If you’re new to cryptic crosswords, this is the Guardian’s place for celebrating and explaining the best recent clues from across the broadsheets
Start here, and bear in mind that cryptic clues give you, in either order, a definition of the answer (marked in bold in the examples below) and a little recipe for its letters (in the examples, the links take you to our explainers of those recipes).
24dMonsieur bathing in a littleFrench river (5)
[ wordplay: abbrev. for ‘Monsieur’ inside (‘bathing in’) synonym for ‘a little’ ]
[ M inside SOME ]
[ definition: French river ]
1dPlantmid-July in scrubland (7)
[ wordplay: middle letters (‘mid-’) of JULY inside synonym for scrubland ]
[ UL inside BRUSH ]
[ definition: plant ]
21dApply water to cut flowers (5)
[ double definition ]
I do like putting ghost themes into my puzzles (a compulsive impulse, you might say). So you can solve them ‘plain’, but if you spot the hidden theme, you might get an extra sense of enjoyment.
7dGreta trades her soul for unknown Europeansummer house (6)
[ wordplay: surname of a famous Greta with middle letter replaced by (‘trades her soul for’) mathematical letter used to indicate ‘unknown’ & abbrev. for ‘European’ ]
[ GARBO with middle letter replaced by ZE ]
[ definition: summer house ]
9acShoot a film with Loren– not as good as La Dolce Vita (6,4)
[ wordplay: make an anagram of (‘shoot’) A FILM and (‘with’) LOREN ]
[ fanciful definition: not as good as La Dolce Vita ]