i Cryptic Crossword 2273 Donk

It’s been about a year since Donk’s last Tuesday appearance, so this excellent puzzle is a rare treat. There’s a wide range of cluing strategies to enjoy, some of them rather novel, and a well-executed gimmick we don’t see all that often: a hidden theme. Donk provides a heavy hint in 15ac without which I’d have probably missed it, but as it turned out the buried elements helped out quite a bit.

This struck me as on the tricky side for a Tuesday as there’s a good deal of complexity to unravel, and in my case quite a few of the answers arrived long before I’d got to grips with parsing the clues. However, everything is fair and above board – in fact on this showing Donk is a particularly rigorous setter. Rather than run through my favourites (there are plenty), let’s cut to the clue of the day, 10ac:

“I say, isn’t this cow’s skin? (4-5)”

For analysis and comment please see Bertandjoyce’s exemplary Fifteensquared blog from back in February 2014, which was a particularly foul month, weather-wise. Here’s a reminder.