Guardian 29,647 by Imogen

96 comments on “Guardian 29,647 by Imogen”

1. STABLEMATE
   STALEMATE (draw)—work in B (black)—->STABLEMATE

   Thanks Imogen and PeterO

2. Kids play dress-ups, but who does cosplay — new one on me. So, only 3 acrosses first sweep, but then some downs came a bit quicker and it wove itself together in under the hour, so that’ll be minutes for the speedsters. Enjoyed it, ta Im and Peter.

3. Found this quite hard, as usual for Imogen.

   I’m not sure if the logic quite works for ALL FOURS, since isn’t a boundary equal to 4 (or 6) runs? Even if no actual running occurred? Happy to be enlightened.

   Also really confused about 24a GEEK. If something is “all Greek to me”, as Peter suggests, it could be almost anything unfamiliar, not necessarily an alphabet. And I would guess that the Greek alphabet itself is not unfamiliar to a lot of us here. And what is the word “one” doing? Sorry, it must be me.

4. GEEK
   for one, writing=R (as the blog says, one of the three R’s).

   STABLEMATE
   The cryptic reading becomes: Working B in STALEMATE.

5. Thanks, PeterO, for APPENDICES, FRAILTY, GEEK.

   1d I am pleased to see the adoption of “some say” rather than just “say” – I wish Paul would adopt this convention. Speaking of whom, EDGY, CHEEKY and possibly POSY are Pauline.

   Thanks also Imogen for a pleasant work out

6. I finished the puzzle but was missing four of the word plays, so thank you PeterO for the explanations. I thought the puzzle was more difficult than prior Imogen puzzles. I don’t remember struggling with them in the past but this one provided quite a challenge for me.

7. Well done PeterO.
   WIN NOW press home one’s advantage? I get it, sortakinda.

   Strange that I haven’t seen (or don’t remember) Knight abbreviated to KT in cryptics. I’ve learned here the N in chess, always on the lookout for that, but not this time.

   So POSY rarely was a variant? I’ll remember that next time. Did my head in trying to parse it.

   Liked CLEAVE, NO FEAR and GOON.

8. CLEAVE chop/separate and stick, a contronym.
   [Chopsticks was the only bit on the piano I ever learned, oh and Glen Miller’s In the Mood. That dates me. The best thing about the piano block at my boarding school was you could hide there and read a book to escape walking up the hill in the Australian sun, in a nylon dress and stockings, with patent leather shoes, and no breakfast until you came back from Communion. I did master/ms the art of eating Chinese food with chopsticks though. )

9. Sorry to hear that our reliable blogger PeterO had trouble formatting this one. A helpful blog nevertheless. A bit of a slog for me in places but some high points like 17a FRAILTY made it worthwhile. 24d GOON, my LOI, made me LOL! Thanks to Imogen and PeterO. [Loved your memories of your Australian Catholic schooldays and music lessons, paddymelon@8.]

10. This puzzle raises an intriguing question for me: if a past setter has come up with a clue that enters cruciverbal folklore, to what extent can it be used again? Will we ever see Rufus’s ‘Rovers Return’ clued again as ‘Bar of soap?’ That was my query on encountering ‘Chopstick’ = CLEAVE: such a well-known Rufus clue, it was even referred to in the subsequent interview between the setter and the editor. On the one hand, it is a shame to lose it but, on the other, for those who do know of it, it’s a write in that, even if Imogen dreamed it up from scratch, still smacks of another setter.

    Quite a few for which I needed the blog today and some I still don’t understand even with it. I parsed STABLEMATE as KVa.

    Thanks Imogen and PeterO.

11. Thanks PeterO for a few that I couldn’t parse. If you are right about POSY, shouldn’t it have an indicator of a ‘soundalike’? I’m still puzzled by STABLEMATE even with KVa’s helpful explanation (so that I am no longer trying to figure out why T = working). The ‘in’ seems to be in the wrong place.

    Grantinfreo@2 COSPLAY is originally a Japanese portmanteau borrowing from English ‘costume’ and ‘play’. Like many Japanese loan words, it is incomprehensible to native speakers of the language it is borrowed from (e.g. losubooru = lost ball = second hand golf ball recovered from a golf course and for resale), but it is in pretty common useage in English now.

    Thanks Imogen.

