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Yes, I tend to agree.

I remember when I first heard it on "Drop the Dead Donkey", I thought it was the greatest clue I'd ever heard - admittedly I hadn't yet started doing cryptic crosswords at that time but.........I still l🤪ve it!

Please fill me in on the history.

Hi Mathprofrockstar,

I'm not sure where the clue originated (I first heard it on an episode of Drop the Dead Donkey) but it's safe to say that id divides opinion. I've managed to dig this up on Google.......

No universally recognised name, but some call it "wordplay in the answer". The best-known example is the (unsound by Ximenean standards) clue: GEGS (9,4). Answer SCRAMBLED EGGS - wordplay on this occasion is of course an anagram. As the wordplay can be any kind, you have to classify it like &lit - a trick, on a different level to a list of tricks like anagram, charade, etc. --PeterBiddlecombe (talk) 11:14, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd never heard of "Drop the Dead Donkey" but I just looked it up, and I'm sorry I never saw it. Looks hilarious.

It was really very funny. The episode with the clue had the male news anchor, Henry, spending the entire episode trying to solve it. He got more and more frustrated as the day wore on, but was adamant that he wanted to work it out for himself rather than be told it. Then a motorcycle courier, who overheard Henry's frustrated and exasperated mutterings of "gegs, gegs!, gegs!!" says "Oh yeah, I did that earlier - it's ........" The show ended with an apoplectic Henry chasing the courier around town in a taxi cab.

Obviously it loses everything in translation but it was a great show and great gag (not geg!) that perfectly summed up the solver's frustration:-)

We have Araucaria to thank for GEGS

mathprofrockstar
Yes, Drop the dead donkey was hilarious, but it wouldn't repeat well as it relied a lot on topicality.

If memory serves, the Gegs clue must have been around 1969/70?
PS this is another one where amp;amp etc......appears in the title when you open it. Hmmmm.

Yes Granama, I’m also seeing the amp;amp thing. It’s weird.

I’m glad you can remember 1969, I was only three! ;)