Cryptic crosswords for beginners: first and last letters

In the example clues below, I explain the two parts of each one: there is a definition of the answer, given in bold type, and there is some wordplay – a recipe for assembling its letters. In a genuine puzzle environment, of course, you also have the crossing letters, which hugely alleviate your solving load. Hence “crossword”. Also, the setters’ names tend to link to profiles of the individuals behind the pseudonyms.

If you have chosen crosswords as a thing to do while being a human stuck in 2020, you may have enjoyed an earlier instalment in our beginners’ series: in June, we looked at clues that ask you to strip off the first and last letters from some word. “Naked words”, we called them.

You probably won’t be surprised when I say that the people who make these puzzles are equally happy to do the opposite thing when it suits them. Here is an example from Tramp:

So we add the FA to the first and last letters of COFFEE and get a particular sense of “mug”: FACE. Incidentally, “FA” for “nothing” is, as we discovered here recently, absolutely not rude at all – which is not to say that Guardian setters can’t be completely filthy.

Let’s have another, this time from Nutmeg:

When Nutmeg says “flag”, she of course wants you first to think of the item (because of “Estonian”) and only later twig that “flag” can also be a verb, giving you the TIRE that then gives you ENTIRE.

As usual, we have started with examples of the straightforward stuff you will most often encounter. But instead of simply using the first and last letters of a word to make up part of the answer, you may be removing them. That is what Paul is up to here:

At least the “sauce” is a straightforward definition, since the “Think of some letters? Have you got them? Great, because they are the ones that are not going in your grid” wordplay is the kind of malarkey that means you will need some checking letters to help you reverse-engineer what devilry Paul is up to here. (Because it is a Saturday prize puzzle, there is an annotated solution, which explains the audacious clue at 26 across, which is not for the easily startled, but will certainly make you smile.)

Likewise, the words meaning “look at the first and last letters” are not always as hand-holding as “sides of” or “edges of”. This one, from Philistine, is typically fair while initially concealing its intent:

Just as a river’s banks are its edges, so are the banks of the words in the middle of this clue. “Extremely”, “outsiders”, “case”, “bounds”, not to mention “emptied”, “gutted” … these are other words to watch out for. Seasoned solvers, please share your own below.

These little guides are intended to be eternal; I hope you are enjoying these words in a post-coronavirus world where crosswords have survived and flourished. If the year is still 2020, though, I would like to share another instalment from our series Healing Music Recorded in 2020 to Accompany a Solve or Even Listen to.

This one is from Tom Jones. He performs it as gorgeously as he did during my other favourite recording, at Las Vegas’s Flamingo hotel in the summer of 1969. Here is the distanced version …

… and the other Healing Music recordings are collected in this playlist. Please stay safe.

• The next competition will be in a fortnight’s time, as next week will be a tribute to a setter.

• Here is a collection of all our explainers, interviews and other helpful bits and bobs.