Alan Connor finds music old and new in his pick of the week's best – and most perambulatory – cryptic clues
The news in clues
A double dose of musical topicality in the Independent this week. Across the middle row of Tuesday's grid, Scorpion asked for …
17ac/19ac/20ac Thekidwithlimitless tunes– potentialpersona of 14? (4,5,4)
… and since 14 down was …
14d Rock-based chameleonto remainconcealedoverwesternisland (6)
… David BOWIE, that made the triple clue an apposite description of another of his monikers, the THINWHITEDUKE, with all the different David Bowies currently being celebrated at the V&A and in space. The next day, Alchemi kicked off with …
1ac NudeeroticaItore up, seeing what happened at 30's opening 100 years ago (7,4)
… and since the parallel entry at 30 across was …
30ac Sanctimonious fellowtakingnoteafterwild Fortiesdance and music (4,2,6)
… RITE OF SPRING, that made the puzzle a celebration of sorts of the centenary of an infamousAUDIENCE RIOT.
Latter patter
Monday's Times painted a grim picture of Scottish drug-smuggling …
12d Means to moveheroininscuttledvesselnorth ofShetland, maybe (7,4)
… when the imagery was the more comforting, if less comfortable, SHANKS'SPONY. Does anyone still refer to their shin as a SHANK any more? If not, perhaps that's why SHANKS tends to be capitalised as if it were a trademark of Armitage Shanks. The Shanks of that company did, by what appears to be coincidence, did produce a grass mower which the user was obliged to follow on foot, but the phrase is much older, with Oxford recording 18th-century Robert Fergusson as having moaned:
Heh, lad! it wad be news indeed,
Ware I to ride to bonny Tweed,
Wha ne'er laid gamon o'er a steed
Beyont Lusterrick;
And auld shanks-nag wad tire, I dread,
To pace to Berwick.
English has a tendency to refer to walking with jocular reference to some less tiring form of transport that is not available, such as the more modern WALKER'S BUS and the phrase which is this week's challenge. Reader, how would you clue MARROWBONE STAGE?
Clueing competition
Thanks for your clues for REBOOT. There were more sporting allusions than usual, from many different and intriguing directions: chastelordarcher's "Roberto's sacked? Right away, start again"; newmarketsausage's"What to do in the event of Chelsea failure?"; chocabloc's "Will Root be out at the restart?" and Angstony's "Stop running momentarily again, to express contempt for team leader".
Jonemm kept it in the cinema with the barbed "Star Trek directed by JJ Abrams, Bad Robot Chief Executive" and harlobarlo's "Clever Chinese proverb: To outdo opponent in the end, get back to basics" was an eminently plausible example of the kind of epigram you might see at the start of an episode of Borgen.
The runners-up are cgrishi's evocative "Barefoot, a female leaves squirming! Try again!" and andyknott's tidy acrostic "First response expressed by our organisation's techies is to turn it off and on again"; the winner is wellywearer2's hilarious "'To be, or … bollocks!' 'Start again!'". Kudos to 'Wearer – please leave this week's entries and your pick of the broadsheet cryptics below.
Clue of the week
A classic use of the old "definition which appears to be a verb but is in fact a noun" from Nutmeg in last week's quiptic…
2d Retreatby leavinghotel lobbyin disarray (8)
… and an inadvertent prediction of what we might see this week when the super-lobbyists of Bilderberg walk through a Watford hotel lobby to their temporary BOLTHOLE.