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

TIL that hidden messages as discussed above are called 'ninas' and are both fairly common and a longstanding tradtion: https://www.crosswordunclued.com/2009/10/what-is-nina.html

last clue i need in everyman xword from january

Draws a tableau originally with expanses of land (8)

a.t.a.t.

nothing in the standard mac /usr/share/dict/words that matches. all the letters are correct. looks like it'd be an anagram of 'a tableau' but...

a _ t _ a _ t _

attracts?

Yes

thanks for all your help 8)

(of course, it being an old puzzle i can just hit 'check this')

Well you got it!

But yeah A T tracts = draws

So have the guardian just stopped doing the big bank holiday weekend puzzles? There wasn’t one earlier this month but I assumed that was to do with the VE Day fuckery in some way. None again today - fuckers can keep begging for the price of a cup of coffee till they’re blue in the face afaic if they’re gonna serve me up a standard issue Paul grid in a fuckin lockdown 😤

I stopped caring when Araucaria died tbh :(

He was good but I’m not partic invested in the cult, plenty of inspired clues out there still. I have phases where I’m more or less into doing these but they are a good way to pass the time, especially now

Serbians detest commerce? At heart, I don't care. (4,2)

rude

Democrat gripped by hysteria prevalent everywhere (8)

Good one

From 2002!

Partly reveals orange loser in an election (4-3)

nice

Wild social do - put easy chair away (4,5,5)

Acid house party all night long

Hell yeah

apologies to fluent french speakers but a) i am not one and ii) this one came to me when i was half asleep:

'vous regrette rien, ne regrette pas' translated for a keepsake.

Wait, is this an anagram?! Gonna need number of words and their lengths, at least!

oops, was still half asleep at 9 this morning, or wishing i was anyway.

(8)

got it, nice!

I got the answer and I *think* I parsed it.

I thought Mondays were supposed to be gentle, but Vlad offered up this:

ROTTEN ROW
Shabby Italian rider’s content to go up bridle path (6,3)

A reversal (‘to go up ‘in a down light) of WORN (‘shabby’) plus dETTORi (Frankie, jockey, ‘Italian rider’) minus the outer letters (‘content’). Rotten Row is a bridle path in Hyde Park, London.

I'm supposed to know that "Italian rider" = some jockey I've never heard of, and then take the outside letters off that? GTFO

I'd never heard of Rotten Row either, but that's my shortcoming I guess.

Seems a little too indirect, but his wiki page seems to indicate he has been very popular in the UK for a long time, and he’s got an MBE.

With a clue like that the thing to do is focus on the definition. It can only be 'shabby' or 'bridle path'. A little research might have led you to Rotten Row, which you then have to retrofit around the other stuff.

For what it's worth I'd say Frankie Dettori is perhaps the most famous jockey in the UK and probably the only one that a lot of people (i.e. non horse racing fans) could name (myself included). The only other contender I can think of might be Lester Piggott. I'd never get a clue like that though.

My biggest problem is that it's a vague definition by one example. "Italian rider" doesn't denote "Dettori" any more than "New York slugger" would lead me to "Ruth" vs. say "A-Rod." Maybe it'd be more likely to a non-American? I do think the setter needed "ROTTE" to make the answer work and, as anagram says, retrofit the jockey in there.

Sorry all, I'm not *that* salty about it, but I was so close to completing a very difficult puzzle.

Rapper has blood transfusion for heart related thing (6)

lol

American here. So the bits and pieces clue "Brussels" = EU?

Yep, it's where the EU headquarters is.

Yeah, but that's sorta like "Washington" = USA. Just hadn't seen it before, filing with my knowledge of RA, AB and TT.

I guess it's referring to the governmental not geographical entity, which makes a bit more sense synecdoche-wise. Probably inspired by endless references to bonkers brussels bureaucrats in the tabloids.

I also had never seen "uppers" for broke either, but I think I learn a new British slang term every couple of days.

i'm brassic mate, i'm skint, i'm on me uppers. i can't even qualify for my pension.

Okay, brassic just blew my mind.

it threw me a bit the first few times i heard it irl. you're what?

Most posh wine shops getting into alcohol-free (8)

TOFFIEST. I actually got this one with a little guessing, but it cracked me up because both parts of the clue, plus the answer, are three things that an American who has never encountered a cryptic crossword would be flabbergasted by.

(narrator) I was still flabbergasted.

That is funny, but I although I could work out what “toffiest” means I’ve never heard it used. For that matter, I’ve never heard anyone say “toffy” meaning posh (or manifesting as posh). Toff, by all means.

https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.3906317085.6465/st,small,507x507-pad,600x600,f8f8f8.jpg

Doing cryptics every few days I encounter a new slang term I’ve never heard before. Today it’s budgie smuggler.

Pretty much universally understood here in Australia, expressions like this are what we have instead of culture (with apologies to our First Peoples)

Lots of them in this week’s Quiptic: clobber, beanfeast, browned off, as well as discovering that spaghetti on toast is a thing.

I would imagine it's mostly done with tinned spaghetti, similar to beans on toast (obviously i am far too well bred to have ever had such a thing myself).

That’s it exactly, looks particularly nauseating with SpaghettiOs.