i Cryptic Crossword 4180 by Maize
June 29, 2024
Difficulty rating (out of five) ⌛⌛⌛
Me blogging me again. This is getting to be a habit…
As I mentioned in the comments on the other side back in the day, this was inspired by a hidden W-shape of double-ues I had seen in a puzzle by Dutch. So I put all those exes in place in a big X shape, and then just tried to avoid obscurities in the grid fill. But that proved pretty tricky, so solvers did have to contend with MUSK OXEN, TELETEXT and the especially obscure XYLOID – as in xylem and xylophone. A cardinal setting rule is that harder entries require easier clues of course, so perhaps the last of those was a no-ball for some solvers? Oh well, at least this particular 63-year-old knew that a laughing face is XD; having children probably helps 😊
Looking back, I’m quite surprised that I didn’t use ‘kiss’ to clue the letter X anywhere but we did have it clued with: Cross, Ten, By, Vote, Times, Unknown, and ‘Crossed lines’. Other ways may also be available.
For CoD, I think COMPLEXITY could be a candidate with ‘exit’ contained in ‘comply’ and a surface reading that was still fairly topical in 2020, but it does have the sub-optimal ‘with’ as a link word so let’s pick the favourite over on Fifteensquared, even though it does depend on a bit on specialist knowledge to see the definition:
15 ‘During sex…’ an adult person from Porlock interrupted its description (6)
If you want to see the puzzle being live-solved on ‘Cracking the Cryptic’ (there’s an amusing bit where Simon Anthony sets off his Alexa) click here.
John has provided the answers and parsing on Fifteensquared – he didn’t much like ‘footballers’ to clue ‘kickers’ but it was actually a little homage to Punk/ Paul’s first ever clue in the Graun: ‘Name sewn into footballers’ underwear (8).
The link: www.fifteensquared.net/2020/08/04/independent-10549-by-maize
Borodin
batarde
Saboteur
Denzo
flashling
jonofwales
Cornick
sprouthater
uiytjhgmj
willow1235
idothei 
Just brilliant.
I love solving your crosswords. You are a very inventive and original setter.
I was a bit worried at one point that MERC and RUTH were wrong, as they were the only across ones without an X. Then, on completion, I saw what you did. Brilliant.
I loved MANX and TEXAS. However, XANADU was indeed magnificent.
About ⏳️⏳️, not that that matters. I wish it had lasted longer.
Loved this. A little into two egg-timers, helped no doubt by spotting a couple of clues in what was going on with the Xs. Ironically, the only clue to cause any real difficulty was the one with the smiley face. 🙂
Great Fun, and so appropriate. Don’t forget to vote (we do it by post, so no ID required)! NDY
Hope your ballot papers have arrived – news reports recently said that many people had not received them yet!
EXceptionally eXcellent! Although I spotted the ‘X’ thing early on, I didn’t twig how they were arranged in the grid, but it was nevertheless a help with one or two answers. Being a bit of a tree nerd, I had no problem with XYLOID, although the happy face thing passed me by, as did the Porlock reference.
Just into ⏳⏳⏳ for time, loved MANX and SEXUALLY.
Original and inventive as Saboteur says, and about ⏳⏳ here too, but could have been four without the gimmick, spotted early. The gimmick added only enormous fun and the cluing was thereby rendered no less slick than Maize always is; the only obscurity was quickly cracked with a word finder.
On encountering RUTH I was unsurprised that a few answers might not fit the gimmick and later noticed fhe exceptions were the four symmetrical words at rightangles to each edge. Very neat, I thought, until 225 revealed the even neater answer.
I had to suppress a fleeting thought that Maize was born in Xanadu/Porlock and needed an enjoyable trip to Wikipedia to get tne connection. My favourite was my LOI, COMPLEXITY, a slick clue with a great surface even without the extra meaning acquired by LEAVE some ten years ago. I also enjoyed APOPLEXY where after wasting time with POPLar, the penny dropped as I remembered a different use of AXES.
A theme even I could spot & use 🙂 Loved it, complexity & sexually my favourites. Knew xylio was something to do with wood from remembering which is xylophone & which a glockenspiel.
Impressive grid filling, Z next?!
Y not?
Great crossword! Everything I like most – clever clues but not too obscure; a theme that even I could spot; a lot of humour and a new word or two. Thank you. xx
Fun stuff; maybe ⌛½ or ⌛⌛ here. Yes, I did know the XD smiley, though having never encountered it in a crossword before, that was a nice PDM. Spotted the x-theme very early on, which helped … but didn’t spot they were in a giant X formation as well until reading these blogs. My assumption about the four non-x answers was that their arrangement made a set of crosshairs, -¦-, which in itself is another sort of x.
Hugely enjoyable, and a brilliant grid. My only complaint is it was over too quickly – a straightforward single eggtimer here
Brilliant – what an enjoyable way to start the weekend.
Thought that an ‘X’ being in the middle square of the grid was great, not realising until I read the comments here, the pattern formed by all the other ‘Xs’.
Great work…
I realised something was going on when several Xs appeared and thought we might be heading for a multiple pangram, but didn’t spot the diagonal placing. A tour de force anyway, and without resorting to those cryptic staples axolotl and opopanax (not that they’ve cropped up lately). Lots to enjoy, favourite was XANADU.