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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) | Brighton |
| 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, Brighton 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.