Where does ‘bananas’ come in?
It’s the anagram indicator.
Basically when you see those words you know its asking you to solve an anagram.
So for example in this one:
The end bit is asking for a word that means something not serious.
The word breaks means clio and mac are broken. Put them together, solve cliomac and you will get a word that means something that’s not serious.
In a cryptic one end of the clue is the ‘straight’ part of the clue and the rest is the wordplay you need to get the answer.
Sometimes it’s more straightforward than that and they are plays on words or puns like this which I liked:
So pans enemy is the straight part. He needs a hand is the slightly cryptic part…
Here’s a sneaky one:
So it’s a word for a tool and a cryptic way of describing a bridge, which is something that spans…
Right just the 3 million trigger words then. So obvious. I feel so stupid now etc
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LOL.
This is why I can’t do big boy crosswords. I don’t have a fucking clue about all the abbreviations and shit you need to know. My mum does though. She’s absolutely ridiculous at them.
There’s common ones you learn quickly though… Mad, crazy, rocks, wrecked, out, broken, transforms etc and if the words before and after it look very random that helps as well.
Comical, what do I win…
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So Pan’s Enemy is Captain Hook, but then the “needs a hand” part means its not that?!
The first letter to the pans enemy clue.
Correct!
See I would have got that with Pan’s Enemy… the “Needs a hand” just throws me to think it must be more than that… like having “Bananas”…
Well he needs a hand because he only has one.
Want any more?
The other one is spanner…
But this is where I get confused with these bloody things, they’re all pretty easy, whereas:
Wouldn’t have had a clue…
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They’re only easy if you train to think that way, otherwise you just feel like a dunce with no clue.
Yeah you just have to learn the rules. It doesn’t take long. They are way more fun than a regular crossword and it gives you 2 chances to get the clue.
Found a similar one here:
So we’re looking for an athletic manouvre.
On its own that would be really hard to get but thanks to the rest of it if you know how to read the clue you will get it no problem.
no clue… Wrestling fits.
My mind does stuff like: Sam is below Dan because D is before S, Dan has grabbed Sam’s “top” his top letter in S so Dan has “am” so whats an anagram of Dan and am? Dam, Jean Claude Van Damme… Coors Light.. fuck this I wanna go to the pub.
Yes!!!
The first part is an anagram because the letters are moved.
So it’s an anagram of ‘danhadnt’ but that’s only 8 letters. You follow the clue on and it asks you to also take the first letter of Sam which is an s.
So it’s an anagram of danhadnt+s.
Handstand. Easy.
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I’m joking, that was impossible.
This is genuinely harder than my paid job.
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So this exercise has proved I get half way and am on the right lines, and think “Fuck It!”…
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Ignorance is bliss.