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Grauniad crossword

rbrown

I think therefore I think I am
Stuck on 8 across. Clue:

Piece turned to compress two gases in forming diamond. 3-1-4

Letters I've got are:

_O_/I/_O_R

Any clever fishes got any ideas?

Cheers,

Rich
 
I get the diamond bit, but what's the rest of the clue about?

Rook backwards is the piece, with O, H and in inside it.

I won the Grauniad weekly crossword prize twice years ago but haven't done one in ages. Relieved to see I haven't yet gone totally gaga.
 
You remember all sorts of weird things from doing crosswords for a while. Like Manchester City is an anagram of synthetic cream.
 
I'm sure Usain Bolt is a anagram of something interesting too, but I can't remember what.

Or maybe it was something else altogether? Old age is such a PITA.
 
My favourite Grauniad clue was by the great Araucaria, one of my ultimate heroes - on a par with Mingus, Peter Walker and Robertson Davies. I urge you to read his Wikipedia entry if you don't know about him. Anyway, the clue is 'Cox at me (6,3,6)'.

Warning - if you Google it you get the answer.
 
Can anyone recommend a good cryptic crossword learners guide? I know a part of it getting to know the setters style, but there must be certain conventions to follow.
 
I love them and find them addictive and fascinating. As for a guide, I've not really seen one but a good way to get an idea of how they work is looking at the clues and comparing them with next day's answers.

There are some tricks, lots of clues contain anagrams of the answer, or the answer runs between words in a phrase. Often they're also kind of jokes involving wordplay and you have consider all possible definitions of words in the clues.

Good luck and have fun.
 
My favourite Grauniad clue was by the great Araucaria, one of my ultimate heroes - on a par with Mingus, Peter Walker and Robertson Davies. I urge you to read his Wikipedia entry if you don't know about him. Anyway, the clue is 'Cox at me (6,3,6)'.

Warning - if you Google it you get the answer.

By way of return - lovely precis of a wonderful mind.

Eta: if you've no interest in crossword form, 'Aruacaria' is known in the UK as the Monkey-Puzzle tree ...
 
I find them irritating in the extreme. A shame, but my mind just isn't wired like that. Even when I've had them explained to me I just grind my teeth at the deliberate obtuseness. I always get the impression that the setter is sitting there with a sardonic smile and a superior air as if to say "Yes...I am actually extremely clever, and, well, I can see that you really haven't grasped this, have you?"
 
Lol! I tried a few (wow, about 25, now I think about it!) years ago to try and get my head around them, and felt the same, but when I did manage, through sheer determination and a fair old bit of luck (and a lot of time, I mean days...), to finish a couple I could appreciate the humour that were in a few of the clues, but never really worked out the "code".

An ex colleague of mine who could usually do them in her morning tea break, used to have a real love/hate thing going on with certain setters. She sometimes came back from the canteen and slung her Times down hard on the desk and you knew she'd not managed it. She nearly always had sussed it after lunch though.
 
Fully admit I used to feel like that Steve: but realised actually, solving one is like choosing to slow yourself down to the pace of an Ealing Comedy: accepting a subtle thing as a very subtle, finely-wrought thing, and enjoying it as such, wry/dry mirth and all.

My dad, at 78 this year, knocks such flat daily, has done so for decades, scowls if it takes more than one mug of tea - and I'm very happy he keeps doing so...
 
I always get the impression that the setter is sitting there with a sardonic smile and a superior air as if to say "Yes...I am actually extremely clever, and, well, I can see that you really haven't grasped this, have you?"

I understand what you are saying, and it may be true of some compilers. But in the case of my aforementioned hero, well, read the clues printed at the end of his Grauniad obit. When you work out the answers it seems to me he is actually trying to make you laugh.
 


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