Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Thanks to Picaroon for this week's Prize challenge.

I found this difficult, lacking the GK to quickly see the theme (no spoiler; clearly a themed puzzle), which only slowly became apparent. But great fun, with much ingenious and complex wordplay. And the theme was much less obscure (to me) than last week's ordeal. 🤣

FOI 16, not much success on first pass. Needed some short words to get a toehold. Didn't notice any straightforward anagrams.

No single COD: 12, 20 and 23 share the podium with 13, 15, 17, 25 and 27 also getting consideration.

LOI the grid was 21, but full parsing of 4 and the theme-defining (9,3) required considerable additional thought.

The grid is amenable to Ninas, but I didn't see any. A few solutions hinted at a pangram, but that didn't materialize either.

I’m not exactly an expert on 9,3 but I found this extremely enjoyable. The parsing of 4d eludes me. I can see some of it but if my answer is correct I’m struggling with where guy and match come into it.

7ac - swim across the channel is great!

Hi Geeker,

I also found this tricky and some of the parsing took quite a while to figure out.

That said, it was enjoyable and I enjoyed the theme, even if I needed Google to confirm that some of them belonged in this group - like 24a!

If you do get stuck there is at least one hidden in the acrosses.

COD - S many good clues but I'm going with 12a purely for the D'oh! moment when I realised the relation to 9,3:-)

Thanks to the ever-reliable Picaroon for another great puzzle.

Stay safe:-)

Hi Richard,

4d - "guy" is also a verb meaning "to ridicule, make fun of".

Ahh of course! I’d forgotten that meaning. Thanks.

Thanks Richard,

I was re-reading Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson recently and it shows why English lends itself so readily to crosswords and cryptics in particular. One word can have several wildly different meanings - "set", for example, has 430!

good fun with some excellent clues....particularly enjoyed 23 and the use of "moistens" in 12....many thanks Picaroon

I'm struggling. FOI was 13a, and I have several other themish solutions, but can't see what 9,3 will be yet! My best guess is a letter short for the first word.

Very tricky I thought but good fun. 9,3 and then finally 12, which depends on it, eluded me til the very end even having guessed the second word. Which proves you don’t need to have heard of 9,3 to complete the puzzle! Liked 7a and 23d

got it at last