Cryptic Crossword Clues

games
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(feel free to come up with a better title)

Anyway, inspired by finally trying (and completing, with only a little cheating) a cryptic crossword for the first time in ages, I figured it might make for a fun game here.

Compose puzzles here, or list favourites, maybe have a different thread for answers.

For starters, one from the Private Eye crossword I did earlier that I liked:

Princess-to-be stocks sulphur instead of carbon for pharmacist (9)

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I hate those, well maybe not hate, just get very frustrated with them to not stick with them enough to get good.

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I guess I should add something like this if I’m hoping people will try it.

I suck at them, but I used to work with a few people who were interested and we’d do the Times ones at lunchtime, and my mum’s good at the Telegraph one.

As far as I can tell, you need to learn the quirks of the person that compiles them, the phrases they like to use.

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Oh MrsTobinL loves them. I got a NYT puzzle subscription at xmas as I have come to love a regular crossword. But the cryptic ones not so much.

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Okay, I think the “sulphur instead of carbon” means I need to replace a “C” with an “S” somewhere… and I’m lost from there.

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Something to do with Cinderella or another fairytale prince’s bride? Cinders contain a lot of carbon and “Cinderella” starts with “C”, but I may be barking up the wrong tree there. I don’t think I’ve ever fully completed a cryptic crossword.

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The Nation crossword is a favorite in my household.

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@daneel

DISPENSER. I assume the clue is an old one?

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Nah, it was from the most recent one.

Now you have to come up with a clue. :smile:

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I can solve them, but setting them is almost beyond me.

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yeah, the only thing that comes to mind

bloody battle against southern friend.

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Nerpy!

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ANTIETAM

Just finished Harper’s September 2016 puzzle “Foursomes”!

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December 2016 Harper’s puzzle is hurting my brain, so that makes three ailing organs I have now. The theme is “replacements” so eight answers need altering before they can be entered in the diagram. I have most of the “straightforward” (i.e. no need to be altered) ones. Some I’m feeble-minded at, or don’t have a satisfactory lexicon for.

“Make like a Middle Eastern country, providing stickier development around university.” (9)
Thinking STICKIER+U.
Pattern: ?U??I???E
This is found only in the Oxford English Dictionary. I have the Concise one.
SOLVED!

“Scriptural experts in mistranslation get axe–it’s true!” (10)
Thinking: Anagram AXE+ITS+TRUE
Pattern: TEXT???IES (Textuaries?)
)
SOLVED! – thanks @daneel for confirmation

“There’s a lot of interest in these upper-class British–sure is sad” (7)
This entry’s initial is the fifth letter of the immediately above ten-letter clue
Pattern: U???IE?
SOLVED!

“Kitchen cleaner, pal, sick at heart” (6)
Thinking: BONAMI anagram
Pattern: ?/I???
first character probably a consonant. Fourth letter a consonant.

ETA 17 Nov: SOLVED! Sick at heart: ??ILL? Pal: BRO

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I’d say so.

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There’s a lot of interest - Usuries?

Upper-Class British is U (vs non-U?)

“Sure is” mixed up?

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Ta. Sometimes the initials run beyond one word. USURIES (U+“sad” SUREIS) gives me PRAOGUENOSIS for “Forecast: prisons go wild” (9) so this is a help for figuring out what the replacements are. I was trying to work out UB or UK.

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This is completely solved now. I never solve these in one go. Themed puzzles that sacrifice cohesion with intersecting entries make me feel slow-witted.

If I win a subscription I will deliver an issue with clean crossword grid to you after I read it.
If I win and move out of the country, I offer you enjoyment of the remainder of my subscription via change of address.

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Another month, another puzzle:

This one has a novel grid format. I could, and may, scan and present what I have so far. It’s not across and down.

CLUES

  1. Sets off to eat anything on board–it’s hardly fast food! (9)
    Pattern: ?S?A???S [ETA]ESCARGOTS - thanks @jerwin!

  2. It goes over the neck and another part of the face, but there’s nothing in it (5)
    (I want to put down ‘NOOSE’: over the neck; NO+(O)+SE; nothing in another part of the face. I don’t know what letters to put where because of how the grid is. Answer to #5 is going to help me loads)
    Answer: NOOSE. ESCARGOTS placed helped me direct NOOSE.

  3. “I’m fit to be tied!” (Sentence delivered just before getting applause)(7)
    [ETA]: BOWLINE Bow just before getting applause; Line, sentence delivered. Bowline is fit to be tied, because it’s a line that is knotted.

  4. Some Olympians (six hundred) reaching peaks (7)
    Pattern: VICTORS
    [ETA]: ESCARGOTS intersects. Six = VI, Hundred = C. I kept thinking DC for 600. Derp.

  5. Rest left behind? That’s very funny online (4)
    Pattern: L???

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1 is ESCARGOTS