The Minute of the Week
The Society records that the first Dispatch was received without complaint, which the Membership Office regards as a triumph and the Committee regards as insufficient evidence. Several new members have been proposed since, each by a person of excellent judgement, and each has been admitted without ceremony because the ceremony has not yet been written. The parlour clock continues to run four minutes fast. Nobody has been able to establish who wound it. Proceedings continue.
Mr Peregrine Fitch, Membership Secretary
The Week in Crossings
The daily ceremony continues each morning: two little clues, crossed at a single shared letter, with hints for the asking and every answer taken apart afterwards. This week the parlour met an anagram that behaved impeccably, a hidden word that hid in plain sight for rather too long, and a charade that several members insist was unfair. The Society thanks them for their correspondence and has filed it.
Dr Quire's Margin Note: the sentence that runs backwards
Last week I told you that almost every clue is two clues in one sentence. Here is the second thing worth knowing: a clue is under no obligation to run left to right.
Some wordplay asks you to write a word backwards. The clue will tell you so, though never in those words. It will say returned, or sent back, or in reflection, or going west, or brought up if the answer runs down the page. These are instructions, wearing the costume of ordinary English.
The difficulty is that the instruction hides inside a sentence which appears to mean something else entirely. That sentence is the surface, and the surface is lying to you. It is meant to. A good clue is a polite deception, and being deceived politely is the whole pleasure of the thing.
So when a clue mentions anything turning, returning, rising, reversing or heading west, do not picture it. Take the word beside the instruction and read it the other way round. If a real word appears, you have found the seam.
W.Q.
The Doorkeeper's Question
Last week's answer, as promised. READER, an anagram of REREAD, signalled by "oddly", and defined by "one holding this page". Several of you replied. The Doorkeeper acknowledged none of it, as is his custom.
This week, one clue, unexplained. The answer appears in next Sunday's Dispatch, and nowhere else before it.
Stink, sent back, makes jumpers (5)
Reply with your answer if you wish; the Doorkeeper reads everything and confirms nothing.
Society Notices
The daily crossing: two clues each morning, free. The course in print: A Course in Cryptic Crosswords, Volumes One to Four, set down by Dr W. Quire, at societyofcrossedwords.com. Proposals for membership: forward this Dispatch to your single most trusted confidante, and no more than one.
You received this because a person of excellent judgement proposed you. Membership is exclusive. Discretion is expected.