12. Thanks PostMark @10 for your thoughtful post. When I’m setting clues I often look at previous clues for the same word, because I find that it often throws up inspiration for a better minor variation of a clue, or also a completely different, novel take on the word. Of course a clue like Chopsticks for CLEAVAGE didn’t raise warning bells for me because although I’d heard of Rufus, he was before my time (in me doing Grauniad puzzles at least), but even a lot of people who were familiar with him would not have remembered that particular clue. I’m amazed at Roz’s (on here) ability to remember clues, words etc. which allows her to fill in Azed without help while I have to thumb through the dictionary to confirm words.
    I enjoyed CLEAVAGE despite it not being a very Ximenean clue.

13. [Actually JiA@9, it was non-denominational, in Queensland, pretty low-key. 🙂 )

14. Dr Whatson @3. ‘… involving no runs?’
    Does the question mark imply the batter didn’t run during his innings?

15. Twenty Eight Clues in Search of an Editor

16. Thanks Imogen and PeterO
    I needed parsings for APPENDICES and STABLEMATE. Favourite VINDALOO.
    PDM@7 When I started playing chess, Kt was used as the symbol for “knight” (K was “king”). I was a bit surprised when I came back to the game and found it was now N.

17. I found this tough to parse. After much head scratching I got there with everything but STABLEMATE, l just couldn’t get past SABLE. Thanks to Imogen for the challenge. Also thanks to PeterO for the blog and KVa @4 for the extra help.

    My favourites were APPENDICES for the construction, FRAILTY for the surface, GOON and COSPLAY, for making me smile, and NO FEAR because it took me ages to spot the anagram – I thought it was a cryptic definition.

    LOI was GEEK because I don’t think of geeks as creepy.

    grantinfreo @2, to add to Paul @11’s explanation of COSPLAY, it’s a big thing at fan conventions. Think Harry Potter, Star Trek, comic book characters etc. There are lots of pictures on Google images. I rather like the effort involved.

    PM @10, CLEAVE was new to me.[The recent debate on this type of clue was neatly avoided by PeterO’s explanation. I think this is what Roz would now describe as fission.]

18. Imogen is doing far more punning clues as both Vlad and Imogen, which are either your thing, or not.

    There are lots of Comicon and other conventions at the Excel in London – with loads of COSPLAY on show. One of the places I worked was near there and Fridays after work drink was worth it just to watch the COSPLAY costumes.

    Thank you to Imogen and PeterO

19. I suppose “working in” as an inclusion indicator is like working in the butter to make pastry. Clever misdirection or a bit mean? Nice penny drop moments with PPE and FRAILTY.

20. 6d ANTI-SOVIET, suffer/suffers, Imogen seems to have abandoned making a distinction between surface and cryptic grammar. I think the example in 13d is worse (get/gets) because there is not even the excuse that 6d’s anagram has multiple words in the fodder.
    17a FRAILTY, several problems with this: didn’t know the quote, my problem. Two inappropriate a’s. Frailty means (state of) weakness, not a weakness. And it is not ‘a woman’s name’. Actually, is it even ‘woman’s name’? The quote says woman is frailty’s name.
    Difficult to spot any difference between Vulcan and Imogen.

21. Not my day. Several reveals, including ALL FOURS, VINDALOO, FRAILTY and APPENDICES. Another here stuck on SABLE for STABLEMATE. I also tried STAN for the creepy obsessive, imagining a parsing involving STANZA (writing) minus ZA (maybe the alphabet backwards?) Wrong, anyway.

    If you’re a child who enjoys dressing up as a superhero, that’s fine, but if you’re still doing it once you’re an adult, you have to call it COSPLAY.

22. I took the “rarely pretentious” bit in POSY literally, as for me a posy is a little, unpretentious, probably hand-gathered bunch as opposed to the elaborate and expensive confections you get from the florist.
    Chambers says “a little bunch of flowers”

23. What is “creepy” doing in the clue for GEEK? I just don’t get it. Much of this was a mystery to me and remains so even after the blog! Filled in a lot of it but mostly unsatisfying blind guesses. Thanks Imogen and PeterO.

