Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Prospero - ah, I see. Ridiculous.

I had, after buzzybee's tobacco reference, been trying to get those neighbours to fit 17/8 but without success - and, equally ironically, in 9a I thought crop must be what ended up (not as the "crop") to be the 4th, 5th and 6th letters ...

sorry to take up so much space ... but I think, if the instructions had said synonyms of numbers, one might have been more alert to the possibilities of 9a and 17/8. It specifically says homonyms - which they certainly ain't.

Which are the eight "Special clues"

Many thanks for the warm welcome. This puzzle had a nice idea for a theme but stretched it too far, I think. At least there are no ambiguities, unlike last month's!

Came late to this and am left with 3 queries:
is the 10th letter of 8d an N?
nudge appreciated for 20d. I have the two crossing letters and suspect it's a substitution going upwards, but can't get it at all.
17d - the first three letters are a substitution surely for the first four letters of the original answer. I can't see how it can be a "four letter word for caring with an i in it" - unless it's an American clinic?

I've got an R as the tenth letter of 8d, and a famous historical 'Red' for 20d... I wouldn't like to swear to either

the substitution in 17d is split... (Thanks to loge for that insight!)

Thank you very much loge! Impressive!

I don't have anything against splitting numbers. 20d was one of my first-one-in and I didn't mind the reversal either. But substituting numbers with other numeral vocabulary... I'm not too happy about that.

Re 9a, my interpretation of "case" was the exact opposite. I would have never guessed. And I've just learnt a new meaning of "crop".

As for 17,14,8 : I'm still parsing it, struggling with the numerical references and the extended anagram (I've only just read this morning's posts). But how misleading that the longer of the two neighbours ends up being the shorter in the grid!

17,14,8 all parsed now. How tricky.