Cryptic caves

RobinGriffiths

RobinGriffiths

Well-known member
I think Graigwen may have given that to me: Hole in the Hedge which appears to be a 40m deep hole - in a hedge - about 1/2km from Slaughter. Surface facilities are a cross between a shanty town and a construction site [ June 2000].
 
andys

andys

Well-known member
Graigwen said:
This is true, but does not invalidate the clue. I am still fairly innocent of the protocol for cryptic clues, but overlaps such as the use of g in nag and the same letter again for the start of Gollum are surely acceptable so long as it is just an overlap not moving the letter around.

In setting the clue I had in mind snebbit's clue on Monday:-
"Riches follow a whittled HB, if only the truth had been told first instead..."

The answer Daren Cilau used the letter e in a similar way:
Daren Cilau
Daren Cilau

The overlap caused me a bit more work, but made the process more interesting.
As I don't know what I am doing, I am open to further argument. Is there an agreed way to set these clues?

The current clue looks very tricky. With no confidence I'll have a go at:
"Hole in the floor"
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My own take on this - personal view - is that when playing with letters in a cryptic clue, the letters do have to be absolutely spot on. Even in the Daren example quoted, "NCIL" is still a "whittled HB" (just as much as "ENCIL" is) so there is only the one "E" and the letter play is accurate. Whereas, as Fulk pointed out, there is "only one G" in Pollnagollum." But I'm happy to be corrected......-
 
F

Fulk

Well-known member
The only crossword I (attempt to) do with any regularity is the Observer one, with a success rate varying between, say 75% and 100% of the clues. From what I've seen of this crossword, I'd say the 'rules' are quite stringent, and doubling up letters is a definite no-no, as is anagrams of words that have to be inferred and don't actually form part of the clue.

Still, this is an amateur thing, and why should we follow whatever rules there might be exactly? As I said above, I found a recent clue very convoluted and didn't 'get it' but somebody solved it quite quickly.
 
A

andybrooks

Member
IMHO the clue was fine, since it specified "Sounds like something small and slimy". To me, Pollnaggollum sounds like Pollnagollum, but what do I know?
 
Tritim230

Tritim230

Member
RobinGriffiths said:
I think Graigwen may have given that to me: Hole in the Hedge which appears to be a 40m deep hole - in a hedge - about 1/2km from Slaughter. Surface facilities are a cross between a shanty town and a construction site [ June 2000].
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Well done, Robin and Graigwen. Of course, Hedge is a type of fund. The cave is a small swallet, probably part of the Slaughter system but actually quite far from known passages on the survey. We dug at the end of Pirate Passage this summer a draughting sand filled tube heading towards the said Hole, but not a lot of stacking space and a long way from the entrance to Wet Sink. Circa 5km return trip taking 10 hours plus depending how long you spend at the end. Which by the way, is still open. No-one has gone beyond the Late for Dinner extensions found 20 years ago. It will be added to the new survey but sadly the Forest is under water and it will have to wait until probably at least June next year.
 
F

Fulk

Well-known member
That's the one, Tritim – your turn.

Although it seems you were right to query my use of 'Rodent = rabbit' as, according to Wikipedia:

'Although once considered rodents, lagomorphs like rabbits have been discovered to have diverged separately and earlier than their rodent cousins and have a number of traits rodents lack, like two extra incisors.'
 
Tritim230

Tritim230

Member
Well done, Graigwen. That didn't take long! An interesting cave in Derbyshire.
Shining = bright
Portal = gate
Condition = caveat with 'a' and 't' (1st letter of threshold) removed (without)
Over to you...
 
Graigwen

Graigwen

Active member
Tritim230 said:
Well done, Graigwen. That didn't take long! An interesting cave in Derbyshire.
Shining = bright
Portal = gate
Condition = caveat with 'a' and 't' (1st letter of threshold) removed (without)
Over to you...
Click to expand...
This is amusing. While I thought of Brightgate almost immediately, the second part of the clue gave me a lot of trouble even though the answer was probably going to be just "Cave". I did not want to post an answer when I had not solved half the clue. Please feel free to laugh at the nonsense that followed.

In the course of an evening of furniture shifting I recalled that some years ago I had come across the phrase "crossing the first threshold" as a precursor to entering the cave of the unknown, as one step in the hero's journey in comparative mythology. (I had been looking at the unintended similarities between a story I was writing about an English civil servant in Paris in 1904 and Väinämöinen's quest for the Sampo in the Kalevala and the Arthurian quest for the Holy Grail.) So I jumped to the erroneous conclusion that Tritim230 was trying to indicate that there was nothing between the portal and the cave. So I never reached the more obvious intended solution to the second part of the clue!

I'll post a new, simple, clue shortly.
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Graigwen

Graigwen

Active member
Here is a short simple clue. So easy that I paid no attention to Fulk's comment "....as is anagrams of words that have to be inferred and don't actually form part of the clue.".

"Uncomfortable rubbing, cheering on the Siguiriyas".

4,4
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Tritim230

Tritim230

Member
Graigwen said:
Here is a short simple clue. So easy that I paid no attention to Fulk's comment "....as is anagrams of words that have to be inferred and don't actually form part of the clue.".

"Uncomfortable rubbing, cheering on the Siguiriyas".

4,4
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Click to expand...
Cafe Hole?
Uncomfortable rubbing = chafe
Cheering on the Siguiriyas (a type of Flamenco) = ole
Rearrange and bingo, or should I say ¡ole!
 
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