Welcome to The Clue Clinic – where people interested in solving or setting cryptic crosswords come to learn, sharpen their skills, and get expert guidance from experienced setters.
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What’s New
The PDF of the latest Gemelo puzzle is available at this link: Gemelo 50. Anagram Act • In order to solve each clue, solvers must act to unscramble a word that has been anagrammed; first letters of the de-anagrammed words explain what must fill the unclued entries The PDF of the latest Azed puzzle is available at this link: Azed 2,784 The September Digest is now published, with views, news…and a chance to give your opinion on the health of the cryptic The Forum is now available for discussion of all things crossword-related
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Latest Forum Topics/Posts
Thanks, Jay – a lapsus muris on my part, as my Latin master would probably have said if the relevant…
Very nice puzzle, superbly constructed I thought. Thanks as always for the blog, Doc (small point, ‘beans’ is underlined in…
Not exactly a single letter abbreviation in 34A, but hard to explain without giving too much away. This was my…
Thanks, David – duly corrected (and the rest double-checked). Unsurprisingly, Claude didn’t spot that one, since he didn’t have visibility…
Surely the anagrammed word in 1 down is “handouts” which provides the first letter of the solution?
Thanks, I failed to notice P2P was an abbreviation. your other double-numeral suggestions could work well, with one numeral in…
I’ve only seen it very rarely in crosswords without a preamble, most recently in a puzzle to celebrate a particular…
Hi, is there any precedence, apart from with special themes, for the use of ‘numeronyms’ in barred puzzles? Such as …
Yes, I’m sure that solvers would enjoy that version more. With these borderline indicators, the setter generally has to ask…
Thanks for the reference. It would have made an elegant (down) clue: Tar finally scraped up (4) though ‘peeled’ is…
RE: Cruciverbiana
I think "I've only got one clue left" is the one bit of dialogue I failed to take into account in my construction (must …
By Dave Williams , 1 day ago
RE: Cruciverbiana
Hi Skirwingle, and thank you. Since RC says "I've only got one clue left" but his checked letters are just the closin…
By Doctor Clue , 1 day ago
RE: Cruciverbiana
Skirwingle here 😊 Twm has just alerted me to the existence of this thread. Nice work: I like your solution of …
By Dave Williams , 2 days ago
RE: Cruciverbiana
Wait, what?! This is amazing work. I hope DW and others get to see it and it gets shared.
By Crossguesser , 1 week ago
RE: Cruciverbiana
Wonderful! But…there is a slight problem – Ronnie C's last entry is ??IT, which means that both the G and the R must b…
By Doctor Clue , 1 week ago
RE: Cruciverbiana
I love that someone's attempted this! An entertaining read from Skirwingle. And he did manage to produce a complete puzz…
By Doctor Cluelittle , 1 week ago
RE: Cruciverbiana
It's great. Dave Williams, aka Skirwingle in the crossword community, went above and beyond by trying to see if the cr…
By Crossguesser , 2 weeks ago
RE: Cruciverbiana
I cannot find the anecdote – perhaps I imagined it! When I searched for stories involving crossword setters and trains, …
By Doctor Clue , 2 weeks ago
RE: Cruciverbiana
I'm not familiar with that anecdote, but I can confirm there are quite a few instances of the same clue (a CD usually) r…
By Crossguesser , 4 weeks ago
RE: Cruciverbiana
There is a slight irony here, in that Roger Squires kept a card index system (initially set up by his sister-in-law) con…
By Doctor Clue , 4 weeks ago