24. @18 – Imogen is not Vlad. You’re thinking of Vulcan

25. It always surprises me what alarming – and embarrassing – gaps there are in my GK. Until today I didn’t know that CASHMERE wool came from the fleece of a goat.
    Found this very tough towards the end, particularly in the top half. Too many tentatively pencil in from the crossers already in place and then reveal to confirm. And then come here for the unravelling of the parsing. Take a bow APPENDICES, FRAILTY, COSPLAY and CLEAVE as examples of this. VINDALOO got the biggest round of applause today. However, strictly a DNF as POSY finally defeated me…

26. Nice puzzle. I used to find Imogen’s puzzles really hard, but a little less so of late. Not sure if they’re getting easier or I’ve just ‘tuned in’ to her style. Thanks anyway!

27. A strange old mix for me with some delights and some I think were poorly constructed – and I see others here have had similar issues.

    There is a world of contrast for me between clues like “frailty” and “dorset”. In the latter, with crossers and the idea from the wordplay that “t” and “y” (or possibly “ay”) had to be swapped I could work back and then check there was a Jazz player called Dorsey. I couldn’t work forward because Jazz players are one of my “Bolivian poets” but I could both solve and parse the clue. With “frailty” I would not know where to look without the Shakespeare knowledge (and I’ve seen Hamlet 2 or 3 times and read it). So the clue remained a “shrug”.

    I agree the word order is sometimes confusing and that had me putting things the wrong way round a few times, but it usually made sense and that made for a fun challenge.

    However, I find the suggestion that a geek is creepy pretty insulting (I am certainly geeky, probably a nerd too), a twiner *makes* a turn, doesn’t “do” one and the cricket clue is totally wrong. In 50 odd years of playing and watching the game I’ve never heard “runs” used to mean the physical act of running. “All of his runs came from boundaries” would be a perfectly sensible thing to hear, not “he scored no runs in his lightning-quick 30”. For the surface, btw, as non-cricketers might not appreciate, a “rabbit” is a perjorative term for a very poor batter who comes in at the end of the innings. Once again, a bit of editing could have easily highlighted and improved these few niggles in an otherwise very enjoyable puzzle.

28. MuddyThinking @23, I had a good long geek at your post… 🙂 Chambers has….

    geek (N Am sl)
    noun
    1. A circus or carnival freak
    2. A strange or eccentric person, a creep or misfit
    3. Someone who is obsessively enthusiastic, esp about computers
    ORIGIN: British dialect geck a fool

    geekˈy adjective
    geek chic noun
    A casual fashion style considered typical of young technology enthusiasts

    geek (Aust informal)
    noun
    A look, esp a good long look

    ORIGIN: British dialect, a peep or peer

29. JofT@27: thank you for the explanation of rabbit. I had no idea what the poor thing was doing in the clue although I guessed the answer based on crossers alone and some kind of far fetched notion that a rabbit moves on all fours…which he doesn’t. As a fellow geek I also find the reference to creepy offensive and it completely threw me. I had GEEK as a possible answer but discounted it because of the “creepy” bit. FRAILTY was a blind guess and I had no idea how Shakespeare might be involved. As you say, there is no way to look it up as the clue has the woman/name reference reversed and is plain wrong. All in all a very unhappy experience today.

    Tim C @28: thank you for the Chambers reference. So I am a creep after all….😯

30. Thanks Imogen and PeterO

    SH @ 26 Imogen is a he, Richard Browne, former Crossword Editor of the Times.

31. Simon @26
    “Imogen” is actually a he.

    A more recent coinage for poor batsmen is “ferret” – a player who comes in after the rabbits.

32. Tim C @28: with reference to the Australian informal “long look” meaning of geek- growing up we used the word “goo” in the same way: “give us a goo at that book, it looks interesting.” I wonder are the words/meaning related?

33. This was a bit of a challenge. Thanks to KVa for explaining STABLEMATE – like several others I was stuck on SABLE. I really liked PENALTY for the cleverly disguised definition. GOON also got a tick.

    James @20: the grammar in 6d and 13d seems ok to me. The words “native is to” suffer, and the words “No ordinary people” get. (Even when the fodder is a single word, you could argue that the individual letters suffer or whatever.)

    Thanks to Imogen and PeterO.

34. For 14 I thought that the rabbit is clothed in furs and furs has no runs -o – in!

35. I don’t think that trimeter = a line of verse. Does it? A line can be written in trimeter, but is it trimeter?

36. I’m quite drawn to Thelma’s (#34) alt. parsing there, but I’ll plump for ALL FOURS as my CoD. Even though you can argue that such a non-aerial boundary does in fact constitute four runs.

    Please let me see, and soon, Arachne’s clue for frailty thy name is woman.

