Limit of 1 clue per setter. Please Annotate your clues clearly.
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Contest closes at 8:00 AM, May 1, 2026 after which VOTING will be open.
All participants who set clues are expected to vote as well. So please check when the Voting opens and/or bookmark the links
Voting will close at 7:00 AM, May 3, 2026 after which Results will be announced.
(ITS + A + RT [“shoRTcut essentially”])*. Anagrind= “at sea”. &lit.def – Straits connect two larger areas at sea, allowing shipments to avoid long detours around (or over) continents
Anagram (run riot) of RATS + (city centre, middle letters of cITy) IT = STRAIT. Definition: Passageway.
– “Center of city” or “city’s center” are both acceptable letter-selection indicators for IT. It’s not enough to simple place the indicator adjacent to the fodder. There has to be a grammatical link between them.
– Fodder runs riot or running riot
First show of strength: amid tense time, Iran cut off waterway (6)
16
6
S + T[IRA(- n)]*T. Abbreviations: tense and time (T and T). Indicators: first show of (initial letter); amid (insertion); cut (last letter deletion); off (anagram). Definition: waterway
– Nice ideas with the football theme and the cryptic definition
– Lovely device but I am not sure “taking on” is equivalent to “taking in” – the wordplay would require the latter
– Overall really solid clue.
– “Resolves to” appears to be superfluous, contributing only to the surface reading.
– Clue is ok without ‘resolves’
– “resolves to” is tricky, assuming it is used to just link definition and wordplay – “wp resolves to defn” makes sense, but “defn resolves to wp” doesn’t quite work IMO
– “resolves to stop” is extraneous for cryptic reading
– ‘resolves’ could be left out
Congrats to the toppers and all those who participated.Over to Satyen Nabar for the next contest.
Ever since I started listening to Hindi movie songs, her voice has been an endless source of inspiration — not just for its unmatched versatility, but for the sheer magic it weaves as she effortlessly glides and swings into the notes. While the world celebrated her peppy numbers, enduring ghazals, playful duets, I re-discovered her music in the Covid years while turning her songs into puzzles. GoSH! How time flies.
Today, as the music world mourns, I sit with gratitude. Thank you for filling my blog with rebuses, my heart with delight, and my life with melodies that never fade. Your songs didn’t just entertain; they gave us a lifelong creative companion.
Here’s my humble tribute to the hours spent listening to Ashaji’s songs over the years. ye dil, abhi nahi bhara..
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This week’s clue contest on 1ACCWC received good participation with 30 entries, and 33 voters having their say well ahead of the deadline.
Many setters played on variations of the simple anagram of COP+LIE = POLICE. Other popular entries referenced current affairs and geopolitics surrounding OIL, an anagram of which is contained in POLICE.
While I’m pleased for those who have done well in this edition of 1ACCWC, I must also express some criticism towards the voters. I think this particular issue even keeps a few very good setters from participating in 1ACCWC regularly.
A cryptic crossword clue has two readings – the surface reading and the cryptic reading, the latter of which is like a set of instructions for the solver to arrive at the solution. In a good clue, BOTH of these readings must be grammatically correct. Unfortunately, in many editions of this contest, voters tend to ignore problems in the cryptic grammar of the clue, as long as they like its surface. It doesn’t reflect well for an international clue setting competition when half the voters select a clue that has an obvious grammatical problem in the cryptic reading.
I think it’s alright for setters to make mistakes and to use this contest as a sort of workshop to improve their craft. But I think voters ought to be a lot more discerning, and ought not to reward faulty grammatical constructions simply because they frequently appear in a certain publication having lax editorial standards!
It takes a community effort to keep such a competition going week after week, and I urge other participants to endeavor to maintain it at a high standard of excellence.
Monitor pandemic starting with spread of E.coli (6)
40
16
Def: Monitor. P (pandemic starting) + anagram of E.coli*
– Great surface
– strating does not work for me as a first letter indicator
– Should be pandemic’s starting or starting of pandemic
– “Pandemic starting” for P is not a grammatically correct letter selection construction. Even though it works on the surface reading, the cryptic reading is grammatically incorrect. “Starting of…” or “start of…” would be acceptable.
Keep the peace? Trump’s latest hollow “ceasefire” is about oil, stupid!
28
8
P (trumP’s latest) + CE (hollow CeasefirE) around (is about) OIL* (anag:stupid). To keep the peace = to police.
– Very nice but I think the anagrind would need to be “stupidly”
– In the cryptic reading, “[anagram fodder] stupidly” or “stupid [anagram fodder]” would both be grammatically correct. Unfortunately, what you have here is neither, even though the surface reads well.
Public organisation lacking in credible effective leaders
23
9
Acrostic &lit
– Mean but possibly justified!
