There’s blue cheese and classical piano in our pick of the best of the broadsheets’ cryptic clues
In the sample clues below, the links take you to little explainers from our For Beginners series.
17/20acWould have been a great pianist, if it weren’t for the Yankees (5-5)
[ wordplay: name of a great pianist with two Ys (‘Yankee’ in Nato alphabet) ]
[ LANG LANG with two Ys added ]
8dOnset of virus detectable in pulse first, said closeNHS source (3,5)
[ wordplay: initial letter (‘onset of’) VIRUS contained by (‘detectable in’) a kind of pulse, preceded by (‘first, …’) soundalike (‘said’) of synonym for ‘close’ ]
[ V in BEAN after soundalike of NIGH ]
[ definition: NHS source ]
11acA homeless viruspossibly the ideal (10)
[ wordplay: synonym for ‘a’ (as in ‘five a day’) + what virus is an example of (‘virus possibly’) without synonym for home (‘homeless’) ]
[ PER + INFECTION – IN (as in ‘she’s not in’) ]
[ definition: the ideal ]
9acRuin peace, being terribleperson living for good food and drink? (9)
[ wordplay: anagram of (‘being terrible’) RUIN PEACE ]
[ definition: person living for good food and drink ]
21acOrdered ninth? AM of regret! (3,7,5)
[ wordplay: anagram (‘ordered’) of NINTH AM OF REGRET ]