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Cryptic crossword clues can be ingenious and witty, as this blog tries to explain. The blog tries to convey this owl's passion for the genre, but also to give a mini-tutorial on how cryptic crosswords clues are constructed.
Posted by Andy Brown on 26 May 2020
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The overall winner
Here are my winners in each category:
| Type of clue | Clue | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| Anagram | Travelling up mountain track, perhaps (11,4) | Punctuation mark |
| Construction | Woke in seaside resort, topless (5-2) | Right-on |
| Cryptic definition | Concluding part of Gettysburg address? (3,4) | Zip code |
| Double definition | Hand over drugs? (8) | Straight |
| &Lit | Cannot give decisions suffering this? (9,10) | Cognitive dissonance |
| Hidden clues | What's contained in chemical it must establish? (6,4) | Litmus test |
| Soundalike | Sound of discharging weapon (3) | Uzi |
It's really hard to choose a winner, as they're all such good clues! So I'm going to give a three-way tie for the best Times cryptic crossword clues of the last 30 months to Punctuation mark, Right-on and Cognitive dissonance, all of which are perfect clues.
Excellent though the above clues are, I don't think any of them are as good as the top two entries from my previous blog.