Crossword roundup: which cabinet members will crosswords favour?

In the example clues below, I explain the two parts of each: the definition of the answer and the wordplay – the recipe for assembling its letters. In a genuine puzzle environment, of course, you also have the crossing letters, which greatly alleviate your solving load. The explanations contain links to previous entries in this series on such matters as spelling one word backwards to reveal another. And setters’ names tend to link to interviews, in case you feel like getting to know these people better.

The news in clues

This is the first of these roundups to appear in a country with an unconservative administration; the first came on a day when the front-page story was a rift in the coalition. Onwards, then. The names in the new cabinet which lend themselves to ambiguity include Rachel REEVES and Yvette COOPER; Steve REED and PAT McFadden also show promise and of course the once-ubiquitous ED is back.

For now, then, let’s remember the mob which has been sent packing with a pair of clues from Paul’s election-day puzzle:

So that’s the CAMERON who started whatever it is that’s just finished, and BETTER in reference to the song and to the very last, final, ultimate, era-closing scandal.

Do you have any favourite clues from the coalition-Cameron-May-May-and-DUP-Johnson-Truss-Sunak era?

Latter patter

Sometimes a word is tamed in length, sometimes in meaning. Other times, it’s both. Here’s Zamorca (known locally as Hectence – meet her here) in the Financial Times:

A festival, then, primarily a wholesome gathering of Scouts or Guides: the JAMBOREE. But here’s its earlier form, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

“Whoop-jamboreehoo”, used to describe how housebreaking “cutthroats” would respond when startled. By the end of the 19th century, editions of this Mark Twain book had dropped the hoo for “whoop-jamboree” and in time the whoop itself would sadly evanesce and the type of behaviour described become more likely to involve singing Ging Gang Goolie.

For our next challenge, another shrunken word for a celebration. No longer explicitly a feast: reader, how would you clue BEANO?

Cluing competition

Thanks for your clues for X MARKS THE SPOT. Not the most straightforward phrase, but as usual we found, well, gold.

The audacity award goes to Smallboat01’s elaborate near-novella “Cross postmaster upset with origins of Horizon keylogs: it’s obvious where the stolen money is!”

The runners-up are Dunnart’s “Gold-digger saying that Ross Kemp’s flustered after kiss” and the terse “Pirate legend?”, which happens also to be from Dunnart; the winner is the stark “Max kept shorts tight – ‘Here’s my booty!’”

Kludos to Newlaplandes. Please leave entries for the current competition – and especially non-print finds or picks that I may miss from broadsheet cryptics – in the comments.

The human condition

A theory recently did the rounds whereby the entry-level Everyman puzzle had got trickier. During the last fortnight or so, we read, the powers-that-be have listened and the puzzle has returned to its old self.

It’s a cheering example of an institution responding to feedback so we will delicately ignore the fact that the apparent sequence of normal-harder-normal was compiled and typeset a little time before the “too hard” theory began doing those rounds. There’s a moral in there somewhere, but I’ve no idea what it is. Onwards?

Clue from elsewhere of the Fortnight

We mentioned here that the late Richard Rogan was an immaculate setter alongside his sterling editing work; case in point is a clue from a Felix puzzle published posthumously in mid-June:

DATING AGENCY in a clue to savour.

131 Words for Rain by Alan Connor can be preordered from the Guardian Bookshop