

That doesn't bother me next to my inability to think of three four letter words for Christmas.

my objection to that is, why is "l" clued twice? why do we need july 3rd there at all? i dislike inefficient cluing almost as much as archaic slang.

This one, for being an Everyman, I could not parse for the life of me, even after I figured out the answer:

Doctor with obligations guarding against inducements (7)

inducements are IOUs

docious? doesn't really mean what the clue says tho

If you want hints, it involves a medical abbreviation I've never seen before, and another for "against" that I have seen but it just wasn't registering.

drivers?

MOTIVES

yeah, you see MO for doctor occasionally, short for "medical officer" iirc

MO was new to me, and I just wasn't getting the V either. Totally fair once I saw the solution, though.

Speaking of Everyman, the new one is vexing me greatly. I just can't parse most of these, I only have one answer so far. 13 and 14 letter words, really?

On 3578 I got one 3-letter word.

Doing slightly better this week, but only slightly.

I finished 3578, although didn't understand the MOTIVES clue above. 3579 is the one I'm on, and I only have 9 down. I think I read they changed setters?