Chambers Everyman Crosswords

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The puzzle was fairly tricky to solve but, as always with the Azed Competition entrants also have to compose a clue of their own. The views presented here are personal and not necessarily those of my employer (or anyone else for that matter). Everyman 4027 6D (4,3) Languish with idiot having assembled something for pasta sauce : -I-E / -U- 15D Not finishing various starters of Italian endivea, dressed like some tomatoes (3,5)S-N/-R-E- thanks in.

Re DRESSING ROOM, I was under the impression that the “board” half of “bed and board” referred to the meals, not the room. I still have no idea how 10a is parsed - I can see the definition but have no idea how it's derived from "top spy"!

I thought perhaps he LUSTed OVER RAG (matches all the crossers) but didn’t see how that went with blowing a fuse. When I came back to cryptic crosswords again recently after a long hiatus, I started doing the daily puzzles in the Guardian. It seems like this must be one of those things that shows up repeatedly in cryptics, but if so I’ve never seen it (or, just as likely, have seen it and forgotten). I stopped for a while when I was at Sussex, as I switched to the Independent whose prize crossword yielded a steady stream of dictionaries. I send my very best wishes to Colin Gumbrell at this time, as I’m sure do crossword enthusiasts everywhere.

By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. Everyman 4029 23a Bizarrely, some cheer tabloid (a number) (4,5,3,3) I thought it might be an anagram but perhaps not. Down clues were `normal’, which helped a lot in providing checked lights to help in solving the trickier across clues. Guardian daily puzzles are quite heterogeneous in both style and difficulty, because there are many different setters. TOFU doesn’t taste of anything much and only really becomes edible with drying out and lots of flavouring.I’m not sure if this one was trickier or just more lateral thinking required – either way a fun time was had by me. My moan at 6dn about the fact that it’s a CD is a voice crying in the wilderness: lots of people, including some good setters, like them. I couldn’t work out the link to 2D for ERNE – it had to be that from the crossers and definition…so thanks for the explanation(s) above.

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Incidentally, Colin Gumbrell also sets the Antico puzzle in The Oldie, a very enjoyable thematic puzzle that I do every month. As an American, I was unfamiliar with the expression LOSE ONE’S RAG, but I did know what happened with the Sun, so I was able to guess it. I actually knew LESOTHO is a monarchy, so that went in easily and parsed UNHINGED the same way as KVa, after squinting at it several times. I did find quite a few clues that were a bit loose with the “rules” of cryptic clues as I understand them: either the definition wasn’t quite accurate, or the cryptic grammar wasn’t quite right.