As if to prove that Sudoku really does appear everywhere these day, it’s even made its way into cryptic crosswords. If you don’t know what I’m on about, have a look at the 6 unchecked letters that go horizontally through the middle of the grid.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | (USED)* in PO – using the old flow-er=river trick. |
| 5 | “CUEING” – what you do at snooker (or pool) tables. |
| 9 | RAM in PASTI(ES) |
| 10 | CU(R)BING – I spent far too long trying to work out what the connection was between 3 (Down) and 27 (Across). There was none, obviously. To make 3 27, you have to cube it. |
| 11 | (D BEER)*,G |
| 14 | (AT GOD JENKINS)* |
| 22 | reversed and hidden in “briDES UNUsually” |
| 25 | SENT(I)ENCE |
| 26 | (BATTERY)*,E |
| Down | |
| 2 | S,HANDY |
| 3 | (READS UNTRUE)* – UNTREASURED was new to me and seemed a bit unlikely when I stumbled into it. Also spent some time thinking that “plundered” might be the anagram indicator but (LOOT SOMEHOW)* didn’t look very promising. |
| 4 | (EGO ANDREA)* – very well hidden definition of “squash”. Again, my first thought was “upset” as the anagram indicator and (ANDREA ALL) as the fodder. |
| 5 | ETE in QUID |
| 6 | EMCEE – if this is right (at the time of writing I haven’t seen the solution) then I don’t know why. |
| 8 | NUN,C,HAK,U – difficult-ish word, straightforward-ish wordplay. |
| 13 | RIJKSMUSEUM – pretty tough as the clue is a cryptic definition so there’s no wordplay as such to help you out. I had R?J?… which seemed an unlikely English word. Can’t remember how I got the answer but I’m sure Google had a hand in it somewhere. |
| 15 | (CANNOT RUL(-e))* |
| 21 | M(ilk)Y,WAY – excellent clue with a great surface. |
6D Compère regularly ordered by head of Entertainment?
Even letters of CoMpErE after the E of Entertainment gives a compère
We also had a homophone for sudokuing at 1 and 5 across. Any other sudoku stuff in there?
6D – EMCEE is correct, means “Master of Ceremonies” commonly known as MC in other words a compere