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Evening Standard Cryptic Crossword #1

My attempts at the Thursday 12th June 2025 crossword.

Evening Standard Cryptic Crossword #1

Audience: Puzzlers

Getting good at cryptic crosswords is a process; here’s mine. These are rough notes — learning in progress. Mistakes allowed.

https://puzzles.standard.co.uk/games/cryptic-crossword-eveningstandard (12/06/2025)

New Indicator Words

Word in ClueIdea/Word in Answer
‘advanced’‘on’ (syn.)
‘church’‘ch’ (abbr.)
‘direction’Example indicator for a specific direction
‘outright’Container indicator for the previous word around ‘r’
‘a bit of’Letter selection indicator
‘about’Container indicator
‘first class’‘ai’ (abbr.)
‘return’Reversal indicator

ACROSS Clues

4A: It’s growing dapper (6)

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7A: Where to buy drinks for the dance (4,4)

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8A: Willowy line in roses, perhaps (6)

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10A: Show a good man has little cruelty (5)

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13A: Sounds a cry of ‘Oh!’ when a chap gets out (4)

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14A: Still, a woman gets the point(4)

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15A: Great dance for everybody at Birkenhead(4)

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16A: Consumed in great expectation(3)

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17A: Where, in France, cavemen lost heart(4)

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_ A _ _

19A: A giant, but getting progressively smaller?(4)

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21A: Caught and bowled? Definitely!(3,3,3)

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_ _ T _ _ _ _ _ _

23A: A town to get clean out of?(4)

Show Answer + Working Answer: Bath
Type:: Charades
Working:
I liked this one! 'Bath' is a town and it is also something that one (ideally) gets out of clean.

24A: Island girl(4)

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26A: Has Oscar an outsize one?(3)

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_ A _

27A: Direction of the asteroids?(4)

Show Answer + Working Answer: East
Type: Hidden Word
Working: I expected the solution to this to be some kind of direction, e.g., north, south, left, right. From there it was straightforward to spot, especially given that the answer had four letters:
Direction of thE ASTeroids?

29A: Possibly hear like an ostrich(4)

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32A: Move slowly in church(4)

Show Answer + Working Answer: Inch
Type: Charades, Hidden Word
Working: I anticipated this being a definition for 'move slowly'. Then I noticed:
Move slowly IN CHurch.
However, I think 'church' might be an indicator for 'ch', so it could have been 'in' 'ch'.

33A: Goodbye to a new idea for a uniform(5)

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34A: Portion of chicken served with teas by old BR(6)

Show Answer + Working Answer: Breast
Type: Charades
Working:
_ _ _ _ _ T
I am pretty sure I am right but am not totally sound on the reasoning with this one. This word is a 'portion of chicken', with 'BR' 'by' a rearrangement of 'teas' which leads to 'Breast' but I don't know what the indicator is for rearranging 'teas' is.

35A: On tour, maybe, everyone can go farther(8)

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O _ _ _ _ _ _ _

36A: Be close to making a lot of noise about a bit of a joke(6)

Show Answer + Working Answer: Adjoin
Type: Charades
Working:
_ _ _ O _ N
I needed a bit of help with this one because I wasn't familiar with the word 'adin' which means 'a lot of noise'. 'Around a bit of' is an indicator to arrange the letters of 'adin' around 'jo' which is a bit of the word 'joke'!

DOWN Clues

1D: The one place you are conscious of! (5)

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2D: Jack’s a rogue! (5)

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3D: Maybe he’s a Wimbledon champion(4)

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4D: Revolutionary film centre(5)

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5D: One dashed to get out of it(4)

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6D: His dog didn’t go hungry(6)

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9D: Where to get drinks for nothing in an arty place(6)

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11D: She’s less than elevating(3)

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12D: Of a movie, the whole story(5)

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13D: Like a chap going round the New Inn for some grub(7)

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15D: She takes a mere trice to get finished(3)

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16D: The cunning a rat can show(3)

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18D: City managed by thanes?(6)

Show Answer + Working Answer: Athens
Type: Anagram
Working:
_ _ _ E N S
As a half Greek woman, this answer was in my veins. This was helped by that I didn't know what a 'thane' was and so it registered as a weird word. If there is a weird word or idiosyncratic phrase, I've found that it's because the clue needs the letters so check if it's an anagram. From there, knowing I was looking for a city and having the last three letters made the answer immediately clear to me.

20D: Watch how you pull up going round a bend(5)

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21D: Outboard propeller!(3)

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22D: The point of a dowry(3)

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23D: Not allowed to be revealed outright(6)

Show Answer + Working Answer: Barred
Type: Charades
Working:
_ _ _ R _ _
This is one of those clues that I simultaneously felt very clever for solving but irritated because it felt correct enough to be confident with a justification awkward enough that some doubt remains. Expected a definition here, something that meant 'not allowed'. 'Barred' immediately came to mind because of a few rapid fire realisations:
    - 'bared' is a synonym of 'revealed'
    - 'outright' as a rearrangement indicator, to arrange the preceding word, 'bared' around the outside for an 'r' as the word 'right' can be an abbreviated to 'r'.

25D: A charge that makes you feel robbed?(3)

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28D: Work advanced in West London(5)

Show Answer + Working Answer: Acton
Type: Charades
Working:
A C _ _ _
To 'act' is a synonym for 'working' and 'on' is synonymous with 'advanced' as in to 'move on'. Putting 'act' and 'on' together gives 'acton' which is a town in West London.

30D: He’s said to take on the workers(5)

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31D: Anything that gets a thug drunk(5)

Show Answer + Working Answer: Aught
Type: Anagram
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I needed to do a Google search to confirm this one.

    - anagram indicated by 'drunk'
    - aught is an anagram of 'a thug'
    - aught is synonymous with 'anything

New Word: Aught, which apparently, is an archaic word meaning ‘anything at all’.

32D: Villain’s first class return on leave(4)

Show Answer + Working Answer: Iago
Type: Charades
Working:
I _ _ _
I needed a bit of help with this as well. I vaguely remember Iago as a Villain from a Shakespearean play (turns out that it's Othello) but needed reminding of this.
    - 'ai' as an abbreviation of 'first class'
    - reversal indicated by 'return'
    - 'go' is synonymous with 'leave'

33D: Area of an Israeli city(4)

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