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

there was another great clue in today's Graun:

Let's take most of Harrison Ford's fantastic film (7, 2, 3, 4, 3)

I don’t think I’ll ever understand what ximenean means because I don’t see anything remotely cheaty about the jimmy carr clue

I looked up the Jimmy Carr one. I'll forever be a newb at these but what part hints at the meaning of the answer?

I was doing what i always do which is madly guessing the word then trying to retcon the clue.

oh nm I see it now

one day i will understand a single cryptic crossword clue

> I looked up the Jimmy Carr one. I'll forever be a newb at these but what part hints at the meaning of the answer?

SPOILERS

With the Jimmy Carr one, "Carr with offshore banking" contribute letters to the answer and "primarily fiddled" tells you how to get and what to do with those letters which leaves "Jimmy" as the definition. Then you just have to rely on your knowledge of Victorian criminal slang 8)

I don’t think I’ll ever understand what ximenean means because I don’t see anything remotely cheaty about the jimmy carr clue

Well it's the worst kind of old-fashioned prescriptivist pedanticism which even i rmde at; but although the words are in the right order, Carr, with offshore banking, primarily can't really mean carr & wob. The second comma is the problem - Carr, with offshore banking primarily, would be ok, and more or less leave the surface reading intact.

Let's take most of Harrison Ford's fantastic film (7, 2, 3, 4, 3)

some kind of anag, 'something of the something something', need letters!

ok duh

p great I think

agreed!

is it not just the name of a very famous movie he was in

i mean

It's an anagram tho

is it?

of what

and i mean i can see it kinda is if you dont mind it kinda being one

but i mean rly

sorry for disappointing clue

SPOILER

let's take harriso ford

It's a cryptic clue. If the clue was just "Harrison Ford film" then it would be a quick clue. The clever thing is that the definition is just "film"

its imo a copout clue

(i know what a cryptic clue is btw)

It’s perfectly cromulent and very good

in what way is it a copout?

xp

some of, part of, most of are lazy anagrams

nb yes i recognise the irony here

koogs yeah I got everything on that one except Jimmy being the definition. It did dawn on me eventually.

“Most of” to mean “all but the last letter” is standard wordplay that nobody would balk at if it were just part of the construction of the word, using it to get anagram fodder is acceptable because you can have more than one kind of wordplay in a cryptic clue.

Also if you see that you can get “raiders of the lost ark” from “let’s take Harrison Ford” with the simple addition of the word “most”, you take the damn shot; that’s not lazy, that’s elegant

one of my objections is that the clue is a simplex one, the anagram (or if i prefer, pseudoanagram) is mere reverse-engineering merely to suit requirements

lookit thats long enough on the subject im glad everyone else enjoyed it

Fuck usefulness - what’s the use in it? (8)

i have no idea where to begin, but, letters?

futility

all the letters, sure, that'll do.

inspired by real life events:

Place where they stockpile organs (9)

(spoilers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alder_Hey_organs_scandal although it's in the news again today)

cold

lol

This week’s prize had “dollar” as a clue for the letter S which doesn’t seem quite kosher but whatever

Mainly I came here to note that the wasteperson who’s doing the Monday xwords lately is fucking dreadful and almost makes me pine for rufus RIP. Just a load of dumb pure cryptic clues (or whatever they’re called) that are both basic and sloppy - there was one that was “put a sock in it (4)” and the answer was SHOE. That’s like a “cryptic clue” a 10 year old would come up with!

Why would 'Slaughter in the theatre' be "BLOODSHED"?

operating theatre? pretty weak.

Unless there’s some clever thing I’m not seeing that clue makes no sense

I made this one up this morning:

Nora is in bra, nervously holding breakfast. (6,4)

raisin bran®

Head chef is a knob (4)

Man, I got nothin' on that one.

Boss, possibly?

correct. it's legit, right?

Is it a triple definition?

yep.

Where does chef come in?

it's french for chief. maybe a little sneaky...

The nit I’d pick there is that two of the definitions are essentially the same. I’d have kept it simple and gone with “knob head (4)”

good to see a thread revive here. A nice clue in today's Guardian:

All welcome here, but we have not decided on kind of dance music (4, 5)

ha i was trying to parse acid house for a while there

Got one in the Saturday Guardian for the first time today

Keep your chin up to apply warpaint (3,2,1,5,4)

put on a happy face

saw this one in a 'history of crosswords' book i have -- it's not hard but it has a clue i hadn't seen before:

British flee in all directions, to town in part of Canada (3, 9)

Brave face surely