– “Leaders of XYZ” is a grammatically correct letter selection construction. “XYZ leaders” may work on the surface but is grammatically faulty in the cryptic reading.
– very nice wordplay but “copper” is used to refer to one policeman. Not sure it works as definition for POLICE per se
– Copper is policeman and not police IMO. But nice clue.
– “Copper” refers to a single police officer, whereas “police” is a plural noun
Get rid of twisted agents under Trump’s control (6)
13
5
LOP< + ICE (agents under/working for Trump) = control. Lop = to cut out (Collins)
– Can’t see the def?
– “Twisted” suggests anagramming in general rather than reversal specifically, which makes the first part of this an indirect anagram
– Can’t fault the sentiment
Congrats to the toppers and all those who participated.
Over to Manish Jhaveri for the next contest.
If you have any comments or feedback on the contest or the new 1ACCWC app. or any suggestions, please leave a comment and I shall try and incorporate it.
Of the 27 clues for INDETERMINATE, 22 clues (including the entire top ten!) contained anagrams. Interestingly, though there were a few understandable repeats, the anagrams showed quite a variety, demonstrated beautifully by the top 5 clues having unique sets of anagram fodder.
• Karol S asks us to enjoy “crumble” “AT DINNERTIME” with “E(cstasy)”
• Nitish Asthana tells us “I’M ENTERTAINED”, “drunk”
• Pundit JEE gives us a “vague form” of “INTERNET MEDIA”
• Satyen Nabar describes how a certain unnamed “R(epublican) EMITTED INANE” “rubbish” (whoever could he be talking about?)
• and, returning to top spot again after winning with ANGELIC a week earlier, Aashirwad gives us a news update about “belligerent” “leaders of I(srael) M(aking) DETENTE with IRAN” doubtful.
Congratulations to Aashirwad and all the toppers, and a big thank you to all the contestants for a great set of clues!
Belligerent leaders of Israel making detente with Iran doubtful (13)
38
13
Anagram of IM+DETENTE+IRAN, with belligerent as the anagram indicator. Doubtful is the definition (ref: Chambers Dictionary). “Detente” means ceasing of hostilities.
– Excellent!
– Liked this but I’m not 100% sure about “belligerent” as anagrind!
– While the surface reading is fine, the cryptic reading has a problem. “Rubbish” being a verb anagram indicator should come before the fodder, which would of course make your surface suffer.
(AT DINNERTIME + E)* [anag.: crumble]. Indeterminate = “unable to be predicted, calculated or deduced” (Collins) …and if you’ve never had crumble, you haven’t lived!
– Great use of crumble – which indeed delicious! 🙂
Unknown drug taken after bananas at dinner-time (13)
13
5
Def: Unknown; drug: E, anagrind: bananas => ATDINNERTIME*+E
Congrats to the toppers and all those who participated.
Over to Aashirwad for the next contest.
If you have any comments or feedback on the contest or the new 1ACCWC app. or any suggestions, please leave a comment and I shall try and incorporate it.
This week’s 1ACCWC received 31 clues, with good participation from regulars and irregulars alike.
The majority of clues went with a wordplay of HONOUR = ON inserted in HOUR, with several setters opting for surfaces referencing the TV show “60 minutes”. On the flip side, a few of setters tried to use unique cryptic devices or wordplay ideas with varying degrees of success.
Voted comments focused on setting technique: can a homophone indicator be used to indicate rhyming words? Can extraneous words be used to improve a clue’s surface reading? Is “gnawer” a spoonerism for “Honour”? Can “nailed by” be used as a containment indicator? (It can, it’s referenced in Clue Clinic).
With 47 points from 18 voters, the winning setter this week is Abhay Phadnis! That’s about as decisive as the voting in this contest gets. His clue was topical and technically sound: Leaders of Hungary oppose NATO on Ukraine; Russians applaud (6)
Congratulations Abhay. Over to you as the host of next week’s contest.
H(ON)OUR. Honour = any one of four best trumps in whist; on = about; nail = to secure (all Chambers). Trump last appeared on the show in November 2025 and famously stormed off in 2020 claiming “biased, hateful and rude” questioning. Bless him.
– ‘Nail’ can mean ‘secure’, and ‘secure’ can mean ‘contain’, but that doesn’t mean ‘nail’ can mean ‘contain’
Pay tribute to dear leaders of old utopian regimes (6)
11
4
Definition: Pay tribute to Wordplay: Dear -> hon (as in honey). + first letters of following with leaders as acrostic indicator
Congrats to the toppers and all those who participated. Over to Abhay Phadnis for the next contest.
If you have any comments or feedback on the contest or the new 1ACCWC app. or any suggestions, please leave a comment and I shall try and incorporate it.