37. Thoroughly enjoyed this with ticks for TWINKLER, APPENDICES and ALL FOURS which is clearly a play on the dual sense of runs

    Chambers has FRAILTY as a noun meaning weakness

    Cheers P&I

38. Thelma @34: A brilliant parsing for those of us who know nothing about cricket! I’ll buy it…

39. Beaten again today and had to do quite a lot of revealing after halfway.

40. Paul @11 and PinB @17, I thought cosplay would turn out to be a thing, but had no idea about it. Thanks, ginf.

41. MT @32, here in West Oz the word gink was similar — give us a gink at that .. Haven’t heard it in 60-odd years.

42. Tough in places, fun in others.
    Like Paul@11, I couldn’t see what the T was doing in STABLEMATE; I agree with Blaise@22 on POSY, and I’m indebted to Joft@27 for the cricket info.
    As always with GK, one person’s huh?? is another’s easy-peasy: I could see what was happening with 25A, but had to DuckDuckGo jazz players till I found a name that worked. Hamlet, however, is familiar territory, so FRAILTY was a write-in (tho naming Shakespeare certainly helped!)
    Thank you PeterO for the explanations: CATKIN and TRIMETER were sheer guesses from the crossers, ditto GEEK – are they axiomatically creepy?
    Thanks to Imogen

43. Under the heading for “pose” Chambers has:
    ‘posey or (rare) posy…’
    Thanks to PeterO and Imogen.

44. Pauline in Brum @17, I confess I used to patronizingly think cosplay was a bit silly for adults until I took my son to a convention and completely reversed my opinion. I saw just how happy it made everybody – both those who had created costumes and those who admired them. The creativity and craft that goes into some of them is astonishing, and it’s escapist fun in a world badly in need of some of that.

45. I’m another one who’s confused about the ‘creepy” in 24A. I did wonder if there were a triple definition, but I can’t think of anything.
    For 23A I was looking at Mate thinking that’s a win, not a draw, when the back of my brain whispered a draw would be a stalemate and there was a crashing sound as the teatray hit my head.

46. A similar experience to many, some smiles (CLEAVE, which was unfamiliar to me), some frowns (FRAILTY). I failed to parse STABLEMATE but unlike several others I did not even get as far as SABLE, but in hindsight it is one of the best clues in today’s puzzle.

    I was also thrown by KT for knight; I have played chess since the early 1970s and never saw that before.

    I am though surprised to see no complaints about the GK required for GOON.

47. DCetc @ 35 from Chambers:

    “trimeter /trimˈi-tər/ (prosody)
    noun
    A line of verse of three measures (dipodies or feet)”

48. I enjoyed that one. It was witty. I couldn’t finish it. Those four letter words were beyond on. GOON is very good though. EDGY is also nicely clued. Whatever Chambers says GEEK is horrible and the clue convoluted, if you ask me, which you shouldn’t.

    I wasn’t so happy about the general knowledge element because you couldn’t realise what it was asking you to find out and look it up. It was too general, a jazz trombonist with a ‘y’ in their name; a Shakespeare quote about women — it’s one I knew, so it brought a smile, but it is a bit too binary to be fair.

    Thanks all

49. I think GEEK is a DBE indicated by “for one” in the wordplay? So Imogen makes it clear that not all geeks are creeps. Sigh of relief from me as someone who’s spent 30+ years in IT 🙂

50. Bodycheetah@49, I took the “for one” to be part of the wordplay for R, reading it as “one” of the 3 Rs.

51. I liked the wordplay in VINDALOO, where old boy wasn’t ob, STABLEMATE with it’s ‘working in (the) black’ – I originally thought draw was not mate and then followed a similar TTM to Eoink @45. I also enjoyed the good anagram for ANTI-SOVIET and the surface of 19 for PENALTY. My attempt at parsing of TWINKLER was a TINKLER (one doing a turn) round a round (doing double-duty) M, which of course is W!

    Thanks Imogen and PeterO.

52. I thought the misleading use of “runs” was clever. It seems that some solvers don’t want their cryptic clues to be cryptic!

53. James @20, Muddy @29 if you read “woman’s” as “woman is” in 17ac, then you get “A weakness for a woman is name in Shakespeare”. This implies that frailty is the item with the name.

