Dave GormanVerified account

And I’m sorry that I made someone contemplate toilets and football. And so forth. *shudders*

1[Association] 2[football team dropping lead] after 3[Ronaldo’s finish] You’ve already worked out 3=O 2:The football team=EVERTON. It was a down clue, so while ‘drop the lead’ could mean ‘remove the E’ in this case it means lower it. All the way to the bottom 2after3=OVERTONE=1

Make subordinate unlimited tea without opening men’s toilet first 1[make subordinate] 2[unlimited tea] 3[without opening men’s] 4[toilet] 2:The letters T&A are the limits of the word TEA. So ‘unlimited tea’=E 3: MENS without its opening =ENS 4: LAV 2 with 3,4 first = ENS+LAV+E =1

Some dubbed pandemic ‘potty’ (6) The fourth word is the definition. The answer is literally _some_ of dubBED PANdemic BEDPAN (I mean, I _suppose_ that’s a place where bodily functions happen)

Anyway... spoiler alert, here’s my explanation for the wordplay in the sample clues. Every clue contains a definition & some wordplay. The def is always at one end or the other. Which means there are two ways to solve things - if you can work out where the join is...

I'm in today's Telegraph. Association football team dropping lead after Ronaldo's finish (8) Make subordinate unlimited tea without opening men's toilet first (7) Some dubbed pandemic 'potty' (6) The crossword's free (if registered) & here if you like: https://puzzles.telegraph.co.uk/puzzle?puzzle_id=43927 …

1 Settled = SAT 2 wee = URINATION 3 kitty = POT 4 moving in = literally... move the word IN. Which can turn sat-urINation-pot into sat-uration-poINt 1+2+3+4 = SATURATION POINT = 5 And I apologise for lowering the tone once more...

1[Settled] 2[wee] 3[kitty] 4[moving in] and 5[there's no room for any more at this juncture] Here, 5 is the definition & I expect a lot of people doing the crossword solved it by getting some crossing letters & just seeing a good fit for the def. But fwiw, the wordplay is...

1[Prepares] 2[last portions of chips and fish] with 3[mushy peas] The last portion - or part - of the word 'chips'=S & of 'fish'=H If the letters PEA&S are 'mushy' they might=APES 2+3=SHAPES =1 (as in, 'he shapes to take the free kick')

...so ignore what the sentence appears to mean. Young horse scratching a short tail (6) If I break that into 4 parts it's 1[Young horse] 2[scratching a] 3[short] 4[tail] 1= FOAL 2= removing A 3 = LOW (as in, 'we're short on loo roll') 1,2,3 = FOLLOW = 4

Anyway... I'll try and explain the 3 clues in yesterday's tweet because I think a fair few people have found this sort of thing useful. 1st thing - every clue has 2 elements - a definition just as you'd find in a regular crossword and some wordplay to help you get there too...

Side note: my 1st published crossword was in the Indy on April 13th, 2020. This one means I had 21 published (17 Indy,4 Telegraph) during my first year of setting. I'm quite chuffed with that. In a pretty bleak year, it's been good for my head to have a passion project go well.

Postman ‘One Letter’ Pat. #AddOneLetterRuinAMovie

Don’t forget, tomorrow’s the day you get round to putting the clock in your car forward an hour because it’s been bugging you since Sunday

Conversation with the Gorboy this morning. "It's World Book Day, everyone in Reception is going in costume. You were a donkey in the nativity... it still fits... so what's your 'favourite' book? You can have Wonky Donkey or The Bible?"

Last week the Gorboy's teachers asked his reception class if anyone spoke more than one language. He proudly raised his hand and told them he speaks three. He doesn't. They asked him what the other two were. He said, "Bonjour and Oo la la."

... and series 2, 3, 4 & 5 for that matterhttps://twitter.com/DVDSmith/status/1373946862437273604 …