Crossword

The unclued lights are of a kind on line. Across 4 PC and Noddy seen in trouble.

Unclued lights, singly or correctly paired, are of a kind.  One light does double duty. Across 1    Son becomes aware of cutter (6) 5    One who digests fish first (6) 10    Ancient Briton’s edged axe (4) 11    I don’t approve of expert?

Fourteen unclued lights comprise seven pairs. Across 7 Looked for nothing when leader makes a U-turn?

Nine unclued lights (with one doing double duty) can be arranged into a possible quiz show announcement with the word lengths: 2,4,3,7,6,3,7,7,2,4,2,4,4,2,4,5. The three remaining unclued lights are possible answers. Elsewhere, ignore one accent. Across 4 Democracies do wrong without desserts (3,6) 9 English artist having month involved with 38 (6,4) 11    Evaluate report for show (5) 12    Colonist who pays the bill?

The unclued lights are of a kind. Across 12    Sun ruined helter-skelter without cover (9) 13    Lizard found in Wagamama! (5) 15    Screen role I transformed into (9) 16    Rabbit’s discovered in delay at terminus (6) 20    Quietly thatched house and made watertight (7) 21    Oddly, his leg is pulled by Cupid! (6) 22    Location of small storm (6) 26    In with ugly bruiser (4) 27    Recalled child’s little digits (3) 28    Are offstage?

A word can be prefixed by six unclued lights so as to form new words (including two place names). 9D is a pertinent piece of poetry (five words). Solvers must shade the appropriate unclued light. Across 1 Pepper makes host back off (5) 6 Butterfly and weathercock fool about (7) 11    Small fly buzzing round yellow plant (10) 13    With head of arrow no good, perhaps 75-year old is returning missile (9) 15    Paint waterfall about noon (4) 16    Prosecutor up to fitting cubic blocks (7) 17    Film star Richard talked of secluded retreat for antelope (7) 18    Fish?

The unclued lights, including a pair and six of two words, form an association which a normal entry clearly suggests.

Unclued lights (two of two words) refer to works in the same genre by a closely associated pair. Across 1 In store, old copper pipe (8) 7 Moves swiftly, caught in foam (5) 12    Woman claimed win after slimming (6) 16    Evidence of wound almost frightening (4) 17    Scots fabric, affectedly pretty line (5) 18    Fool punches porky girl (6) 22    A little pressure from jemmy dumping weight on motorway (8) 23    Lecture now held regularly in Berlin, certainly (6) 24    Why is match cancelled? Another drink!

We welcome the duo called Madrigal to the compiling team this week. The unclued lights (including four of two words) can be arranged to provide a quotation (in ODQ) and its author. Across 10    Learn of American through grammar school covers (6,4) 12    African country’s note covering one rule (6) 13    First-rate head polled children (3-5) 16    Song featured in Top of the Pops, almost every week  (5) 17    Instrument Luke played on the railway with energy (7) 18    Newcomer, one that yearns in Scotland?

The title wrote three unclued lights (one of two words) with the letter-count (3,8,6,4), whose members are the other unclued lights (two pairs, another of two words and a singleton). Solvers must highlight the singleton’s missing moniker hidden in the completed grid. Across 11    Half the beans initially seem superfluous accompanying hot paste with chillis (7) 12    Seashore grass blowing back and forth (6) 14    Just a moment for A.

A quotation (in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations) runs clockwise around the perimeter of the grid, beginning with the last letter of 20. The apostrophe has to be included where it appears. Five unclued lights are of a kind; one is directly linked to the quotation, the others indirectly. Across 9 Dangerous atmosphere in outskirts of Hackney (5) 10    Criticise extremely burdensome tariff (6) 11    Careless ironworker losing wok by mistake (2,5) 13    Auntie putting end of thumb on buzzer (4) 15    Idiot and old spies regularly billed as ‘potentially connected’ (10) 16    Reportedly joined model, 33, in bath?

Eight unclued lights (two of two words) advise solvers ‘3D 38A is 9D, 32D 32D-17A, when 6A 44A 31D’. Across 1 Don’t at first knock small amount of liquid (Scotch) (4) 12   Last, as do picture capture and future exposure (6) 13   What’s in deadly new compound (8) 14   Burn short jacket (5) 15   Judge almost misrepresents village’s case (7) 18   Off-and-on, His self-ease dwells in Man, say (5) 19   Camp male holds note (6) 20   Yeats is beginning to study complex sort of writer (8) 21   Anxious, sons taking lead in cushy job (8) 25   Legally levied estate, half of which in red?

The unclued four-letter solutions can be paired in a particular way to form the four remaining eight-letter unclued lights. Across 1 Burns searches thoroughly around Union Street (8) 5 Developed green, variable power (6) 10    Labour man’s entertaining turn (5,5) 12    Irish backing chorister on Venetian bridge (6) 13    New tune outside? (5,3) 16    Account of help sent back to railway (5) 17    US cocktail that’s pungent (7) 18    Sporting cry in match – touch and go, finally (5-2) 20    Sunday crossword for Tom, Dick and Harry (8) 25    Stiff paper, way-out neckwear?

The unclued lights are of a kind, verifiable in Brewer. Across 7 Recurring tea dance (3-3) 12    Following sound of artillery, I curtail call to official (9) 13    Steer clear of a hole (5) 15    Make the most of session in recruitment event (4,5) 16    Effect of high dose (6) 20    One stood up and pointed (7) 21    Support that man, ’e’s a bit of a giggle (3-3)  22   Catch chickens circling round yours truly (6) 24    Returning to minister’s house, discovered cat hiding in furniture (8) 26    Ghanaian capital’s a bit overpriced, IMHO!

Clockwise round the grid from 1 run the final words (3,6,4,3,6,3,8,4,3,4,2,6) of a poem. Two unclued lights (one of two words) are also taken from the poem, whose author’s surname appears as a clued light which must be shaded. Across 9 Canon meeting King and Queen?

The unclued lights (including a pair) are of a kind. Across 3              No manual required for addict at pre-season match (4-8) 10            Old store attendants operating on different levels (4-3) 11            Extra name in article about garden feature (7) 13            Room spray distributed to armies (8) 16            Newspaper aunt’s torment (5) 19            Mum, almost for ever, in ward (9) 22            Cast is enormous, but not good (3) 24            Unemployable boffin regularly by river (2,2,3) 25            Have some sense – charge pounds!

Five three-word phrases (in both Brewer and Chambers) have something in common. The unclued lights, correctly paired, form the second and third words of these. The first five words are hidden in the grid (across or down) and should be shaded.

Down clues and entries are normal. Across clues have normal definitions but wordplays that omit a single letter from each answer, whose enumeration is given, and whose reduced form must be entered in the grid. Read in clue order, omitted letters spell out an Organic Message. Download a printable version here.

Around the perimeter clockwise from square 1 goes a quotation in ODQ minus its last word. This last word suggests the remaining unclued lights, a final example of which (6) must be highlighted in the completed grid.

The unclued lights (including a pair, one word of which has to be read in reverse) are each somehow related to one other. Two grid entries are of two words and one (jocular) entry has four words and includes an apostrophe. Across 10            Where lines meet new lines (4) 12            Payment to landlord as the Earth moved?