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Crossword roundup: the best puzzles you might have missed

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Alan Connor picks from a wealth of end-of-year cryptics and contemplates Yorkshire's personal pronouns

Welcome back and happy new year to solvers and setters. The anniversary has been and gone, the fallen streamers swept into a corner and the mess around the back door hosed away. Now begins the business of the crossword's second century, despite troubled times for its spiritual home, the physical newspaper. Yeah, the party's over. To work … presently.

Let's take a quick moment, first, to pick out some of the best puzzles that have appeared since last we gathered here. Christmas, new year and the period between them (known as The Perineum in my family; I'm unconvinced a better term exists) typically provide some of the year's most enjoyable crosswords and this year, there was also the centenary.

Paul got in early with a Thursday Guardian celebrating some of the pioneers of puzzling. Elgar (known locally as Enigmatist) used an apt and lengthy poetic anagram in a Telegraph Toughie, the day before a puzzle by Symphony, the nom de guerre for the combined efforts of all the Telegraph setters.

The closing date for entries to the Listener puzzle by Pointer published on the day of the centenary is gone, but I am still peering at it, certain that the penny-drop moment will be audacious. And I had thought that the Times might engage in one of its occasional tie-loosening thematic moments for its cryptic printed on the centenary. Some strange words and a promising-looking grid kept me searching for hidden messages in the usual places among the answers, but I've still got nothing. Same for you?

I had better luck with the Independent's anniversary-day puzzle, set by Eimi, which contained this charmer of a clue …

4d Almost incomparable or almost incomprehensible, like any part of a Beckett play, some might say (4,3,2,6)

… for HARD ACT TO FOLLOW. Talking of hard acts to follow, Maskarade took over the Guardian's Christmas themed puzzle, as previously set by Araucaria, and included a clue …

24d Country folknow living in Grantchester (7)

… for ARCHERS, which felt like a quiet tribute to an all-time great. The annotated solution to that puzzle is now available. There was a further echo of Araucaria in the FT's Christmas crossword, a variant on the distinctive jigsaw format, with some corkers, including this clue …

R Inhumane, concerningLewis nowadays? (11)

… for REMORSELESS.

Finally, anniversary day in the Telegraph gave us a puzzle headed "Look for a message if you get round to it", and an appropriate thought in the perimeter. I enjoyed this clue …

29d Second person in the Bible gets short measure (4)

… for THOU, which brought to mind Arnold Kellett's book Basic Broad Yorkshire, which explains how to parse the verb "to laik" in, broadly, Yorkshirese …

Ah / Aw laik
Tha / Thoo laiks
E laiks
Shoo / Sher / Sh' laiks
Wer / Wi laik
Yer / Yo laik
Thet / Ther / The' laik

… and thus brings us to our next challenge. Reader, how would you clue SHOO?

Clueing competition

Thanks for your clues for TWERK. The foremost appropriators of the twerk were sketched in IzzysGrandad's subtractive "Erotic dance move needing another weekly trim? – not Miley" and jonemm's involving "Robin Thicke, after taking ecstasy, edges onto quivering wet rear-end action". Of course, I also enjoyed those that approached from another angle, including yungylek's krautrocking "Dance/electro group from Germany missing their original four" and "Stewie broke even by twisting dancers like this?" from JollySwagman, with assistance from artemiswolf.

The runners-up are alberyalbery's cryptic definition "Action taken by hippy squatters" and andyknott's acrostic-ish "Hot new dance for doublequick posteriors"; the winner is the plausible, misdirecting imagery of Neijygof's "Two-stroke motors pumping out soot produce juddering motion at rear end". Kudos to Neij – please leave this fortnight's entries and your pick of the broadsheet cryptics below.

Clue of the fortnight

It is now a regular event and always among the very best puzzles of the year, especially if you enjoy topical clues. Micawber ends the year with a Telegraph Toughie that recalls the year's events in the clues, the answers, and often both, usually raising at least a dozen smiles. This year's was another corker, kicking off with "tapping" as a new kind of wordplay in its clue …

1ac Parliamentary reporttoughon tapping byUS agents (7)

… for HANSARD, and maintaining that quality and ticklesomeness throughout. Now, onwards!


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