54. Very enjoyable puzzle, even the tricky ones, but certainly not all parsed.
    So thank you PeterO, KVa and others for the blog and discussion, which I’ve found both helpful and interesting. I needed the blog to understand STABLEMATE, ‘rarely’ in POSY, PPE (nho) in APPENDICES, FRAILTY (lovely, clever clue, but I didn’t know the quote), CATKIN, GEEK.
    I did love CLEAVE, COSPLAY, VINDALOO, ALL FOURS, DORSET, GOON.
    Many thanks Imogen and PeterO.

55. Adrian @52, I can’t make up my mind. I liked it as a clue because of all the clever cricket references that had me haring about all over the shop. I was desperately thinking of tailenders and ducks and so on. Once I stopped being too clever by half, it was fairly easy and very witty.

    The problem is that if you smash the ball to the boundary, you have scored four runs . An innings of all fours certainly involves runs, even if there has been no running. ‘No runs’ doesn’t work as a cryptic definition of ‘fours’ it seems to me. I am a big fan of seasoning heavily for a good gag. So overall I am a fan of the clue, even if it isn’t my favourite today.

56. I think Adrian @52 is exactly right. It’s a good clue because the solver will probably first think “hang on, he’ll have loads of runs!” before realising it’s not that kind of run we need – it’s the non-cricket meaning of any journey completed by running, of which there could (but not necessarily – hence the question mark) be none in an innings of “all fours”. The clue suggests someone never leaving the crease, just repeatedly whacking the ball to the boundary, Inzamam-like.

57. Re 25a. Spent ages trying to work in Kid Ory a legend of a jazz trombonist. Always regarded the Dorsey brothers as band leaders playing dance music. But fairdos Dorsey did swing!

58. Maybe Imogen should have used Imodium to clue “no runs” but then we’d probably complain about loose clueing 🙂

59. 14 ac: he could have used “No singles” instead of “no runs” and solved the problem.

60. Some satisfying clues but I was left a bit stumped by most of across clues in the NE corner.

    GOON and PENALTY were my favourites.

61. Thanks Herb @56. You are quite right. We have to leave cricket behind completely. Now I agree with Adrian. Inzi scored a lot of runs without ever going for a run, and not because he didn’t bowl. It is a really good clue.

62. Liked this, had no quibbles (of which there seems to more than usual today). Among the many meanings of GEEK is a ‘freak show’ performer who would bite the heads off live small animals – pretty creepy, surely. See here.

    See (hear) also Dylan’s ‘Ballad of a Thin Man‘ : You hand in your ticket/ And you go watch the geek …

    Thanks both

63. This wasn’t as tough as Imogen often is, and I know that because I was able to finish it. ALL FOURS is a fine clue unless one is setting out to find quibbles. VINDALOO was my favourite.

64. Thanks for the blog , pretty good overall and many neat clues but APPENDICES is so clumsy and ALL FOURS a compelling reason for setters to avoid cricket , in fact good advice for all humans . STABLEMATE and TWINKLER very neat .
    Pleased that CLEAVE has not re-ignited the Bra Wars , yes Pauline@17 , classic fission and nearly symmetrical .

65. 20a and 2d are my successes throughout today.

    I cannot see a way into any other clues.

    For example, how would I go about looking at 14a and 15a (utter gibberish to me!)?

66. Steffen@65 , 15AC two halves to this , think soldiers for the first halr and DIY for the second .

67. Steffen @65

    14a ALL FOURS I go this only late in the session; I can’t believe it would be possible without some crossing letters. I had the second L of ALL, guessed it might be ALL, which the checker confirmed. Rabbits to me go on all fours, and this explained the second part of the clue.

68. Roz@66 That explains the clue, but it doesn’t explain how you would arrive at these thoughts. Crossers were my means to solving this one, very late in the game.

    Steffan A word that ends E_ is frequently ED, so this sometime helps.

69. [ No-one has yet pointed out that a really bad batter is a ferret, because he goes in after the rabbits.]

70. Dave@68 ,Steffen does not want the answers or explanations , he could just look at the blog . He wants extra hints to help him solve .

71. Zoot @69
    See mine @31!

72. Cedric @57 I tried Ory first as well. I think if you asked the average jazz fan to name two dozen jazz trombonists the Sentimental Gentleman of Swing wouldn’t make the list.

73. Missed a few in the NE as I had chutney for 4d – it’s both a dressing (relish) and type of calypso, though couldn’t work out what ‘up’ was doing in the clue. Also couldn’t parse 10a and 23a, so thanks to you all for that.

