Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Loge, you are spot on with the parsing. The italics are significant.

Thanks, Quisling. This was one of the few clues I hadn't solved before I got a foothold in the grid. I does mean "and" in certain Slavic languages but I don't think even the Listener would expect a knowledge of Russian and Czech!

I need to be careful what I say, but I do feel people have a tendency to look for, or try to justify, things that are not there. From 20 years’ experience, 99.9% of parsings are supported by the BRB unless indicated in the preamble. That would be two clues a year that aren’t. And that’s probably an overestimate

You're right Loge,

Ginge has already parsed it properly and for me and it's exactly the same as yours. I'd convinced myself it was 1 as a logic gate and that's why it was in italics - it's amazing how even he most ludicrous parsings can appear to make sense when you're desperate 😜

Yes, I spent some time on the logic gate too!

Thanks Loge, I appreciate that:-)

I thought it was a rather clever clue once I figured out the parsing.

Crikey! I'm so confused.
Can someone collate all that discussion into how I figure out the word I need?!
Brendan yes I assumed it would clash, trying to solve my remaining long ones.

Oh hold on, I think I have it! Now to figure out where to put it.

Abicoop, the definition is "imaginative qualities". Word play is:
"are old-fashioned and singular" = old-fashioned form of "are" along with the singular form of "are" (basically, different forms of the verb "to be" - and this gives ART (as in thou art) + IS
Then "efforts" defines the rest of the wordplay (plural of TRY)
So ART IS TRIES