Alan Connor finds cheating cricketers, gas guzzlers and descriptions of a kiss in the week's best – and most prancing – cryptic clues
The news in clues
This week has seen the odd seasonal clue, such as Notabilis's Telegraph Toughie cameo…
7ac Fledcold, stoppingfor eachNorth Pole flyer? (7)
… for PRANCER and a soundtrack suggested in the Independent by Quixote (known locally as Pasquale) …
6d Composercontributing to festive season (4)
… comprising A Holly Jolly Christmas, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer and so on, as performed by Burl IVES. For a fully festive challenge, I recommend Thursday's FT by Cinephile (known locally as Araucaria).
Latter patter
Most terms that contain the word "Chelsea" have a positive or at least neutral connotation: who among us wouldn't love to pull on some Chelsea boots and go share a Chelsea bun with a Chelsea pensioner? It was a surprise to look up a term clued this week by Paul…
15/17ac Car twicethesize primarilyletlooseroundthe back of Portobello? (7,7)
… and find that Oxford's earliest citation for CHELSEATRACTOR was not as derogatory as its usual use today – from the Times in 1994 …
Those who own a Discovery are feeling very superior and have decided to refer to it as the 'Chelsea Tractor'.
… though it may I suppose be an example of a kind of self-mockery that's backed up with a confidence that it simply doesn't matter what anyone thinks of you.
Blue clues
Elgar (known locally as Enigmatist) was in because-I-can mood in the Telegraph Toughie on Friday…
1d/20d What happened in the seventh square of 12A and the second square of 21A, let's hope (7,7)
… where the two squares indicated were indeed each a place where FINGERS CROSSED - INDEX, RING, LITTLE and MIDDLE reading diagonally across the grid. The puzzle began with this forthright clue …
1ac Penetrative manoeuvressinkchessfreakafterqueen turnson6th file (6,6)
… for FRENCHKISSES, which in the 19th century generally meant greetings issued with a lip-kiss on each face-cheek, and only from the 1920s had a sense with tongues. Our cluing challenge this week is from Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, and is quite the least romantic-sounding word for excited kissing:
Reader, how would you clue DEOSCULATION?
Cluing competition
Thanks for your clues for ASTROTURFING. I enjoyed the topicality of drawfull's "Displaying frustration at Government's 'grass roots' act" and steveran's "Messy transfiguration with heads of News International actually dismissed for deceptive practice".
MaleficOpus was audaciously alliterative with "Fruit flying in a fit of fraudulent furtherance" and two lovely musical surface readings were wellywearer2's "Performing gnu trio farts The Pretenders' 'Mystery Achievement'" and Thomas99's "After missing out on heading for Europe with Stu, Ringo rocked with a hired support band".
The runners-up are JollySwagman's "A leftwinger's involved in using the internet to fake popularity" and MaleficOpus's "Way for advertisers to plant grains of truth, shortly?"; the winner is the magnificent brevity of andyknott's "Gain trust for deception". Kudos to Andy - please leave this week's entries and your pick of the broadsheet cryptics below.
Clue of the week
Having nominated cricketing terms as my bugaboo in last week's post, I concede that when done with panache, as in Monday's Times…
11ac Bannedcricketer over and over and over again (5)
… there's no reason for them to be TABOO. If you haven't mentioned your least favourite aspect of crosswording, get over now and leave a comment!
• The winner of the cluing competition will be announced on 7 January.