74. Zoot @72
    George Chisholm was my first thought, though he didn’t take himself seriously.

75. [Ace @44, here’s to escapist fun 😎! ]

76. Thanks PeterO and Imogen.

    Jacob @ 46, I am happy to oblige- the Goons’ last show was 1972. Sellers died in 1980. I think the setters do need to be reminded occasionally that there are a few under-40s trying to get into cryptics.

77. Thank you guys, Roz & Dave. I’d like to say I got the clue from this but that would be a lie.

    Was this a hard puzzle?

78. muffin @71 Sorry, I missed that. I did scroll down rather quickly.
    I don’t think anyone has pointed out that there is such a thing as an all-run four.

79. Re COSPLAY. I used to play in a band that did a lot of 40s commemoration events, with people dressing up in appropriate costumes and uniforms. Some had outfits for all kinds of eras. It’s not just comic book fans.

80. 11a – could somebody please explain where ICES comes from? I don’t understand the explanation in the blog unfortunately.

81. Steffen @ 80. ICES is an American expression for killing someone, quite often heard in gangster films. Possibly because the victim will end up “on ice” in a morgue fridge?

82. Zoot @72. Nor mine, but being more attuned to post-1950 jazz, I was initially wresting with JJ Johnson, Jimmy Knepper, Bob Brookmeyer and even Grachan Moncur III, none of which got me anywhere. I had to dig deep into the archives for Tommy Dorsey.

83. Ty Niltac

84. Balfour@82 I was looking for bone players with a ‘y’. Forgot about Brookmeyer, a favourite of mine. Ken Wray was the only other one that came to mind.

85. Very brave calling a geek ‘creepy’ in a cryptic crossword. Many a spotty brow will have furrowed over that, including mine. Other than that.. thank you I&P 😊

86. I didn’t finish because of my self-imposed rule of not looking stuff up. For some reason my brain totally froze on the Hamlet quote – I could have Googled “thy name is woman” of course, but I would still have counted that an incompletion, so it makes no difference. 🤔😁

    I was quite pleased to have fully parsed STABLEMATE, so the old brain cells are not totally useless. I had WARY and AWRY as possibles for 2d, but no wordplay to make one from the other; fortunately EDGY became obvious once I’d worked out how the curry was put together.

    Thanks to Imogen and PeterO.

87. Dave J@76: and Shakespeare died in 1616. Most unfair. 😉

88. Im a bit late on here, but can anyone explain AY for always (in 19D penalty)?
    If this is an allowable standard then i don’t want to play any more.

89. Crackers@88 ‘ay’ is a poetic contraction of ‘always’, used eg by Robert Burns, definitely not worth resigning over 🙏

90. Thanks Hadrian.

91. “Geek” seems to be in transition between an older “creepy” meaning like the one quoted by beaulieu@62, and a recent, non-creepy meaning of a nerd or someone obsessed with technology. Imogen has clued the old meaning.

92. TT@87
    Not as unfair as a comparison between a very-much-of-its-time old comedy show and a titan of literature still taught in schools over 400 years later, surely? 😉

93. No one else concerned that 17 is backwards? The way Imogen clued it, the quote would be “Woman, thy name is frailty.”

94. Re POSEY vs POSY: I haven’t looked up any sources, but perhaps if POSEY is “pretentious” and POSY is a less common variant, then POSY is “rarely pretentious”.

95. Late to the party — sorry! I take it I am alone in having entered GEEZ (the Ethiopian alphabet) for 24a. It didn’t quite fit but neither did several others. 11a ICES killing for American? Still puzzled.

96. Solved all but six — not bad for an Imogen

    Re 14a ALL FOURS, I’m surprised that so many commenters are insisting on thinking literally about a cryptic crossword! Even I know that in cricket when a boundary is scored, no actual running takes place. It’s a cryptic/whimsical definition. Although I tend to agree with Roz@64 about cricket, I actually thought this was a pretty good clue!

    Revealing COSPLAY was a headdesk. Frustrating to be defeated by an anagram

    DINOSAUR, “diner saw”, the inversion of the pronounced/unpronounced R makes a homophone perfectly calculated to annoy rhotic speakers

    Loved 3d “Chopstick?” for CLEAVE, even if it’s a classic — new to me

    13d I had ALL THE ODDS (in your favour), which wrecked the crossers

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